The Great Divide: Making the case for the 10 fighters competing in March’s UFC title bouts

The Great Divide is a recurring feature here at MMA Fighting in which two of our staff debate a topic in the world of MMA – news, a fight, a crazy thing somebody did, a crazy thing somebody didn’t do, or some moral dilemma threatening the very foundation of the sport — and try to figure out a resolution. We’d love for you to join in the discussion in the comments below.

Six champions. Five titles on the line. One month. Let’s go.

The UFC has loaded up its March calendar with four fight cards and two pay-per-views at the APEX in Las Vegas and they’ve stacked those PPV lineups with a quintuplet of matchups that would all be worthy headliners in their own right.

Stipe Miocic and Francis Ngannou finally meet in a rematch that will (fingers crossed) get the heavyweight division moving and clear the way for a Jon Jones megafight. Jan Blachowicz defends the light heavyweight title against middleweight champion Israel Adesanya in the first champion vs. champion bout since T.J. Dillashaw’s unsuccessful bid to take Henry Cejudo’s flyweight belt. And Amanda Nunes looks to continue her reign as one of MMA’s most dominant forces when she defends her featherweight title against former Invicta FC champion Megan Anderson.

Plus, Aljamain Sterling gets a long-awaited bantamweight title shot against Petr Yan, and featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski gets to fight someone not named Max Holloway when he takes on Brian Ortega.

Less than a week away from UFC 259’s championship tripleheader, MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew and Alexander K. Lee divvy up the competitors and make a case for how each fighter could enter April with gold around their waist, with some having taller mountains to climb than others.

UFC 259 — March 6

Jan Blachowicz vs. Israel Adesanya

Blachowicz: Israel Adesanya is one of the very best fighters in the world. By my reckoning, he should be the third-ranked pound-for-pound fighter in MMA behind only Khabib Nurmagomedov and Kamaru Usman. He’s a sublime striker who can credibly lay claim to the title of “Best Striker in UFC History”. And he’s gonna get that work from Janny Blacho.

Jan Blachowicz is, I believe, the most underrated fighter in the sport right now. A combination of being a career middleman at 205 and the fact that he didn’t have to beat Jon Jones to win the title has rendered Blachowicz as a mere afterthought in the UFC’s marquee division — a placeholder while the sport waits for the next great light heavyweight. But that belies just how much Blachowicz has improved over the past couple of years. Blachowicz has always been a jack-of-all-trades guy, but lately he’s tapped into the well of “Legendary Polish Power” and become a legitimate threat to finish fights in an instant. Couple that with his physicality and grappling, and Blachowicz is more than a handful for anyone in the world.

Adesanya is a superior striker, but this isn’t just striking. By virtue of being able to wrestle and hit hard, Kelvin Gastelum gave the champ all he could handle and Blachowicz will do the same. In the end, the Legendary Polish Power will follow in the footsteps of solid fighters who make the leap to becoming elite like Rafael dos Anjos and Jorge Masvidal before him, and he’ll do it at Israel Adesanya’s expense. — Meshew

Esther Lin

Adesanya: As long as Israel Adesanya is able to keep a fight standing, there’s nobody in MMA who can beat him. Not Yoel Romero, not Paulo Costa, not Robert Whittaker, probably not Jon Jones, and definitely not Jan Blachowicz.

Dismissing Polish Power is always a risk, but that’s precisely why I like Adesanya’s chances so much. He’s going to have the utmost respect for how dangerous Blachowicz is. He’s going to be a shadow on fight night, moving quicker and with more evasiveness than ever before without the burden of a weight cut slowing him down. He’s going to look like Anderson Silva every time “The Spider” decided to jump up weight on a lark to dismantle over-matched 205ers.

Like all of the UFC’s greatest champions, Adesanya has the gift of making opponents fight his fight. Say what you want about his performance against Romero, but Romero didn’t look anything like the fearsome boogie man that buried so many of his opponents before they even stepped into the octagon with him. He was cautious, tentative, at times even confused. Adesanya made that happen. The bout was dull as dirt because Adesanya wanted it to be and because he knew that’s a fight Romero couldn’t win.

Adesanya will make sure that Blachowicz stands with him and in doing so, make sure that he falls like all the rest. — Lee

Amanda Nunes vs. Megan Anderson

Zuffa LLC

Nunes: I feel like I don’t need to “make the case” all that hard here. Amanda Nunes is the greatest female fighter in the history of MMA and that’s not really up for debate. Personally, I think she has an argument for GOAT, full stop, and by all indications, she’s still in her prime. That means the assumption is that she will give the business to Megan Anderson and despite what your parents may have told you about assumptions, it’s totally okay to stick with that here.

