The Ultimate Fighting Championship on Saturday heads back to the UFC Apex in Las Vegas with a card that has struggled to stay intact. The UFC on ESPN 61 main event was a curious choice from the jump, as Marcin Tybura and Sergey Spivak run back what was a clear win for the Pole four and a half years ago. While their rematch initially came with a decent amount of support, difficulties arose and changes ensued ahead of fight week. As a result, a showdown between featherweight scrappers Damon Jackson and Jose Mariscal serves as the clear highlight, with most of the other intrigue found in a few fresh prospects getting some interesting tests. Promotional newcomer Quang Le gets thrown into the fire against bantamweight mainstay Chris Gutierrez , while welterweight Danny Barlow draws Nikolay Veretennikov in a potential showcase at 170 pounds.
Now to the UFC on ESPN 61 “Tybura vs. Spivak 2” preview:
Tybura’s 2020 victory over Spivak didn’t seem to leave many unanswered questions, but the two run it back four years and change later. That win was much-needed for Tybura at the time. He had put together a solid campaign since signing with the UFC in 2016 but had lost four of his last five, including three knockouts that suggested the Pole might be on a permanent downswing. However, the win over Spivak was back to basics for “Tybur,” who leaned on his wrestling and grappling for a fairly one-sided decision victory. Since then, Tybura has settled back in as a gatekeeper to the heavyweight elite. In a division built around durability and knockout power, Tybura has essentially hit the ceiling for how far someone can get without either. Against most of the division, Tybura can survive enough to outpace his opponent over the long haul and get to those solid skills on the mat, but a clear decision loss to Alexander Volkov in 2021 and a quick knockout loss to Tom Aspinall in 2023 continued to establish the ceiling that he has hit throughout most of his career. If nothing else, a March win over Tai Tuivasa was a nice bit of business against the type of opponent capable of knocking Tybura out. It would’ve been nice to see him back testing a striker here, but instead, he gets the chance to run back the Spivak fight.
Spivak had made his UFC debut less than a year prior to his first fight with Tybura, and at that point, it wasn’t clear if the Moldovan would stick in the UFC. He showed some interesting wrestling and grappling skills on the regional scene, but it wasn’t a positive sign when he got quickly knocked out by Walt Harris in his UFC debut. Spivak rebounded with a submission win over Tuivasa, who was going through his own career nadir at the time. After Spivak lost to Tybura in one-sided fashion, it was easy to write that result off as saying more negatively about Tuivasa than positively for “The Polar Bear.” However, Spivak wound up charging his way up the rankings with six wins in seven fights, losing only to Aspinall over the next three years. He still did so on the back of a one-dimensional approach, but the lack of standout wrestlers at heavyweight allowed Spivak to make a lot of hay, particularly once he started developing some skills as a finisher on the mat. Like Tybura, Spivak recently got reminded of his ceiling. In Spivak’s case, his last fight against Ciryl Gane some 11 months ago saw him accomplish little. The Frenchman was able to keep the fight standing and chip away at Spivak before a second-round knockout. If this fight hadn’t happened already, it’d be an interesting battle to sort things out in terms of the pecking order of heavyweight wrestlers. Those questions have already been asked and answered. If there’s any drama, it’s whether or not Tybura can finish this within 25 minutes. Given his improvement as a finisher on the mat, the call is that he can spare everyone this fight going the full five rounds. The pick is Tybura via third-round submission.
Gutierrez finally makes his first trip to the Octagon of 2024, as “ El Guapo ” looks to turn over a new leaf after a rough 2023 campaign. Gutierrez dropped his UFC debut to Raoni Barcelos back in 2019, then quietly became the dark horse of the division, going undefeated in his next eight fights over the next three years. It was easy to ignore Gutierrez’s success at first, since his approach wasn’t particularly electric. A neutralizer at heart, Gutierrez was content to stay at range and break down his opponents with an impressive array of leg kicks. However, 2022 seemed to be the year that Gutierrez learned to effectively turn defense into offense, as he scored brutal knockouts of Batgerel Danaa and Frankie Edgar to end the year as a potential contender. Gutierrez’s momentum wound up being halted by Pedro Munhoz in April 2023, and it seems to be a fight that has also caused him to regress a bit. Munhoz hurt the Factory X rep early and essentially took him out of the fight, and Gutierrez spent his last two performances making a clear pivot back to his more defensively minded ways. Gutierrez’s last fight, a main event loss to Yadong Song in December, suggests that some of his problems might be mental beyond the limitations of his approach. He got off to a hot start, but once Song cracked the proverbial code and started finding success, things went off the rails badly as Gutierrez failed to regroup. At any rate, he gets a clear step back to try and rebuild some momentum against a UFC newcomer in Le, who steps in for a late-notice Octagon debut.
Le was scheduled to compete on Dana White’s Contender Series later this year, having earned the spot with an undefeated record and some recent knockout wins. That striking power seems to clearly be Le’s ticket to success in the UFC for the time being. He’s at his most comfortable when he has time and space to set things up, but he has also shown an ability to throw down and land some hard shots when things get wilder than he’d prefer. Le should run into trouble going forward if the UFC pairs him with stronger wrestlers, but this is an advantageous matchup stylistically for the promotional newcomer, since Gutierrez should be patient enough to give him his preferred pace and distance. Of course, the issue is that this is a massive step up in competition for Le, so while there are some interesting dynamics at play, the likeliest scenario is that Gutierrez just chops him down at will and eventually finds a finish. The pick is Gutierrez via second-round stoppage.
