What’s Next For The Losers at UFC Moscow

What’s Next For The Losers at UFC Moscow

By Alex Conway

Taking place on the same day and in the gigantic shadow of Canelo-GGG 2, the UFC held its first ever event in Russia when they took their show to Moscow on Saturday.

The main event featured a heavyweight tilt between Mark Hunt and Alexey Oleynik and a co-feature between Jan Blachowicz and the returning Nikita Krylov. Hunt suffered a first round submission defeat to the local fighter Olynik while Krylov’s UFC return didn’t go as planned as Blachowicz kept his streak alive with a second round sub.

Let’s take a look at what could be next for the losers of UFC Moscow’s main card.
Mark Hunt

Hunt is clearly in the last stages of his career and the 43-year old was unable to keep the fight standing long enough to not succumb to one of the more underrated submission artists in the UFC. When you think of grapplers in MMA, Oleynik isn’t often on the shortlist that jumps to the front of ones’ mind, but maybe he should be.

However, Hunt has had spotty submission defence most of his career and it reared its ugly head again in this fight.

Hunt is embroiled in a lawsuit with the UFC, but has seemed willing to take fights regardless. There are rumours he’s nearing the end of his contract with the UFC and could move on to other promotions soon. If he’s going to stick around in the UFC, there are plenty of old dogs around to match him up with.

A fight with Andrei Arlovski would be a good fit, as it would match up two big names who are at the end of storied careers.

Nikita Krylov

Krylov took his talents to the Fight Night’s promotion where he won their light heavyweight title. It was a surprising move to leave the UFC originally because despite coming off a loss to Misha Cirkunov, Krylov was considered a bright young talent in an old weathering light heavyweight division.

Krylov told the media in the lead-up to the fight that he wanted to develop his skills a little bit more before taking on the top of the UFC’s 205-pound division. He might have been right in assessing his skills as Blachowicz was able to easily submit the Ukrainian in the second round.

Blachowicz might be criminally underrated, but Kyrlov’s performance was a little disappointing. I’d love to see him get a tune-up fight his next time out.

Patrick Cummins is a tough out, but he’s a great fight for Krylov. He’s durable on the feet, but hittable, an excellent wrestler, but not a submission artist. He would test Krylov in a lot of areas where Krylov needs to prove himself and a win over Krylov would be big for Cummins. That’s the fight I’d like to see next.

Andrei Arlovksi

Arlovski, like Mark Hunt, has been around for a long time. He’s a name many UFC fans will recognize no matter what card you put him on.

I think he’s still got a main event level name if you match him up with Mark Hunt on a Fight Pass or ESPN+ show. I think that’s a perfect fight for either guy and should clearly be next if they are both healthy coming out of Saturday’s event. Put it in Europe or Asia and I think it probably draws well at the gate also.

Thiago Alves

Another fighter from the mid-2000’s who finally seems like he’s running out of steam. Alves was a force to be reckoned with in his prime and eventually secured a welterweight title shot against Georges St-Pierre at the historic UFC 100.

But that time has passed, which might be a theme for the UFC Moscow card.
Alves is still a fun stand-up fighter, so matching him up with a fellow fighter with explosive hands would be my mission.

Let’s see him fight Alex Garcia next. Garcia is a little younger but he’s also been up-and-down. Alves can certainly beat Garcia and if Garcia beat Alves, it would put Garcia’s name in a position for a bigger fight on a main card somewhere down the future.