Anderson can fight. She’s got a bit of boxing and a bit of grappling and doesn’t lack in heart, but really, her best skill is that she’s a solid athlete and a true featherweight and that’s just not going to make much hay against Nunes. Anderson has lost to all the best fighters that she has faced (and Cindy Dandois to boot!). She’s definitely going to lose to the best fighter than any woman has ever faced. — Meshew

Anderson: Unquestionably, Megan Anderson is the biggest underdog of March’s title challengers, so I’m not going to pretend that she’s a smart pick here. It will be one of the biggest upsets in MMA history of Anderson pulls this off (Nunes currently stands at around a 12-to-1 favorite on most betting sites), but Anderson has long been tagged as a future title challenger for a reason and it’s not just because she’s the last featherweight standing.

Physically, Anderson matches up well with Nunes. “The Lioness”—a large 135er—has actually been on-par with 145-pound opponents Cris Cyborg and Felicia Spencer in terms of measurements. That won’t be the case with Anderson. The towering Australian has four inches of height and three inches of reach on Nunes, a difference that can’t be ignored when sizing up Anderson’s chances. In the standup, Anderson has a legitimate shot at out-striking and hurting the champ.

In terms of grappling, there’s a wide gap and Anderson hasn’t shown she can defend against high level wrestling. So that avenue of victory is open to Nunes should the standup go badly for her. If Anderson can sting Nunes early though and stuff a few takedowns, we could be headed for upset city. An Anderson victory would truly be shocking, but with Nunes possibly retiring soon, maybe she can catch the GOAT slipping and do the impossible. — Lee

Petr Yan vs. Aljamain Sterling

Zuffa LLC

Yan: Off all the fights to happen in the coming months, this is the one I’m the most excited for. Petr Yan is a buzzsaw and Aljamain Sterling is a phenomenon. Any of 100 different things could happen in this fight and all of them are awesome so this fight is going to rule for the fans. But at the end of it, the man ruling the 135ers will still be “No Mercy.”

One of the big issues Sterling has faced in his UFC career has been the occasional tendency to lose track of the fight and allow himself to be outworked by letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Petr Yan has no such troubles. When Petr Yan fights, you’re going to see one thing done incredibly effectively: he’s going to pressure and pressure and pressure some more until you fold. Aljo is not a defensive wizard like Aldo. He won’t be able to stymie Yan and force him into his bag of tricks. Instead, Aljo is going to get backed up a lot, which will ruin his wrestling attempts and, like sand beneath the waves of No Mercy’s aggression, Aljo will slowly erode. — Meshew

Sterling: I don’t know if it’s quite as simple as Aljamain Sterling getting one takedown and calling it a day, but I do think Sterling’s grappling makes the difference here.

Yan isn’t exactly a dead duck when it comes to wrestling. His striking brilliance sometimes overshadows how well-versed he is in close combat. The same can be said on the opposite side though as Sterling’s aggressive wrestling and submission game tends to make people miss all the advances he’s made as a striker. “Funk Master” was already blessed with speed and strong instincts, now he’s rounded out his game and become one of those fighters who is maximizing his prodigious physical gifts. Most importantly, he’s hard to hit.

This title opportunity has been a long time coming for Sterling and he’s always had the championship mentality needed to be a UFC star. Credit to Yan for taking care of business against Jose Aldo and Urijah Faber, but those are two legends that are past their primes. What happens when he runs into a fresh, hungry contender like Sterling?

And new, that’s what. — Lee

UFC 260 - March 27

Stipe Miocic vs. Francis Ngannou 2

Miocic: Theoretically, Francis Ngannou is a greatly improved, more well-rounded fighter than he was when Stipe Miocic 50-44’d him into oblivion at UFC 220 three years ago. It’s a good thing for Miocic that fights aren’t decided on theory.

It’s entirely possible that Ngannou has become a master of sprawling-and-brawling and we’ll see him stuff Miocic takedowns for as long as the fight lasts before turning the champion into dust with one of his trademark haymakers. However, there’s really no way of knowing how much Ngannou has shored up his most significant weakness, his wrestling defense, because he’s made such quick work of his past four opponents. One hundred and sixty-two seconds. That’s how much data we’re working with here.

