Matchmaking

Tainara Lisboa had a very nice debut so she will probably be matched up with 1 of the other 3 1-0 women's FLWs on the UFC roster: Irina Alekseeva, Jamey-Lyn Horth, or Tamires Vidal and I would throw Joselyne Edwards and Vanessa Melo in the mix as good opponents for her as well. 

At this point with the losing streak, Clark should be given a layup like Cowan and quickly before Cowan improves too much and if she can't get a win there, then retire. 

I think Stamann is a fool looking to have that fight overturned because what I saw was Andrade push off with his feet, not kick. I hate the ridiculous definition of a downed opponent anyway. 

Stamann as a FW just seems like a mistake but I'll give it a shot: Melsik, T.J. Brown, Elkins, Fishgold, Garagorri, Lingo, Narimani, Shayilan, Rosa, and Young are the only possibilities I could come up with scanning down who I still have on the roster without including the very inexperienced. With his good tdd, maybe he could Edgar his way to a win over the grapplers on the list but I wouldn't be very excited or expect much out of any of those matchups. 

Andrade probably doesn't have that many fights left so maybe Kyler Phillips, Danaa, or Alateng. I'm a huge Pedro Muhnoz fan and think it would be a mismatch but I would watch that. 

Now for the WWs: 

Gabe Green vs. Kenan Song sounds about right
Court vs. Means
D-Rod vs. Semelsberger
Battle vs. the winner of Griffin/Morales 
Matt Brown vs. Ponzinibbio - don't want to see it but it just sounds so good
Morono vs. Gunnar
Garry vs. Kevin Holland, Michel Pereira, or Wonderboy but that's almost certainly too big of a step up

Karl Williams vs. Mohammed Usman
Bigi Boy vs. Tuivasa
Jailton vs. Volkov

Potieria vs. Boser
Ulberg vs. winner of Rountree/Daukaus so Rountree

Walker vs. Krylov 

And I titled this generically so feel free to matchmake for fighters not on this card

Tatiana Suarez vs. any Top 15 Flyweight tout suite. 
And Alexa Grasso vs. Valentina Schevchenko II.
Great thread, BTW, @mulefloyd

* Edited at 05.14.2023, 11:07 PM ET *

For the record I'm baffled by the Zhang/Lemos title fight unless they announce a China card by the end of the summer. 

Doesn't make sense at all to make Dern/Yan 2 so soon so for Dern it almost has to be Rose. Carla won't be ready until middle of next year probably, Andrade would be ok but would ruin Dern's momentum much more than a loss to Rose. If they'd given Yan the title shot, then Dern vs. Lemos would've been intriguing. So yeah, they've kind of mucked up the SW title picture other than Yan obviously deserving the next shot but now she's got to wait.

You could (and I would) just pair up the winners and losers of the other 2 SW bouts: Loopy/Karolina and Hill/Demopoulos would both be good imo

Fluffy vs. Petroski 

And speaking of MWs, they should make Weidman vs. Brunson

Buckley vs. Khaos
Urbina vs. Gorimbo
Fialho vs. Sato 

CDF vs. Moises
Borschev vs. Johnson 
Hooper vs. Puelles 
Maheshate vs. Ayari 

Natalia Silva vs. Julianna Miller 

Well I thought Kai should've won but he didn't and either way both guys looked good so in my opinion (and hopefully in the matchmaker's) it should be considered a draw for matchmaking purposes. 

It's always good to have multiple title challengers available. I would give the next shot to Royval over Albazi but either would be a good fight. Albazi would be an even better challenger with a more impressive win (in Abu Dhabi?!) so I'd match him up Figgy, Kape, or Nicolau. Or even Alex Perez in a pinch. Figgy would obviously be the top choice and even though Nicolau has a win over him I'd put Kape 2nd and then Nicolau. 

Kai vs. whoever doesn't get the Albazi matchup would be a great fight so I'd order them Kape, Nicolau, and then Figgy. I'd grab some popcorn and enjoy for all 3. 

