On Saturday, the UFC continued its road trip by traveling to the city of Des Moines, Iowa — a state that the promotion hadn’t visited in over 20 years.
You want to talk about all the places the UFC hasn’t been to, or isn’t going to, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic? Try having to wait since The Dark Ages of the UFC. The last UFC event to take place in Iowa was when Cedar Rapids hosted UFC 26 in June 2000. The only other event in Iowa besides that? When the Five Seasons Events Center also hosted UFC 21 about a year earlier.
The UFC looked to bring a memorable night of action to the state to make up for its prolonged absence, and it looked to do so with a main event coming out of the stellar bantamweight division. UFC Des Moines was headlined by Cory Sandhagen and Deiveson Figueiredo doing battle in a clash of top-5 contenders at 135 pounds.
Sandhagen has been a widely popular and entertaining fighter in the division since he made his UFC debut at the start of 2018. He’s always been one to compete with the very best, and if you look at his losses entering UFC Des Moines, he’s only ever lost to the elite. That said, he always seems to be one step short of finally capturing even a shot at the bantamweight title. That was seen in his last outing, losing to Umar Nurmagomedov in the main event of UFC Abu Dhabi last August.
Figueiredo, of course, once dominated the flyweight scene, having reigned as UFC flyweight champion twice while going on an epic quadrilogy with Brandon Moreno. Since joining the bantamweight division at the end of 2023, though, Figgy has had successes here, too. After the division-debuting win over Rob Font, Figueiredo scored a submission of former champion Cody Garbrandt at UFC 300 and a decision over former title challenger Marlon “Chito” Vera at UFC Abu Dhabi. Figgy, however, entered UFC Des Moines off a loss to Petr Yan at UFC Macau.
While both main event competitors looked to bounce back from losses in a division stacked with talent, another name, Bo Nickal, looked to keep his undefeated record in tact in his biggest test yet, taking on tested veteran and former ONE champion Reinier de Ridder in the UFC Des Moines co-main event. The rest of the card also featured action from the likes of Santiago Ponzinibbio vs. Daniel Rodriguez and the UFC returns of both Jeremy Stephens and Mason Jones — who competed against one another.
Who delivered in the Hawkeye State? Who didn’t? Let’s go into it together with the hits and misses of UFC Des Moines!
Hit – Gillian Robertson
Before the main card action, the UFC Des Moines prelims even featured some action from current noteworthy contenders — a top-15 contenders battle at women’s strawweight between Marina Rodriguez and Gillian Robertson and one at women’s bantamweight (which served as the featured prelim) between Miesha Tate and Yana Santos.
And of all four of these ladies, Robertson perhaps stood out as not just the most impressive of this bunch, but perhaps the most impressive out of all the prelim fighters.
Robertson looked to dominate on the ground and did just that with over five minutes of control time out of the seven or so minutes the fight lasted. Robertson pressured and landed big ground shots during the first round. Rodriguez may have went for a submission during the second round, but Robertson got out of it and went back to her vicious assault until the referee waved off the fight.
It was an appropriate performance for someone nicknamed “The Savage” as she sent Rodriguez into retirement.
Robertson has been in the UFC since season 26 of The Ultimate Fighter, and she’s always been entertaining to watch. But something has REALLY clicked for her since moving back down to strawweight. Robertson has won six of her last seven and is now 5-1 since her drop to 115, with her sole loss in that stretch coming against Tabatha Ricci — someone she has to be right next to in the top 10 at minimum when the new rankings get released.
Now this presents some interesting potential top-10 contender battles for Robertson against the likes of Jessica Andrade, Mackenzie Dern, Amanda Ribas or even a Ricci rematch. And if she performs as well against those fighters as she does against Rodriguez, the strawweight division better watch out.
Hit – Azamat Bekoev
Azamat Bekoev’s UFC debut was so nice, the kind of performance he had in that fight he had to do twice. After putting on a great showing against Zachary Reese at UFC 311 in January, Bekoev built on that initial strong outing when he took on The Ultimate Fighter season 32 winner Ryan Loder during the preliminary card.
Loder looked to use his wrestling skills on Bekoev early on, but Bekoev battled back by reversing the position and unleashing his hands. Bekoev rocked Loder and continued to land, hitting Loder with a strong knee and a right hand that dropped Loder before unleashing more ground-and-pound until the fight was stopped.