And if we’re just going on data, then you can’t pick against the champion. Miocic has excelled in championship fights against Olympic-level wrestlers, K-1 strikers, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu aces. Ngannou may be an entirely different kind of beast, but it’s a beast Miocic has tamed once before. As far as we know, Ngannou is very much the same in-cage product that we’ve seen since day one. It wasn’t enough to dethrone Miocic before and there’s no reason to assume the story will be any different this time. — Lee

Esther Lin, MMA Fighting

Ngannou: I’m pretty sure I’ve picked against Stipe Miocic in his last six fights and despite looking like a fool for almost all of them, I see no reason to stop now. Francis Ngannou is going to knock Stipe out and end this charade of him being “the greatest heavyweight of all time.”

Miocic’s best attribute is that he’s a smart fighter and he’s tougher than a two-dollar steak. Those traits allowed him to weather the early Ngannou storm last time and then take over the bout. But I think that fight is instructive for another reason: Miocic had Ngannou GASSED for 20 minutes and still couldn’t finish him! It was honestly the most perplexing thing I had seen in years. But here’s why it happened: Miocic has too much respect for Ngannou’s power.

Miocic is aware that even a tired Ngannou could turn the lights out on him and so he was overly cautious which, ironically, actually gives Ngannou more opportunity. There is such a thing as giving your opponents too much respect and that’s what we have here. Miocic is cognizant of Ngannou’s hands and this time Ngannou knows better than to force the issue. While Stipe is trying to find the safest way to attack, he’s going to end up getting leveled with something and the Ngannou era can finally begin. — Meshew

Alexander Volkanovski vs. Brian Ortega

Esther Lin, MMA Fighting

Volkanovski: Can we put some respect on this man’s name?

Alexander Volkanovski beat Max Holloway cleanly the first time they fought. And guess what? He did enough to win the rematch too, no matter what Holloway, Dana White, or a vocal segment of the fans has to say about it. Volkanovski has a way of making his opponents look bad and when those opponents are universally respected names like Holloway and Jose Aldo, that’s enough to make people go out of their way to discredit you.

But Volkanovski is a great champion and a complete fighter. As talented as Brian Ortega is, he still doesn’t have the striking chops to go five rounds with Volkanovski, nor the wrestling defense to keep Volkanovski from controlling where the fight goes. “T-City” is a threat to finish at any moment, but Volkanovski is blessed with a granite chin that has allowed him to go 10 rounds with, well, “Blessed.”

A more mature Ortega is an intriguing challenge, for certain, but it’s also the kind of opponent that will bring out the best in Volkanovski, who I still think has an unseen extra gear. He’s shown he can excel both as a frontrunner and in situations where he’s down on the scorecards. Even given Ortega’s own impressive history of comebacks, I doubt Volkanovski falls into a late trap. Volkanovski takes this one to the judges once again, and once again he’ll make sure the cards are in his favor. — Lee

Ortega: Despite all evidence to the contrary, I firmly believe that Brian Ortega is not good at fighting. I believe this because I have eyes and I’ve watched him lose nearly every round of his career before pulling out some savage finish to make me look like a fool (as if I needed any help from him). So instead of once again picking against him to end up with egg on my face, this time I’m turning the tables on Ortega!

Alexander Volkanovski is one of the best fighters alive. He’s highly skilled in all areas, has tremendous cardio, and has one of the highest fight IQs in the sport. That last part is key because he’s one of the few fighters who can make substantial mid-round adjustments to counteract his opponents, which makes him a nightmare to handle over 25 minutes. But that also plays right into Ortega’s hands. Volko isn’t going to need to adjust because he’s going to be serving Ortega with authority and then—BAM!—some wacky submission hits and we have a new champion.

You may think I’m kidding but I’m dead serious. Ortega is not a fighter who wins a lot of rounds, but he does win a lot of fights and against a guy like Volkanovski, that’s the skill set you need. Max Holloway is one of the greatest round winners in MMA history and he played hell trying to out-think and out-fight Volko’s deep bag of tricks. Even if you think Max won their rematch, he only did so by the slimmest of margins.

Volkanovski is MMA’s foremost bean counter, winning on the margins with incremental superiority, and the best way to upend the Iron Bank of Volko isn’t to run numbers with him but to just blow the whole thing to hell with dragon fire. Brian Ortega is second only to Yoel Romero (and maybe Derrick Lewis) when it comes to insane outbursts of predatory offense and that’s going to carry him to the featherweight title. — Meshew