🇬🇧 Back Across The Pond

July 22, 2022

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Fight With Teddy Atlas Newsletter, your one stop shop for all things combat sports related, brought to you by Teddy and The Fight team.

Teddy Atlas and co-host Ken Rideout breakdown the past weekend of fights with Ryan Garcia TKOing Javier Fortuna, Barboza over Zorrilla, and the UFC Long Island card with maybe the greatest comeback ever with Matt Schnell beating Su Sumudaerji.

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Every Friday We Bring You:

  • A combat sports news digest with all the headlines you need to know from Boxing and Mixed Martial Arts.

  • Highlights from the podcast and across the fight world.

  • Fight times and information you need to know ahead of time.

  • How to’s and tips for Boxing from Teddy himself.

Fight News From Around The 🌍

(Almost) Featherweight Title Glory

Joet Gonzalez vs Isaac Dogboe could very much be a fight for a vacant featherweight title.

Both boxers have the quality and heart required, having been in there with the top dogs at featherweight and demonstrated both of the aforementioned qualities and then some.

Dogboe has been a champion before, albeit a division lower at super bantamweight. He burst onto the scene when he stopped the unbeaten Jessie Magdaleno in April 2018. It seemed, for a brief flash, that a new dominant champion was born.

Enter Emmanuel Navarette.

The Mexican inflicted back to back brutal beatdowns on Dogboe, leaving him without his title and seemingly a future in the division. Moving up to featherweight has brought more fortune, and a win against the veteran Christopher Diaz back in November brought him once again to the cusp of another shot at featherweight gold.

Gonzalez has campaigned at featherweight his entire professional career, and it seemed as if he would be a shoe in for a world title given his natural ability.

Unfortunately for him, his title shot was against the generational talent that is Shakur Stevenson, who dominated their title run in to secure the WBO strap back in 2019.

His second crack at gold fared a bit better, and he pushed the aforementioned Navarette all the way in October of last year, only to come just short of a unanimous decision.

Joet Gonzalez’s does tend to be quite inactive for large stretches of fights, and this cost him in his previous title shots. On paper, Dogboe’s high pressure style could present similar problems, but “Royal Storm’s” willingness to stay in the pocket and lack of size compared to Stevenson and Navarette could tip the balance in favour of the more established featherweight.

Both guys have good to very good power for their size, as well as huge bravery in the face of serious punishment in the ring. The stakes are high for both men. Whoever wins is right in the mix as a title contender, and whoever loses runs the risk of being relegated to gatekeeper status.

It's not a title fight, but it has all the looks and feels of one as we're likely due some fireworks in the featherweight division on Saturday night.

Will The Sequel Live Up To The Original?

The UFCs return to London back in March delivered on such a level, that they couldn't wait another year to bring mixed martial arts back to the English capital.

Fast forward only 4 months and we've got another great card coming out of UFC London, headlined once again by the fast rising heavyweight Tom Aspinall.

Aspinall has done everything asked of him and more during his short time in the promotion so far, racing to five straight wins inside two years. The Brit is yet to crack 15 minutes total octagon time having made quick work of every man he has faced, from Andrei Arlovski to the most recent foe Alexander Volkov last time out in March.

The Volkov win really announced his arrival among the heavyweight elite, and welcoming him to the top tier of big men in the UFC is Curtis "Razor" Blaydes.

Blaydes has been in the UFC since 2016, when he made his debut against none other than current champion Francis Ngannou. Since then, he's only ever lost to the two consensus hardest hitters in recent heavyweight history: Ngannou and Derrick Lewis.

All other opponents, from Jairzinho Rozenstruik to Junior Dos Santos and Alistair Overeem have all been vanquished by the American.

He is the most dominant heavyweight wrestler of recent times and is a much improved striker since his earlier UFC days. He carries a substantial threat on the mat through ground and pound and now increasingly on the feet.

However, against a man with Aspinall’s speed and repertoire of strikes, Blaydes may well look to avoid danger and revert to type by dragging the Brit to the canvas – and when Blaydes wants to take it to the mat, few can stop him.

Should the fight go to the mat, Aspinall could look to employ his grappling skills to find submissions within Blaydes' wrestling assault. Whilst heavyweight grappling is somewhat of a rarity, tactically it could form a big part of tomorrow's main event given these two heavyweights and their respective skillsets.

In the co-main event, Sweden’s Jack Hermansson will face late replacement opponent Chris Curtis in a middleweight showdown that was originally meant to be the homecoming for Darren Till before withdrawing with injury.

Hermansson is a grappler by nature who looks to do his best work off the takedown – but he’s got his work cut out on Saturday night against an opponent with a very effective takedown defence.

Curtis is relatively fresh, having fought only a month ago, defeating four-time Brazilian jiu-jitsu world champion Rodolfo Vieira comfortably over three rounds. He'll be feeling confident of doing a job on another grappler.

Hermansson however, is a significant step up for Curtis at this stage, having mixed it with the top contenders in the division and only having been finished by the naturally bigger Jared Cannonier in his recent run of fights, with his other two defeats (Marvin Vettori and Sean Strickland) both going the distance

His toughness and experience at a higher level could see him take this one, but it could also be the case that Curtis just needs an opportunity with a higher calibre opponent to really show what he is made of.

Saturday will be his big chance.

And of course, there's Paddy The Baddy.

The people’s main event sees Paddy Pimblett return to action as he faces the eccentric Jordan Leavitt in a lightweight contest sure to blow the roof off the O2 Arena.

Pimblett is 2-0 from his opening pair of UFC assignments, finishing Luigi Vendramini and Rodrigo Vargas in the first round despite riding some early trouble against both men.

Leavitt is probably the most well-rounded competitor Pimblett has faced under the UFC banner, marrying competency on the feet with a solid grappling skillset.

However, he will have never fought in an atmosphere like the one awaiting him on Saturday and he'll have to prove he has the mental nerve to handle the hostility of the 18,000-strong pro-Paddy crowd.

Paddy ‘The Baddy’ basks in the glory of the occasion and 2/2 times he has risen to it under the UFC banner.

He's by no means the perfect fighter. He exchanges with his chin in the air and his footwork isn't perfect, but he'll likely be good enough this time around to get the win and get it in spectacular style once again.

Some more great match-ups from the card:

Nikita Krylov vs Alex Gustafsson

Paul Craig vs Volkan Oezdemir

Molly McCann vs Hannah Goldy

Marc Diakese vs Damir Hadzovic

Fight ⏰ for this weekend

Boxing: Gonzalez vs Dogboe (Saturday 23rd/Sunday 24th)

  • 🇺🇸 Full Card: 9pm Eastern/ 6pm Pacific | Main Event: 11pm Eastern/ 8pm Pacific

  • 🇬🇧 Full Card: 2am | Main Event: 4am

  • 🇦🇺 Full Card: 11am Eastern/ 9am Western | Main Event: 1pm Eastern/ 11am Western

UFC: Aspinall vs Blaydes (Saturday 23rd/Sunday 24th)

  • 🇺🇸 Full Card: 3pm Eastern/ 12pm Pacific | Main Event: 5pm Eastern/ 2pm Pacific

  • 🇬🇧 Full Card: 8pm | Main Event: 10pm

  • 🇦🇺 Full Card: 5am Eastern/ 3am Western | Main Event: 7am Eastern/ 5am Western

Don't forget to tune in to the latest episode 🎧

Thanks for being with us and see you next week #BANG💥