Barlow is one of the more interesting prospects in the UFC’s welterweight division at the moment, since he could cause some real problems once everything completely clicks. Barlow has a ton of physical talent, blessed with a combination of length and speed that has allowed him to dictate the terms of most of his fights thus far. For most of Barlow’s regional career, that resulted in a quick knockout, but his UFC debut did show that things could get a bit more tedious as he moves up the ladder. Faced with another patient power puncher in Josh Quinlan , the two kept their bout at a simmer until things eventually ramped up into a third-round knockout win for Barlow. The 29-year-old Barlow is still less than three years into his career as a professional, so for now, it’d be prudent to just wait for him to develop and hopefully add some depth to his game. To that end, this fight against a late replacement and UFC newcomer in Veretennikov is a solid next step.
Kazakhstan’s Veretennikov is a 2021 alum of the Contender Series and had the bad fortune of getting matched with Michael Morales , who won a fairly complete decision over him before establishing himself as one of the UFC’s brightest young prospects. That defeat is quite forgivable in retrospect, particularly since Veretennikov has rebounded well, looking dangerous but well-rounded in his three fights since returning to the regional scene. Veretennikov looks like a jack of all trades and master of none who might not stand out at the UFC level but should wind up as a perennial tough out. Here, he gets matched against another rangy top prospect who figures to consistently keep him at bay. It could take Barlow a while to get going, but the lean is that he breaks this fight open at some point. The pick is Barlow via second-round knockout.
When the UFC picked up Mariscal in 2023, “Chepe” figured to be a fun undercard fighter who would struggle to break through. He’d been at this for nearly a decade and put together a bunch of solid wins, but most of his major steps up in competition didn’t go Mariscal’s way. About 14 months later, Mariscal is suddenly and surprisingly a going concern in the featherweight division after racking up three straight wins and becoming a bit of a prospect killer. Mariscal stood up to the punching power of Trevor Peek and won an entertaining debut, then spoiled the party for top Australian prospect Jack Jenkins , dragging him into a tough fight before injuring his arm with a takedown reversal. While Mariscal’s last win—a decision victory over rising Frenchman Morgan Charriere in April—was a bit controversial, it was yet another case where Mariscal has proven much tougher than expected and found success as a result. Now it’s time for Mariscal to get a bit of a changeup against Jackson, who’s also part of the featherweight class that gets by on aggression and durability.
Jackson had an unmemorable UFC run a decade ago that saw him quickly wash out of the promotion, but he returned in 2020 as a talent with a lot more seasoning and immediately made himself known, scoring a come-from-behind upset of Mirsad Bektic for his first UFC win. From there, Jackson has carved out a niche and established himself just outside of the featherweight rankings, getting out to hot starts and essentially forcing his opponents to keep up. The hardest hitters in the division can make Jackson’s pace a non-factor— Ilia Topuria and Dan Ige each blasted him with little difficulty—but thus far, only Billy Quarantillo has been able to keep pace with him for all three rounds; and it’s an impressive sign for Jackson that he was able to get a decision win over standout athlete Alexander Hernandez over the finish line in April. This should be a nip-tuck scrap, but Jackson gets the nod thanks to his willingness to take the initiative from the jump, along with the bet that Mariscal won’t be able to find a breaking point to turn the fight around against someone who can match him as a gamer. The pick is Jackson via decision.
This is the latest fight to help sort things out in a women’s bantamweight division that always seems to be sorting itself out. Santos is quietly on a three-fight losing skid, but “Foxy” is still entrenched as a solid veteran gatekeeper at the absolute worst. She’s strong enough to clinch up with most anyone, and while her striking isn’t the prettiest, she brings enough activity to the table to keep opponents honest. The end result might not be the most electric fights, but Santos is the reliably tough out who helps keep a lot of divisions humming, even if she’s only now working her way back into an active schedule due to pregnancy. This time around, Santos draws Chandler, who brings some interesting things to the table.
There’s not a lot to Chandler’s striking, but she’s willing to move forward and eat damage in the hopes of getting to her wrestling game, since being on top of opponents is where she’s at her best. It’s still a bit hard to calibrate exactly how well Chandler’s approach works at the UFC level. She was establishing herself as a featherweight prior to the UFC and still hasn’t actually made the 135-pound bantamweight limit. Plus, she got stalled out and punished badly against Norma Dumont in 2023 before rebounding with a win over Josiane Nunes in March. The lean is that Santos can neutralize Chandler’s wrestling enough to outpoint the American on the feet. The pick is Santos via decision.
Two bantamweights look for their first UFC win in this 135-pound tilt. Kazama showed some potential as a wrestler and grappler coming out of Japan, but things haven’t gone particularly well during his time under the UFC banner. Kazama made it to the bantamweight final of the first “Road to UFC” tournament and got quickly and brutally knocked out by countryman Rinya Nakamura , then also got finished within a round by Garrett Armfield a year ago. The hope is that things go better against Cyprus’ Grigoriou, who’s also coming off a disappointing UFC debut.
Grigoriou was a solid enough regional prospect, but things worked out surprisingly well for the Cypriot in his appearance on the Contender Series in 2023, as he was able to score a knockout in a minute flat. However, his follow-up effort against Chad Anheliger was a bit of a return to form. Grigoriou tends to throw out ideas without much consistency, and Anheliger was tough enough to survive and score a decision win. Grigoriou could fall into an ugly grind that winds up as a coinflip, but this looks like a fight where he can eventually find a finish. The pick is Grigoriou via first-round knockout.
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