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Back again for another dose of the latest in combat sports hot-takery. This week we’ve got Raul Rosas actually paying attention to his MMA career, and Ilia Topuria getting more than just a gold belt for beating Alexander Volkanovski. On the flip side, Ryan Garcia has been giving real diva vibes, and Khamzat Chimaev wants to explain how hard it is for him to get fights.
Let’s dive in on this mess.
LOVE TO SEE IT
Raul Rosas has reasonable caution at UFC Mexico
One of the dumbest points of conversation surrounding professional combat sports is whether or not someone ‘wants to fight’. Fighting in general, but perhaps most particularly MMA, are a terrible way to make money. Outside a few top promotions, the reward is nonexistent (and even in the UFC tales of financial struggles are everywhere). The cost on an athlete’s body, however, is extreme.
Forget CTE, fighters are ruining their knees, shoulders, necks, and backs for years on end, just to stay competition fit for cage fighting. Anyone willing to put themselves through the torture of a high level fight camp wants to be there. These are people whose default setting is ‘person that wants to fight.’ Nowhere is the truth of that more evident than in the stories fighters tell about competing through injuries and illness.
Young fighters especially tend to be incautious in the extreme. They still have everything to prove and a lack of worldly experience that would tell them that they’re capable of being anything less than great under the wrong circumstances.
I may not be a big one for fighters giving excuses, but that’s why I’m happy to hear Raul Rosas talk about why he had to drop out of the UFC’s recent card in Mexico City, seemingly less than an hour before his bout.
“Sorry to everyone who was waiting for my performance,” Rosas wrote on social media (h/t MMA Junkie). “I was sick all day with dizziness, light headed, & cough. I tried my best to recover to go out and perform still and couldn’t. Got wrapped, warmed up, did everything I could to shake it off but felt like sh*t. If (you know) me (you know I) wouldn’t pull out just cuz. I hated making that decision but i had to do it. If you want to make another story in your head that’s cool. I’ll be back soon tho god bless you all.”
All things considered, what he’s describing doesn’t even sound that extreme—not in comparison to the reports of fighters with influenza, staph, food poisoning, or any variety of other ailments who made it into the Octagon on the night. But Rosas is 19 and if we learned anything from the Sage Northcutt saga, Dana White has zero trouble asking even the youngest talent to put their health at risk for bouts nobody will ever care about.
The UFC is entirely willing to chew talent up, spit them out, and move the hell on. I can’t be mad about any fighter realizing that it’s not worth doing the company a favor if they’re operating in anything less than ideal circumstances.
Ilia Topuria gets fast tracked to citizenship
Growing up, I remember one of my closest friends moved to the US from Canada. His father was a nurse and priest for the local Russian Orthodox church. As a condition of getting his green card in the US, he and his family had gone through the kind of complex screening on US government and history that would weed the bulk of the people born in this country out of citizenship.
Even with their bonafides clearly in place it still took years and years for he and his family to become more than just long term guests of this country.
If that (very much abridged) story had a point, it’s that citizenship around the world can take a hell of a long time, even for people who have absolutely nothing working against them. It’s no surprise then to find out that despite moving to Spain from Georgia when he was just 15 years old, current UFC featherweight champion Ilia Topuria was still considered something of a guest in the country he’s called home for the past dozen years.
For all we know, becoming UFC champion is an honor that might not even last Topuria until the end of 2024. Fight sports have a habit of cruelty and there are absolutely no guarantees out there, especially not for a prolonged athletic career. So, whatever his ultimate legacy may be, it’s great to see that it’s already made what should be a lifelong difference for the new title holder.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez recently took time for a photo-op with the Georgian-born talent ahead of Topuria’s recent guest appearance at a Real Madrid match. Shortly thereafter, Sanchez revealed that Topuria would be officially recognized with Spanish citizenship.
“Your effort, dedication and perseverance have led you to fulfill one of your dreams,” Sanchez wrote in a post on social media. “The second will also become a reality very soon. Your love for Spain will be reflected in your Spanish ID.”
I dunno how comfortable I am, really, with governments handing out citizenship like party favors. But I am sure that people should have full access to rights and legal protections in the country where they’ve been residing for the bulk of their lives. Topuria’s paying his taxes in Spain (or he’s got other problems), and the country has welcomed him home like a hero. At that point, it only makes sense that they should take him in as one of their own.
HATE TO SEE IT
Ryan Garcia: Bodyguard tested, entourage approved
There are a few points over the years where boxers have truly got one over on MMA fighters inside the cage. Ray Mercer springs immediately to mind. And hey, Butterbean once beat Cabbage Correira. But by and large whenever a pugilist steps into mixed martial arts they tend to flounder badly.
Watching Claressa Shields desperately flounder against the lowest levels of competition over in the PFL should be a sharp reminder to anyone sporting a pair of 10oz gloves, that even with time and training and plenty of support, MMA is hard and grappling does not come easily. Also the money generally sucks. Really, the whole thing just isn’t worth it.
