Matchmaker Monday following UFC Vegas 27
UFC Vegas 27 was a big night for the UFC’s bantamweight division and possibly the flyweight and strawweight divisions.
In the main event, Rob Font used his reach advantage to his advantage as patiently picked away at former champion Cody Garbrandt on way to a unanimous decision win.
The win clearly puts Font into title contention. While Garbrandt lost the fight, he also may have a shot at UFC gold in his next fight as well. Since we’re talking about title shots, let’s not forget Carla Esparza, who made a statement on Saturday night as well. Let’s find out what’s next for these fighters on this Matchmaker Monday.
Rob Font
Result: defeated Cody Garbrandt by unanimous decision at UFC Vegas 27
Next: winner of TJ Dillashaw and Cory Sandhagen (maybe Petr Yan)
Font earned the biggest win of his career on Saturday and now he’s in a great spot within the division. Unfortunately, he won’t be getting a title shot.
The next matchup for Aljamain Sterling will likely be a rematch with Yan. Sterling has been clear that he’s not giving Yan a rematch and if he gets his way then he’ll get the winner of Dillashaw and Sandhagen.
Good news for Font is someone will be left out of the title picture and whoever that is will be his next opponent.
Cody Garbrandt
Result: lost to Rob Font by unanimous decision at UFC Vegas 27
Next: flyweight championship match
The bantamweight division is giving the lightweight division a run for its money for the UFC’s deepest division and Garbrandt is now falling down the latter within the division as he’s now lost three of his last four fights.
While he’s losing some stock in the bantamweight division, he is still a star and he has been hinting at flyweight title fight for some time now. At one point he was even booked to face current champion Deiveson Figueiredo.
In June, Figueiredo will rematch Brandon Moreno. Garbrandt gets the winner.
Carla Esparza
Result: defeated Yan Xiaonan by second-round TKO at UFC Vegas 27
Next: Joanna Jedrzejczyk
Esparza gets another win putting her on a five-fight winning streak.
Following the fight, UFC president Dana White said that Esparza made a statement. However, he’s still not sure if he’s going to give her a title shot next.
White made it clear following UFC 261 that he wanted do a rematch with Rose Namajunas and Weili Zhang. While he’s not as certain about that fight, it would appear based off his initial thought process that Zhang is the front runner.
Esparza did defeat Namajunas to become the first ever UFC strawweight champion, but the question now is does that have any value in getting the rematch at this moment in time?
If Esparza isn’t getting the Namajunas rematch, then she’ll get a rematch with Jedrzejczyk, who battered and beat down Esparza to win the title before going on the greatest run in strawweight history.
