Stand and Deliver: UFC 316

Every fight at UFC 316 matters, but some matter just a little more.

A win is a win, and a loss is a loss, but some feel bigger than others for various reasons. In some cases, the elevated stakes are easy to define—the fighter on a losing streak who knows he or she is likely fighting for their job, or conversely, any title fight in a top regional organization, where the combatants know the big leagues are scouting them. At other times, a fight feels especially important for reasons that are harder to quantify but no less real. Whether it’s the unspoken weight of being a pioneer in MMA from one’s native country or the simple added spice of two fighters who genuinely hate each other’s guts, that fight just means more.

On Saturday, the UFC posts up at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, with a 13-fight slate featuring two championship bouts. While the evening is obviously and rightfully topped by the Merab Dvalishvili-Sean O'Malley men’s bantamweight title rematch and Julianna Pena looking to defy the odds once again against challenger Kayla Harrison, there are several fights further down the card that have captured the attention of the truly hardcore. Notably, former Bellator MMA champ Patrick “Patchy” Mix makes his UFC debut—and his case to be considered the top 135-pounder in MMA—in a high-stakes tilt against Mario Bautista.

Among the 26 fighters scheduled to make the walk on Saturday night, here are a couple who are under just a little added pressure to stand and deliver:

Joe Pyfer: Be Joe Pyfer

Sometimes, Dana White develops a fondness for a particular fighter, and when he does, he tends to stick with them through quite a lot. I am not referring to superstars on the Conor McGregor or Brock Lesnar level, either, but people like pre-title reign Raquel Pennington—good but otherwise unremarkable competitors who for whatever reason grab the boss’ eye. This is not a criticism, by the way. At no time does the UFC CEO come off less calculating, less diabolical and more like just another fight fan than when he displays this kind of affinity for fighters who do not stand to immediately make the company tons of money.

Enter Pyfer. “Bodybagz” is the newest iteration of this phenomenon. Look no further than his first appearance on Dana White's Contender Series in 2020, where he fell to a TKO via low-percentage arm injury against Dustin Stoltzfus, only to have White quietly set him up with an apartment for the next year so that his personal and professional lives would not be completely derailed by the setback. Then, when Pyfer returned to the Contender Series two years later, he featured in perhaps the most memorable moment of the season. After Pyfer scored the only finish out of the four bouts that night, hammering Osman Diaz in the second round, a visibly ticked-off White awarded him a contract, snarled at the other fighters to “be Joe Pyfer” and walked off the set.

As much as the moment seemed like a case of White’s customary bluster, it gave a clear definition of what he looks for in a rising prospect, and a clue as to what he saw in Pyfer: a big, athletic, exceedingly violent middleweight who entered every fight bent on knocking out his opponent. Thus far, Pyfer has continued to hold up his end of the bargain, bouncing back from his first UFC loss against Jack Hermansson by thrashing the normally durable Marc-Andre Barriault in under 90 seconds at UFC 303 a year ago. Now that he’s back in the win column, Pyfer has been rewarded again, this time with prime card placement, third from the top, in the featured bout right before the two title fights. Down the card from him are worthy competitors including Mix, one of the best free-agent signings by the UFC in the last decade, and Joshua Van, perhaps the most promising prospect under 25 in the entire promotion.

Factor in that Kelvin Gastelum is easily the biggest name opponent of Pyfer’s career, and that Pyfer is nonetheless a 3-to-1 favorite, and it all adds up to high expectations. The UFC’s best-case scenario is clearly that Pyfer will go out in his highest-profile booking to date, thrash a well-known veteran contender, soak up the adulation of the crowd—Newark is only an hour from Pyfer’s native Philly—and have the kind of star-making, level-up moment that can lead to main event slots and title contention in the near future. No pressure, then; just go out and be yourself.

Sean O'Malley and the Wisdom of Keeping “Suga” on the Shelf

This column generally steers clear of main event participants, especially in title fights, for the simple reason that the stakes are obvious. However, O’Malley faces some additional, sneaky pressure in his second crack at Dvalishvili. The new champ has already defended his title since taking it from O’Malley last September, outpointing Umar Nurmagomedov at UFC 311 in January. By handing the undefeated Dagestani his first professional loss—and an underdog, no less—the relentless Dvalishvili elevated his stock even further. Meanwhile, O’Malley has been absent from the Octagon for nearly nine months.

According to O'Malley, he has spent the time developing and improving himself in ways other than the strictly athletic. He has pointed to such factors as fatherhood, reduction in social media use, and abandoning former habits such as dyeing his hair and smoking cannabis as indicators of a new, more mature approach to his personal and professional lives as he passed his 30th birthday. I am not here to mock or devalue those things; if you ask me, some of them were overdue. Still, they make the rematch a harder sell than it would have been if O’Malley had spent the intervening time beating a top bantamweight contender like Cory Sandhagen or Mario Bautista. One quirk stemming from O’Malley’s relatively fast track to his title shot and Dvalishvili’s ultra-slow one is that O’Malley actually has far more fresh matchups available.

Instead, “Suga” chose to work on himself and wait for a rematch, and that’s where the added pressure comes in, headed into Saturday’s headliner. If O’Malley wins, everything is validated. There would probably be a rubber match, but O'Malley’s destiny would remain in his own hands. However, look no further than O’Malley’s bantamweight predecessor Cody Garbrandt—an early analogue of “Suga” if ever there was one—for the impossible position in which he will find himself if he loses back-to-back fights against the same rival. If Dvalishvili goes 2-0 against O’Malley at UFC 316, we may be in for a title reign of at least a couple of years, and for as long as the relentless Georgian remains on the throne, it will be extremely difficult for O’Malley to get back into the title picture. In effect, he has painted himself into a corner where it’s now or never.