I'm sure Elliott would love to get another crack at Nicolau or he could earn an MMAmath win facing Kape but I would rather see him face either Mokaev or Taira, assuming Taira beats Kleydson, which I am. Third choice for me would be Durden. 

Altamirano vs. Nascimento would be my 1st choice for stylistic reasons and CJ Vergara would be my 2nd choice.

saw a few comments in the event thread about matchmaking but this one from foppa420 has matchups for all the winners: 

Albazi next opponent probably Figgy or Royval
Cacares vs. winner of Ige/Landwehr
Jim Miller vs. Ricky Glenn or rebook with Ludovit Klein (followed by fight with Paddy)
Silva vs. loser of Jasudavicius/Maverick
Elliot vs. Mokaev
Zaleski vs. Khaos Williams 
Daniel Santos vs. Sergey Morozov
Naimov vs. Baghdasaryan
Castaneda vs. Victor Henry
Elise Reed vs. Bruna Brasil
Blackshear vs. Johnny Munoz
Lins vs. Cutelaba

I won't matchmake for Andrei because I don't think there's any fight I can make that he has a good chance of winning that would have any entertainment value whatsoever. Just induct him into the HOF so he can retire UFC. 

Mayes won't beat anybody worth a crap imo so I'll just wait and see who they feed him to. 

Lins vs. Cutelaba 
Grishin vs. Gustafsson 

Elise Reed vs. Ashley Yoder or Sam Hughes

Karine Silva vs. Mandy Bohm - yes that seems like karmic justice

Abubakar vs. Court McGee, Gabe Green, or Ramiz Brahimaj 

I have 4 options for Zaleski. my #2 choice would be Gunnar Nelson, who I believe he named before the fight as someone he wanted to fight,  #3 would be Morono, #4 would be the Immortal one himself: Matt Brown, but my #1 choice would be Zaleski vs. Ponzinibbio

Jesse Butler vs. Jeka Saragih
Mullarkey vs. Ricky Glenn, Damir Hadzovic, or Trey Ogden 
Naimov vs. Anshul Jubli or Nurullo Aliev if he stays at LW or William Gomis or Steve Garcia at FW 
Jim Miller vs. Paddy Pimblett at WW if they want. 

Pineda vs. Amirkhani 
Caceres vs. Ricardo Ramos

Oops, forgot the BWs

Lacerda vs. Munoz - loser leaves town match. I know Munoz has 2 wins but he lost to Gravely who just got cut so....
Gafurov vs. Armfield? really I think he beats a lot of BWs so use him to get rid of someone
Castaneda vs. Morozov
Santos vs. Turcios 
Blackshear vs. Gustavo Lopez

From CrimsonChinGuru:

 Barriault vs Pyfer
Ige vs Yusuff
Malott vs Zaleski
Oliveira vs Makhachev 2

and:

 Anders is probably retiring*
Landwehr vs Dawodu
Fuggit vs Bedoya
Darius vs Fiviez 
Aldana vs Pennington to challenge Pena for the vacant Women's Bantamweight title. 

Well I don't like to call for fighters to retire and Oliveira is now 1-3 in the UFC which is what Belbita was before this fight but she seemed to think her nickname and her ability to move her head out of the way of Belbita's slow punches was all she needed because that's pretty much all she did. Hmm, she probably should and will be cut but if not maybe Melissa Martinez, the loser of Dudakova vs. Istela Nunes, or a freebie for Jinh Yu Frey or Ashley Yoder since they seem like they actually want to fight. Spent way too much time thinking about that.

Belbita. So she fought with a broken or almost broken foot?!  winner of Dudakova/Istela or Bannon/Brasil. 

I thought Dvorak looked pretty good last night just Erceg was better so calling for him to be cut when he's 3-3 is a just a bit extreme. I say give him a winnable yet competitive matchup with Nate Maness. They could just re-book the Schnell fight which would be a bigger name for him and probably right up his stylistic aisle but I prefer the Maness fight. 