If those are the facts as everyone knows them, however, it seems nobody told Ryan Garcia. The rising boxing star is fresh off a victory over Oscar Duarte back in December, after suffering his first ever loss in the ring to Gervonta Davis back in April of last year. He’s also talking about making moves in the Octagon, most particularly he’s calling for a fight with UFC champ Sean O’Malley.
It’s a fight Garcia is confident he can win, no matter where the action goes. So, what’s giving him that ego boost? In a recent interview on the MMA Hour he revealed the source of his remarkable confidence.
“I’ll beat his ass in MMA guaranteed,” Garcia explained (transcript via MMA Fighting). “I’m a natural, you don’t understand. I’m a natural wrestler. I just beat my security that’s a wrestler, I beat him. I’m strong and I’ve got crazy conditioning.”
That’s right folks. The guy who he pays to protect Ryan Garcia let him win a wrestling match. There’s no better signifier than that to show that he really is ready for the highest levels of competition in a sport he’s never actually tried before.
I know Sean O’Malley is best known for his striking chops, but even if he decided to keep it standing, I can’t help think that Garcia would be about three solid low kicks away from spending the rest of the bout on his back trying to roll for a kneebar.
If the MMA experiment has taught us anything about the sorting and sifting of martial arts and their ability to compete against one another, its that boxing—while an absolutely integral skill—has one of the most specialized and least transferable pure technical tool kits out there. The emphasis on front foot posture, then defensive lines from larger gloves, and an increasing disinterest in clinch offense sport wide; fighters coming to MMA from boxing almost universally find the transition a major challenge.
Obviously, I’m not going to say the UFC shouldn’t make this fight. If Garcia wants it and O’Malley wants it, then it’s a spectacle worth watching and a lesson always worth repeating. But we’ve seen how this story plays out before, and I can’t imagine it going any different for Garcia no matter how many members of his personal entourage let him get in on a double leg.
Khamzat Chimaev wants to have his cake and eat it too
At this point, fans have a pretty complete picture of UFC 300, what it’s going to look like and what the UFC went through to make it happen.
We know that Leon Edwards was a top choice for the card, but the UFC couldn’t find him an opponent. We know that Dricus du Plessis was in the running too, but didn’t feel prepared to make the date. Tom Aspinall was offered Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic, but both men turned him down. Eventually, with options running slim, the promotion turned to Jamahal Hill and Alex Pereira.
Along the way, one name that came up in a couple of conversations was that of Khamzat Chimaev. The Chechen-born fighter has been pegged as a UFC rising star since he first set foot in the Octagon back in 2020, picking up three finishes in a little over two months time.
Things have slowed down a lot for Chimaev in the years since, however, with injury, illness, and visa issues leaving him with just four fights in the last three years. But, to hear Chimaev tell it, a bigger problem seems to be that top talent just doesn’t want to fight him.
“I think in the summer I will be back,” Chimaev told FCR MMA. “I want to fight in Saudi Arabia, but I don’t think anyone wants to fight me there. So, we’ll see what’s going to happen. Just waiting for something.”
Sounds like a man champing at the bit to get back in the cage right?
“They want me to fight at UFC 300, but at 77 kgs, I need a bit of time,” Chimaev quickly added. “[The Leon Edwards fight] wasn’t 100% sure, but they told my manager maybe, maybe not. But my brother said to me, ‘Not in Ramadan,’ so after Ramadan we take some time, and camp, and then we fight anyone.”
I’m not going to slag off anyone’s firmly held religious beliefs. Ramadan will end on April 9th, and UFC 300 is the 13th, that’s a pretty close run if Chimaev doesn’t feel he can train while fasting. And I already praised Rosas for being smart. Chimaev is biding his time. But the narrative alongside it is just getting worn down to the bone.
We’ve seen this man calling everyone out from Leon Edwards to Alex Pereira and the light heavyweight title. Hell, I’m just waiting for him to start calling for a fight with Tom Aspinall. And yet, this whole ‘people don’t want to fight me’ bit has gotta go. At this point, I can’t remember the last time someone turned down a chance to fight Chimaev, unless you count Sean Strickland, when the UFC called him literally one week after he won the middleweight title from Israel Adesanya.
Just last month reports were out that the 29-year-old was practically on deaths door once again. The only time he’s fought twice in a year was 2022, when he beat Gilbert Burns and Kevin Holland. But his prep for that Holland fight was so poor that he came in a whole 10 lbs over weight.
Chimaev is an absolute thrill to watch whenever he competes, and not that long ago he very likely truly was a fighter opponents feared seeing across from them in the cage. At this point though, if people are reluctant to take the booking it seems more likely to be because they can’t trust the fight will happen. If it’s the visa problems, say that, if it’s illness say that, otherwise we’ll see the man once a year in Abu Dhabi or Saudi Arabia fighting whoever happens to be ready on the day.