Bekoev finished Loder 20 seconds faster than he did Reese.
The American Top Team product has now won seven straight and eight of his last 10. This included a brief run as LFA middleweight champion before stepping into the Octagon for the first time.
Bekoev also now has ten first-round finishes to his name. And if he gets an eleventh — which would make him 3-0 in the UFC with three first-round finishes — then Bekoev is going to solidify himself as both someone to keep an eye on and someone who’d need tougher competition.
Hit – Jeremy Stephens vs. Mason Jones
While the main and co-main events of UFC Des Moines had attention on them, the broadcast also continuously hyped up the main card’s opener featuring the returns of Jeremy “Lil’ Heathen” Stephens and Mason Jones. Stephens has been a longtime face of the UFC but hadn’t fought in the promotion — or in MMA for that matter — since 2021. And while he has always been an entertaining fighter, he had won in MMA just once in his previous nine. Jones, meanwhile, was looking for a rebound after going just 1-2-1 in his first stint with the promotion.
And while only one person could come out on top, the two of them delivered an absolute banger.
Jones looked to get to an early start by unleashing a flurry of punches and leg kicks — but Stephens, the hometown hero and BKFC star, fought fire with fire. While Jones got the better of the exchanges, Stephens still showed off his power and secured a takedown. Jones looked to get off to another hot start in the second, and the result was a round where both men got bloodied and battered before Jones scored a takedown and some ground-and-pound.
Jones then fought tactically in the third, utilizing his grappling to subdue Stephens’ offense en route to a clear decision victory.
For Jones, this was exactly the performance he needed to get back on the right track and continue the run of success he had from the four-fight win streak in Cage Warriors he entered with in tonight’s UFC return. And for Stephens, if this was a one-time return, then what a performance it was. If this is the start of one more run, then hopefully it is as entertaining as this fight was.
Miss – Montel Jackson vs. Daniel Marcos
For a fight that featured someone ranked No. 15 in their division and someone trying to break into the rankings after hyping himself up, Montel Jackson vs. Daniel Marcos did not live up to expectations.
In particular, for Marcos to lose his undefeated run in the manner that he did — especially with his previous wins over the likes of Davey Grant and Adrian Yañez — was, honestly, quite embarrassing.
While Marcos continuously pursued takedowns during the fight, landing three of them, they were quite ineffective, with Jackson easily able to work his way out of them. And Marcos did not seem to do any damage against Jackson. Jackson had scored his own couple of takedowns and was landing the better leg kicks and combinations when there was any trading. He even had a submission attempt at one point.
Don’t get me wrong — this wasn’t a great performance from Jackson either. It’s not one you put out when trying to move up the ranks. But the thing is — it didn’t need to be to get the win here. He just completely iced Marcos’ game. And while I understand trying to show strength at the end of the fight, I hope Marcos didn’t actually think he was robbed here.
For Marcos, this needs to be a wake-up call — if he wants to compete with the better fighters in his division, he needs to put on a display that was a lot better than the one we saw in Des Moines.
Hit – It’s Time For The Reinier De Ridder Slander To Stop
Reinier de Ridder may have been one of the most disrespected members of the UFC roster when he came to the UFC late last year. He’s been in a situation where if he loses, then the only reason he’s here is just to bury ONE Championship. And in this case, it seemed like he was being positioned as a lamb to slaughter against the UFC’s young golden boy in Bo Nickal.
Unfortunately for the UFC, this lamb bit and fought back with a solid grappling game and deadly knees.
I guess those in the MMA community who buried this fight, and maybe even people in the UFC, overlooked the fact that RdR was a judo and jiu-jitsu specialist. They overlooked his pair of silver medals at the European Brazilian jiu-jitsu championships in 2016 and 2017. They overlooked his 13 MMA victories via submission.
And while Nickal may have been an NCAA champion at Penn State, the former ONE champ-champ’s grappling experience was on full display, becoming the first man to put Nickal on his back in the Octagon. And when they fought in close during the second round, de Ridder was smart enough to notice Nickal’s negative reactions to getting kneed in the body. Nickal ate shot after shot while dealing with that pain, and another knee to the body forced him into ball up as the referee stopped the fight.
I get that de Ridder’s UFC debut against Gerald Meerschaert wasn’t the best performance. But the fact he submitted him, scored a first-round submission of Kevin Holland and now took out a young insanely hyped prospect in Nickal…it’s time to treat de Ridder as a serious name at middleweight. It’s time to get him a top-10 opponent. Let’s see what de Ridder does against someone like a Marvin Vettori, Jared Cannonier or Roman Dolidze.
