It’s been a solid start to the UFC calendar through the first three months of 2018. We’ve already seen some epic fights, stunning knockouts and slick submissions, but the best is yet to come. Next Saturday, April 7 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, the most stacked card of the year so far takes place with Zuffa’s latest pay-per-view offering, UFC 223. This card has the potential to be a fantastic event and on paper there’s no question it’s the best batch of fights the UFC has put together so far this year, which is saying something considering the top-notch quality of fights we’ve seen so far this year.
The main event between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson is hot fire. This matchup has the potential to be the best fight of the year, if not one of the best lightweight title fights of all time. Nurmagomedov is 25-0 in MMA including a perfect 9-0 record in the UFC. He’s destroyed pretty much every fighter in his path so far and is coming off of an especially brutal win over Edson Barboza. Ferguson is 13-1 in the UFC and is riding a 10-fight win steak. The former Ultimate Fighter winner is coming off of a submission win over Kevin Lee which won him the interim lightweight strap. With Conor McGregor on the sidelines, Nurmagomedov and Ferguson will be competing for the undisputed title (or at least we think they will, since UFC president Dana White has been strangely secretive about that). These two fighters have been matched up three times in the past and yet the fight has not happened yet due to injuries and bad weight cuts. This time around, hopefully the MMA Gods let the fight happen because it has the potential to be a truly special fight.
The co-main event is also a title fight, and it’s a rematch between UFC women’s strawweight champion Rose Namajunas and challenger Joanna Jedrzejczyk. It’s still strange to refer to Jedrzejczyk as the challenger since she was such a dominant champion for a few years there, but Namajunas’ stunning KO win over her back at UFC 217 to steal the title showed that there’s a new queen in the division. Namajunas is 5-2 in the UFC while Jedrzejczyk is 8-1 and they are undoubtedly the top two fighters in the women’s 115lbs weight class right now. But despite Namajunas knocking out Jedrzejczyk in the first fight, she enters her first title defense as the underdog. That shows just how competitive the oddsmakers expect this bout to be, and considering how crazy the first fight was this rematch could be something truly special as well.
The rest of the PPV card is stacked, too. There’s a featherweight bout between Renato Moicano and Calvin Kattar that should be amazing. Moicano was undefeated until running into a Brian Ortega submission in his last fight, but he’s still 3-1 in the UFC and a top-10 fighter 145lbs. Kattar, meanwhile, has been a pleasant surprise in the UFC so far with a 2-0 record in the Octagon, and he’s riding a 10-fight win streak overall.
Additionally, there’s two lightweight bouts that should be exciting as well. The first features former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis against former Ultimate Fighter winner Michael Chiesa. Both men are coming off of a loss and a win would be imperative for each to maintain their top-15 ranking. The other lightweight bout sees Al Iaquinta fighting Paul Felder in what should be an epic standup battle. Iaquinta has won five-straight fights, including four by knockout, while Felder has knocked out his last three opponents. This is the perfect PPV opener and shows the depth of this card. And I haven’t even mentioned the deep preliminary card which includes the names of former title challengers like Karolina Kowalkiewicz and Ray Borg, entertaining veterans like Joe Lauzon and Evan Dunham, and top prospect Zabit Magomedshapirov.
On paper, UFC 223 has the potential to be the best card of the year. There’s two title fights, both of which are very intriguing matchups, as well as a number of other bouts that have the potential to be very entertaining. All 13 fights on the card have the potential to be really good which is rare since usually there could be a few duds on a card. Not this card, though. This card is just ridiculously stacked. On paper, UFC 223 is really special and has the potential to be an amazing event. Now let’s just hope there are no injuries and that the card can stay intact, because it should be a good one if everything goes as planned.
