The reigning featherweight and bantamweight champion, Nunes has earned nine straight victories with seven finishes during her march to becoming the greatest female fighter of all-time. Though it’s the penultimate fight on the slate, this could be the one everyone comes away talking about on Sunday morning.įollowing her first-round destruction of Holly Holm in July, Nunes looks to continue her historic run of success by taking out yet another former titleholder when she squares off with the streaking former featherweight queen de Randamie in Saturday’s first championship encounter. Save for his sluggish win over Aldo in May, Volkanovski has run roughshod over everyone he’s faced, taking them out of their comfort zone and outclassing them in previously unseen ways. Holloway’s five-year run of success in the division has been nothing short of masterful and filled with incredible performances that showcase his varied offensive arsenal and keen attention to detail inside the Octagon. All three judges scored it differently, but there was no question Holloway was the better man that night in Edmonton, as he collected his 14th straight win in the featherweight division and third successful title defense. While Holloway came up short in his bid to claim the interim lightweight title in April, he returned to his kingdom at 145 pounds in July and turned in another stellar performance, finally squaring off with Frankie Edgar. The compact powerhouse has an iron chin and only one gear - forward - but he’s also never been in the cage with someone as dynamic and technical as the reigning titleholder. Volkanovski has been outstanding since arriving in the UFC, posting seven wins in as many starts while turning in dominant efforts against the likes of Mendes, Darren Elkins, Jeremy Kennedy and Shane Young. Having dispatched Mendes and added a unanimous decision win over Jose Aldo to extend his winning streak to 17, the former rugby man now gets his chance to challenge Holloway for the featherweight strap in Saturday’s co-main event. Heading into his bout with Chad Mendes last December, Volkanovski told me he wasn’t too happy with the talk about Holloway having no real challengers left at featherweight and potentially departing for lightweight because he felt he matched up well with the Hawaiian champion and looked forward to the day the two could share the cage with UFC gold hanging in the balance. With 25 minutes to work, there could very well be several shifts in momentum, and though it doesn’t necessarily profile as a rock’em sock’em, back-and-forth brawl, the bad blood between these two could cause one or both to stray from their usual strategies and take a few more risks in hopes of finishing the other and leaving no room to question their dominance. Given the similarities in styles and approach, it’s going to be really interesting to see which one of these two welterweight standouts ends up taking the lead and dictating the terms of engagement. The American Top Team representative’s brash, polarizing trash talk has helped increase his profile, but make no mistake about it: Covington is an exceptional talent and this should be a tremendous fight. Last time out, he claimed championship gold by completely dismantling Tyron Woodley, dragging “The Chosen One” to the canvas and suffocating him with the kind of relentless pressure and pace few can withstand and even fewer can match.īut Covington has thus far been one of those few, showing a similarly bottomless gas tank while racking up seven consecutive victories of his own, including back-to-back defeats of Rafael Dos Anjos and Robbie Lawler. Usman enters with a 10-0 record in the UFC and 14 consecutive victories overall. After a couple years of following similar trajectories and facing the same opponents, these two rivals will finally meet in the Octagon to decide who the best welterweight in the world is once and for all.
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