Miss – The Forced Push Of Bo Nickal Bites Him
Paige VanZant. Darren Till. Sage Northcutt. All three of these names are fighters who are known in the circles of MMA as fighters who were pushed too quickly and their careers suffered for it.
Now, I’m not going to put Bo Nickal’s name in this circle yet, of course. But if you look at the history of the UFC, there have been multiple — I should even plenty — of cases where the promotion has someone of particular interest. And they push this person in terms of the promotion for their fights and even their placements on the cards. And more often than not, these fighters are not yet ready for such an experience, such opponents, and they end up taking a big defeat.
This isn’t really to trash Nickal. This is more to say the UFC just doesn’t learn.
Reinier de Ridder was not the person for Bo Nickal to fight here. I understand Nickal was coming off a win against Paul Craig — a savvy and popular fight veteran. But Craig is 37 and has won just once since mid-2022. RdR is 34, a former ONE champion at middleweight and light heavyweight and an excellent submission specialist who has had years of experience in the sport and a ranked UFC middleweight contender.
But Nickal was pushed heavily, and his confidence level didn’t help things.
Nickal is still young. There are losses that can be beneficial. There are losses that are just brief setbacks. This is the first time in his MMA career that the young man is facing adversity. If he can learn from it, this will be a great experience for him in the long run. If he can go back in the gym and work on his defense, work with really experienced veterans, work on his striking, Nickal can come out of this looking like a million bucks and a success story. But this is also dependent on the UFC pacing themselves right with Nickal and not burning him out quickly.
People in the MMA sphere already were skeptical and critical about things from Nickal’s placement on the UFC 300 main card over other standout talents and his placement as a featured fight at New York’s Madison Square Garden at UFC 309. If the UFC puts him in a position where he isn’t ready again, they may have no one to blame but themselves if Nickal’s career in the Octagon doesn’t pan out.
Miss – Deiveson Figueiredo’s Injury
After all the anticipation for this top-5 contenders’ battle, this is not how the result of the Cory Sandhagen vs. Deiveson Figueiredo main event should have gone down.
It was a fun fight for the time it lasted, don’t get me wrong. But it was disappointing that rather than focus on defending Sandhagen’s striking attack on the ground during the first round, Figgy was more focused on Sandhagen’s legs and trying for a submission.
Figueiredo took the fight to the second, but his strategies ended up having a nasty result. During one transition on the ground, Figueiredo’s leg bent back to an uncomfortable — and unnatural — position that put him in a world of pain, forcing him to tap from the pain while Sandhagen rained down punches.
Let’s hope this isn’t going to keep Figueiredo out a while. And whenever he does come back, he still has all the talent in the world to be a viable name at 135. But the former flyweight champ has now dropped two straight for the first time in his career; he had come into this fight off a loss to former bantamweight champ Petr Yan in Macau.
Hopefully for Figueiredo’s sake, he comes back from this outing to put on a vintage, power-filled display we’ve all seen Figueiredo have before as he looks to get back on a right path toward a bantamweight title shot.
Hit – Cory Sandhagen: Is He Finally Ready For A Shot?
Speaking of bantamweight title shots, that’s what Cory Sandhagen is now on the hunt for.
As mentioned, Sandhagen delivered an all-star performance, landing great strikes on the ground and feet, getting the better in exchanges, and having the knowledge of how to work on the ground.
The exchanges with Figgy were fun, but Sandhagen was clearly the better fighter tonight — even if the injury didn’t decide the fight.
Even with Merab Dvalishvili vs. Sean O’Malley 2 booked for later this year, there are calls for Sandhagen to finally get a title shot some feel he has long deserved. Sandhagen has consistently been a strong performer in the division but has always come up one fight short in one way or another. He lost to recent title challenger Umar Nurmagomedov in his last outing prior to this card, and he came one fight short of challenging for the title in 2020, losing a title eliminator to future champ Aljamain Sterling.
Obviously the division is stacked with names, and Yan very well could be next in line for a rematch with either Dvalishvili or O’Malley, depending on who comes out on top in the title fight. But what this performance from “The Sandman” shows is that, if anything, he should only be, at most, a fight away from challenging for the gold.
