UFC Vegas 87 is an ugly card, full stop. Despite the fact that the alternative stats look decent (ranked fights, fighters, etc.), the matchups don’t do much in the way of getting us amped to watch the card. If anything, it’s a deterrent to it. Let’s face it, no matter what they do, the Apex cards always seem like leftovers, even when they’re not.
And with two last minute replacements, we even get an athlete who is scheduled to fight for another promotion next weekend. It just always feels like we’re being cheated out of good cards for one reason or another, be it due to a lack of name value (big issue on this event) or a lack of ranked athletes and fights.
We get a smattering of everything on this show, but there’s nothing too egregious when we stack up our normal factoids. It’s when we peel back the layers of the records that we start to see where the seams are coming apart. Take Eryk Anders, for starters. In his last six fights, he’s only managed to win two of them.
To make matters worse, Anders’ opponent, Jamie Pickett, is on a four-fight losing skid. This is supposed to be the top promotion on the planet with the very best fighters in the world. Why are we getting this level slop if that’s the case? I know we’ve beaten this poor old pony to death, but when the product never changes, it’s hard to not feel frustrated and even a little cheated.
We realize fighters need to make their debuts, get back on track from losses, etc. but it generally seems like they lump all those elements exclusively into the Apex cards. As mentioned above, the alternative stats or “fun factoids” aren’t awful for this event, but it still has absolutely zero curb appeal to speak of. Let’s look at the fights we predicted:
UFC Vegas 87
Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs. Shamil Gaziev 265 lbs
Alex Perez vs. Muhammad Mokaev 125 lbs
Matt Schnell vs. Steve Erceg 125 lbs
Raul Rosas Jr. vs. Ricky Turcios 140 lbs
Javid Basharat vs. Aiemann Zahabi 135 lbs
Did you talk about anything besides UFC Vegas 87?
We did! We actually started the episode with our headlines this week and due to time constraints, we gave you the episode for FREE. Here’s the hot sheet list:
Israel Adesanya interview about UFC 300
Fight trailer for Ngannou-Joshua
Nate Diaz wants on UFC 306 card
Ryan Garcia calling out Sean O’Malley
Henry Cejudo’s non-retirement
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UFC Vegas 87 hits all the right marks but still looks awful