Hell of a debut for Erceg. Australia seems like a no-brainer if he's healthy. I see 3 good choices, 2 of them geographically friendly for an Autralian card. In ascending order of difficulty (obviously imo):
1) Hyun Sung Park - winner of Road to UFC and 1-0 in UFC 
2) rebook the Clayton Carpenter bout. This would be interesting because now Erceg has a better win than Clayton so would Carpenter still be the favorite? Would he want to fight Erceg in his territory? Who has more leverage now? Probably the most interesting of the matchups.
3) He just beat Dvorak (#10 UFC, #14 tap consensus and MMAfighting) so Su Mudaerji (#13 UFC, #15 tap) wouldn't be unreasonable but none of these are my choice: 

Matt Schnell - he was booked to face Dvorak and is ranked higher (#8 UFC, #11 tap, #10 me) and would, I think, be the most entertaining. Book it I say. Normally I go with the Joe Silva strategy of winners vs. opponents coming off a win and think going by rankings alone is not the way to matchmake but I tend to make exceptions with shallow divisions (check), veterans (not a check), or when it's just the fight I want to see the most (check) 

More coming soon.

* Edited at 06.11.2023, 9:54 AM ET *

Bilder got a reality check. It's like he didn't use tap to research his opponent so didn't know that his (now) 2-4-1 UFC record has a pretty high strength of schedule: he made it to the 2nd round vs. Carlos Diego Ferreira. He should've come out prepared for a much tougher fight than it appeared he thought he was getting. 

Oh well, hopefully he learns. I say match him up with Francis Marshall.

As for Nelson, he's still a lower rung FW so the winner of either Lingo/Costa or Onama/Santos. 

Aoriqileng vs. Cannetti, Anheliger, Mana Martinez, or Johnny Munoz

Zahabi vs. Castaneda

For Maverick I'd go with either Montana De La Rosa or JJ Aldrich. Andrea Lee would be my 3rd choice but I think the 1st 2 are better because they're younger with closer to Miranda's level of experience. 

Jasudavicius vs. Barber would be my first choice but I think Ribas beats Maycee so why not match her up with Tracy Cortez or the winner of Lipski/Gatto. Side note: How ******* good is Natalia Silva? 

Ok, MWs. First up is Anders. 
Chidi - longer striker, fun matchup 
Oleksiejczuk - another fun striking matchup and both have fought at LHW
Hawes - has power and Anders seems to struggle with wrestlers/grapplers

Next Barriault. Pyfer. Doesn't make much sense experience or record wise but I saw this suggested last night and loved it. Fluffy would also be an excellent choice.

Curtis - Maximov. They keep harping on his great tdd and this would be a much different test than Imavov because everyone knows what Maximov's going to try to do.

Imavov vs. Borralho

Fugitt - Preston Parsons, Gabe Green, or Josh Quinlan

and I agree with whoever suggested Malott vs. Bryan Battle last night.

Landwehr vs. Pineda MUST be made and I will sacrifice any and all of you to make it happen.

Ige vs. Caceres 

Dariush vs. the loser of Poirier/Gaethje 

Do Bronx vs. Islam

and Pena vs Pennington for the vacant BW belt

Zac Pauga - Potieria, Knight, the loser of Boser/Camur (although I think Camur would be cut), or Prachnio when he loses to Petrino

Bukauskas - he should hope Camur somehow beats Boser (doubt it) because I think he loses to Boser, Lins, or even Prachnio if he somehow beats Petrino. Maybe he could be the opponent for Zhang's debut.

Bleda vs. Bohm
Gabriella Fernandes vs. Julianna Miller

Dalby vs. Morono please

Cannonier is in a good but tough spot. He should definitely be first alternate for whoever is going to get the next title shot but other than that maybe pencil him in for the winner of Costa/Aliskerov or Khamzat. This might actually be the best thing to happen to Khamzat as his inactivity kind of had him slipping. It's a risky fight for either but a great opportunity at the same time.

