Itineraries may vary for mixed martial arts fans during this year’s edition of UFC’s International Fight Week (July 3-9), but most every road will lead to T-Mobile Arena for Saturday night’s double-header of championship fights at UFC 290. While Brandon Moreno’s defense of his flyweight belt against Alexandre Pantoja is a customary championship bout, with Moreno’s height and reach advantage giving him an edge in the 125-pound class, featherweights Alexander “The Great” Volkanovski (right) and Yair “El Pantera” Rodriguez (left) clash to unify their respective titles and become the undisputed 145-pound Ultimate Fighting champion.
Featherweight champion Volkanovski is currently considered the second-best pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC, which observes its 30th anniversary this year, and will probably draw the lion’s share of media attention during Fight Week. A defeat of the Australian assault machine by interim featherweight title holder Rodriguez would raise the Mexican mauler’s profile exponentially.
Joe Rogan called Rodriguez “one of the wildest (expletive deleted)’s that’s ever fought in MMA” on the May 27 edition of Joe Rogan Experience podcast. “Yair has some of the craziest kicks,” Rogan told guests Shane Gillis, Mark Normand and Ari Shaffir. “He’s got this tae kwon do background but he does all the wild (expletive deleted). … He’s wicked and he’s really hard to figure out.”
Rangy Rodriguez made his mark fighting veteran brawler B.J. Penn in January 2017 when he knocked the veteran fighter down with a vicious back roundhouse kick and pounded him into unresponsiveness with a blitz of lightning-fast fists. Volkanovski, who Rogan referred to as “the baddest (expletive deleted) alive,” has a slight edge in reach but gives up 5 inches in height to Rodriguez.
Deflecting kicks and getting Rodriguez on the ground are likely parts of Volkanovski’s plan to unify the featherweight championships, which were divided when he added mass to challenge Islam Makhachev for his lightweight title at UFC 284 in February. He lost but was one of two participants awarded “Fight of the Night” honors.
Volkanovski temporarily vacated his featherweight title for that lightweight bout in his homeland. On that same card, Rodriguez, who until then was best known for being an The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America winner, defeated Josh Emmett with a triangle choke submission for the newly created Interim Featherweight Championship.
A win for Rodriguez could lead to a shakeup in the pound-for-pound rankings. Heavyweight Jon Jones is No. 1 and Makhachev is No. 3. Rodriguez is not in the Top 15, possibly due to an ankle injury in 2020 and subsequent suspension for not being available for drug testing. Volkanovski continues to ride high as a UFC star despite the lightweight loss and needs a victory to continue shining brightly.
Rodriguez, Moreno and Pantoja are part of that constellation of shining stars at UCF 290 along with Jimmy Crute and Alonzo Menifield, who previously faced each other in UFC 284. Elsewhere on the card, former middleweight champ Robert Whittaker takes on Dricus Du Plessis, and Dana White’s Contender Series signee Bo Nickal looks to remain undefeated in his match wth Tresean Gore.
T-Mobile Arena, 1 p.m. July 8, prices vary. axs.com
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