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Preview: UFC on ESPN 58 ‘Perez vs. Taira’
By Tom Feely,
2024-06-13
The Ultimate Fighting Championship on Saturday shifts back to the UFC Apex in Las Vegas with UFC on ESPN 58 and a card filled by lighter-weight competitors. That includes the main event—one of a few flyweight bouts on the bill—which sees Alex Perez keep up a shockingly active 2024 campaign by looking to hold serve against top prospect Tatsuro Taira . The co-headliner does not figure to generate much interest, as rising middleweight Ikram Aliskerov suits up for what should function as a showcase appearance against Octagon newcomer Antonio Trocoli . Everything else seems to be matched for action. Even the lone other fight above 145 pounds, a welterweight appetizer pitting Josh Quinlan against Adam Fugitt , should wind up being violent.
Now to the UFC on ESPN 58 “Perez vs. Taira” preview:
Mixed martial arts is always full of surprises, but the 2024 resurgence of Perez has been a particularly pleasant development that wasn’t on anyone’s proverbial bingo card. An alum of the first Dana White’s Contender Series season in 2017, Perez had a fairly straightforward rise that went unnoticed amid the greater turmoil of the UFC potentially cutting the flyweight division. A bullying wrestler and grappler, Perez even split his time between flyweight and bantamweight in order to stay active and off of the chopping block. A 2020 win over Jussier Formiga eventually set Perez up for a title fight against Deiveson Figueiredo a few months later, which figured to at least be the moment for him to finally get some notice. Instead, he got submitted in under two minutes and the division moved on in record time, with Figueiredo turning around three weeks later to start a career-defining rivalry with Brandon Moreno . Perez seemed destined to become a footnote from there, particularly once it was apparent that his career was suddenly cursed. Perez had at least nine fight cancellations from 2021 through 2023, with his only bout during that time being a quick blowout loss to eventual champion Alexandre Pantoja . Perez finally got back in the swing of things in March, when he gave Muhammad Mokaev the toughest test of the young prospect’s career. It was a bit of a flat showing for Perez on the feet, but he did an impressive job of neutralizing the dogged wrestling game that has led Mokaev to almost all of his success. Wanting to make up for lost time, Perez then took a quick turnaround to main event against Matheus Nicolau less than two months later. That performance was much more in the vein of vintage Perez. Faced with a dedicated counterpuncher, Perez was able to pressure at will and eventually score an impressive second-round knockout. That has left Perez able to take another quick turnaround, so after a stretch of having only three fights in about four years, he takes his third fight in a shade over three months to test a top prospect in Taira.
This marks a huge step up in competition for Taira, a top Japanese talent the UFC has been content to slow play up until this point. Taira has some spectacular moments as a grappler, though getting there can be an adventure, as his overall approach sometimes leaves something to be desired. His striking can be overly patient, and that general tenor of patience also means he might take a while to start attempting to take the fight to the mat. It seemed like Taira might be marching himself into an upset loss for a bit thanks to some concerns around the margins—beyond his wrestling not being as effective as it should be, his 2023 decision win over Edgar Chairez was notable for how well “Puro Chicali” was able to neutralize Taira’s grappling threat—but a knockout win over Carlos Hernandez in December showed that he might be precise enough as a striker to make his current approach work despite its issues. This fight figures to serve as a proof of concept for that last point, as Perez should be able to neutralize Taira’s wrestling. Perez’s history of submission losses also suggests Taira’s grappling could be a threat, but the Japanese fighter doesn’t push the kind of pressure that has typically left the Team Oyama product open for those finishes in the past. Instead, this figures to settle in as a slow-paced striking match, and it’ll be interesting to see how both sides fare. Perez should theoretically be the more consistent striker in terms of both pressure and power, but his performance against Mokaev does raise the worry that his output could slow against an opponent who can mix things up with some threats on the mat. While the Hernandez fight always figured to be a bit of a walkover for Taira, his showing there does raise the idea that he can rifle out a knockout blow if there’s any sort of hesitancy on Perez’s part. Perez seems like the surer bet, but this is the right fight to answer some questions for the winner and launch him into a bigger spot. The pick is Perez via decision.
Aliskerov looks like someone who can move quickly up the UFC’s middleweight ranks, but he seems to have a hard time getting the chance. A longtime veteran whose lone professional loss came to Khamzat Chimaev , Aliskerov ran through his opponent on the Contender Series in 2022 to earn a UFC contract. The promotion immediately threw him in against a tough test in Phil Hawes , which showed off both some positives and negatives in Aliskerov’s approach. He once again seemed to be taken aback by the rare opponent who could physically meet his bullying style, but he eventually rose to the challenge, started throwing heat and scored the knockout. At 31 years old and without much to prove in terms of his floor, it’s about the right time to match Aliskerov aggressively and see what shakes out. The UFC apparently agrees, but fights against Paulo Costa , Nassourdine Imavov , Anthony Hernandez and Andre Muniz have each fallen through for various reasons, leaving Aliskerov to either fight late replacements or stay on the shelf rather than fighting for a ranking.