Vettori will probably be stuck fighting Du Plessis because I think Whittaker will win. If Du Plessis wins, then Vettori matchmaking could get really tough unless Costa can derail Aliskerov or Magomedov beat Strickland. Ah screw it, win or lose Vettori vs. Strickland.

CLD vs. Chidi and Petrosyan vs. Imavov

Bukauskas vs Negumereanu 
Pauga vs Turkalj
Lawrence vs Argueta 2
Bleda vs Bohm
Fernandes vs loser of Lucindo vs Viana
Hernandez vs Erceg
Bondar vs Maness
Kang vs Morozov
Quinonez vs L. Lacerda
Costa vs Gordon
Flick vs Ronderos (win or lose)
Dalby vs winner of Brown vs Turman
Salikhov vs C. Harris
Torres vs Glenn
Motta vs winner of Duncan vs Ashmouz
Sabatini vs Barboza
Almeida vs Buzukja (yes I know he isn’t in the UFC yet)
Petrosyan vs Barriault
CLD vs Di Chirico
Tsarukyan vs Dariush (FN main event)
Silva vs Maheshate
Cannonier vs winner of Whittaker vs Du Plessis (FN main event)
Vettori vs loser of Whittaker vs Du Plessis

* Edited at 06.18.2023, 10:40 AM ET *

Sabatini vs. Pearce 
Almeida vs. Lutz or Bilder

I would LOVE to see Arman vs. the winner of Poirier/Gaethje but you know they'll duck it using rankings ********. The best are supposed to fight the best. Dariush already fought Gamrot so he shouldn't be the ONLY veteran willing to face the up-and-comers but at least it would be an MMAmath path for Arman to get the Gamrot loss back so... I guess. Just doesn't seem fair at all to Beneil.

Silva vs. Hadzovic or Mullarkey
Motta vs. Maheshate. Ogden is also 1-2 in the UFC but I just think Maheshate would be a banger. Then you can cut the loser.
Torres vs. Medic, Mike Davis, or Natan Levy

Record wise the best matchup for Bondar would be Candelario or Victor Rodriguez but since they both fought last night and he doesn't have a good matchup otherwise I'd like to see Bondar vs. Flick. 

And since shallow divisions suck, Hernandez vs. Costa

Kang vs. Barcelos 

I'm sure most will want to run Argueta/Lawrence back but for me Argueta was well on his way to a win so instead I'd match Quinonez with Lawrence and Argueta vs. Christian Rodriguez. 

Salikhov vs. D-Rod

I did Salikhov vs Carlston Harris because that would be such a fun fight

I really wanna see Gillian vs. Demopoulos

Joshua Van with an equal stricker would be nice !

So Van vs. Park or Estevam seems the only appropriate matchups

Ricci vs. McKenna would be the more winnable matchup but Pinheiro is probably the right test. Loopy Godinez would be an interesting matchup assuming she beats Sam Hughes.

Cody Brundage out of the UFC
Sedriques Dumas vs Dusko Todorovic
Jamal Emmers vs William Gomis
Jack Jenkins vs Lucas Almeida
Trevor Peek vs Nikolas Motta
Chepe Mariscal vs Gabriel Benitez
Zhalgas Zhumagulov vs Daniel Lacerda
Joshua Van vs Clayton Carpenter
Gillian Robertson vs Jessica Penne
Tabatha Ricci vs Angela Hill
Loik Radzhabov vs Daniel Zellhuber
Mateusz Rebecki vs Christos Giagos
Wellington Turman out of the UFC
Randy Brown vs Neil Magny
Philip Rowe vs Santiago Ponzinibbio
Bruno Silva vs loser of Meerschaert vs Petroski
Brendan Allen vs Roman Dolidze
Gabriel Santos vs Kron Gracie
David Onama vs Darren Elkins
Justin Tafa vs Austen Lane 2
Amanda Ribas vs winner of Araujo vs O Neill
Maycee Barber vs Katlyn Chookagian
Josh Emmett vs Calvin Kattar 2 (FN Main Event)
Ilia Topuria vs loser of Volkanovski vs Rodriguez (FN Main Event)