This would be another of those spots, as Muniz has been replaced by a Brazilian newcomer in Trocoli, who attempts to make his UFC debut for the fourth time. Somehow a former welterweight at 6-foot-5, Trocoli looked like a decent enough prospect when he initially earned a contract on the Contender Series with a quick submission win in 2019. However, Trocoli was released from that contract after failing his post-fight drug test, and while he has only had one quick win over an overmatched opponent in the ensuing five years, the UFC apparently liked what it saw enough to keep attempting to bring him into the fold. Visa issues scuttled Trocoli stepping in as a late replacement in 2022, and another attempted debut in May fell through for undisclosed reasons. This might mark the toughest potential matchup of them all for Trocoli, and it’s hard to expect much from him after essentially a half decade on the shelf. The pick is Aliskerov via first-round submission.
This is a solid shot at a first UFC win for Cuamba. Given that most winners on the Contender Series in recent years get signed regardless of their level of performance, there’s usually one or two baffling snubs per season, and in 2023, one of those was Cuamba, who put together a consistent and poised performance to coast out a clear decision win. Like most of those other snubs, Cuamba found himself in the UFC a few months later, in this case for a late-notice spot up at lightweight against Bolaji Oki in February. Cuamba got to show off his wares in a split decision loss, using his usual mix of a sniping range striking game and some solid wrestling. Almeida makes for a fun next test in Cuamba’s return to 145 pounds.
Given his preferred fight, Brazil’s Almeida can be an entertaining brawler, though his UFC career has mostly been an exercise in finding out the ways that he can be taken out of that approach. Michael Trizano consistently waded in and eventually lost a fun war of attrition, but Pat Sabatini outwrestled Almeida handily and Andre Fili smoked him with a counter, continuing his struggles with longer fighters. Cuamba isn’t excellent enough in any one area to clearly blow this fight open on paper, but his well-roundedness should be enough to neutralize Almeida for most of this fight, whether it’s via staying at range or turning this into a grind. The pick is Cuamba via decision.
Is Johns finally turning a corner? He came to the UFC in 2019 as a fairly straight-ahead wrestler and has done well to slowly round out his game. However, even after knockout wins over Kevin Natividad and Anderson dos Santos suggested Johns was putting things together as a striker, a subsequent loss to John Castaneda brought back some worries about how well he could hang against opponents willing to meet him on his own terms and apply some pressure. Johns is now coming off performances against Dan Argueta and Cody Gibson where he has looked much more comfortable and capable in the face of constant aggression, though he has yet to put together the one dominant showing that suggests he’s ready to be ranked in what might be the UFC’s deepest division.
Silva de Andrade makes for a tough next test, as the Brazilian has settled in as a gatekeeper to the UFC’s Top 20 or so bantamweights. An elite athlete whose game is essentially self-taught, “D’Silva” is a proverbial tank. His techniques might not look all that pretty, but he’ll throw them hard with maximum force, leaning on his power and durability to see him through. That makes for an interesting pairing here. Silva de Andrade is clearly the fighter more capable of fight-changing moments of offense, but his lack of defense should give up a lot of those gains against an increasingly poised and technically sound version of Johns. Silva de Andrade could win this with a few big shots, but the lean is that Johns’ consistency can see him through, particularly if he looks to take advantage of the Brazilian’s spotty wrestling. The pick is Johns via decision.
The UFC’s flyweight division has added some potentially high-level talent over the last few years, and Kazakhstan’s Almabaev is certainly on that list. Almabaev’s success is a fairly simple proposition at this point, as he’s a quick athlete with a lightning-fast wrestling game. Almabaev has also shown the grappling chops to get things done—revisit his UFC debut against Ode Osbourne in August—though a decision win over C.J. Vergara also proved he can lock down a fight if needed. It’ll be interesting to see how Almabaev fares if he gets locked out of the best parts of his game, but it’s unclear if that’ll happen here against Johnson.
Johnson was on the fringes of a UFC callup for years before finally earning a contract in 2022, and he figures to bring some entertaining chaos to the proceedings as a reedy and aggressive fighter with some questionable defense. That has proven true through two UFC fights. He left himself open for a rare twister to get tapped out by Da’Mon Blackshear in his UFC debut but found his own late submission in a wild back-and-forth war against Chad Anheliger in November. The big headline in this pairing? Johnson, who at 6-foot tall was already one of the tallest bantamweights on the roster, cuts another 10 pounds to fight at flyweight. Even beyond the medical concerns, Johnson’s questionable takedown defense at 135 pounds seems like an even bigger liability against someone able to force the issue as quickly as Almabaev. The pick is Almabaev via first-round submission.
Quinlan has been a frustrating fighter, but the hope is that he can turn things around here. Quinlan has always been an obvious powerhouse and a knockout threat, but a lot of his regional career saw him meander before scoring a finish. After quick wins on the Contender Series and in his UFC debut, the hope was that Quinlan had finally learned to pull the trigger. Instead, his last two fights have been more exercises in frustration, particularly since Quinlan has been matched against taller and longer opponents. Against both Trey Waters and Danny Barlow , Quinlan was mostly content to get picked apart at range while failing to find an opportunity to break the fight open.
To that end, Fugitt should be a more forgiving matchup, as he finds himself on prospect-testing duty once again. Fugitt is a grimy opportunist with a solid level of durability who’s mostly looked to swarm his opponents and see what shakes out. That worked to great effect for a one-sided win against Yusaku Kinoshita in 2023, but losses to Michael Morales and Mike Malott saw Fugitt come out clearly on the worse end of some wars of attrition. Fugitt’s approach will likely give Quinlan the opportunity to pull the trigger and score a knockout rather than force him to find an opening himself. The pick is Quinlan via first-round knockout.
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