The first Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) first card of 2024 is sticking to what’s become the standard formula: a bunch of cancelations and newbies sourced from Contender Series and Legacy Fighting Alliance (LFA). On this edition of “New Blood,” the series forcing me back to reality after the holidays, we checkout two Contender Series graduates and a regional Flyweight champ making a delayed debut at UFC Vegas 84 this weekend (Sat., Jan. 13, 2024) inside UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Jean “Lord Assassin” Silva
Weight Class: Featherweight
Age: 27
Record: 11-2 (8 KO, 2 SUB)
Notable Victories: Kevin Vallejos, Valdemir Cardoso
Seven consecutive first-round finishes carried Silva to Contender Series, where he battled undefeated Argentinean wunderkind, Kevin Vallejos. Though he entered as the underdog, violent efforts in the second and third rounds earned Silva both his first decision win and the chance to join teammate, Caio Borralho, inside the Octagon.
He steps in for Gabriel Silva on less than one month’s notice.
“Animated” would be one word to describe Silva. He’s a highly mobile switch hitter, constantly feinting and/or taunting before bursting in with some variation of the 1-2. Forgive me the cliche, but he puts everything into every shot — even when he misses, you can almost see the smoke training from his fists. While he’s got a profound fondness for flying knees and a looping right hand to the body that makes me wistful for John Lineker’s heyday, his elbows are the featured attraction. He makes extensive use of the “spearing” elbows Paul Felder famously used to rearrange Alessandro Ricci’s face and his level elbows are every bit as lethal, as Vallejos learned when Silva blasted him upwards with a knee and immediately chopped him down with an elbow.
Silva is clearly an athletic marvel and a genuine terror when he flips the switch and starts mauling. My concern is that his game is extremely reliant on his durability and fast-twitch reflexes. His chin is always there for the taking when he unloads; his defense consists of either pulling his head back if he sees the counter coming or putting on his earmuffs. He doesn’t check low kicks, he doesn’t protect his face with his free hand when punching, and he’s inconsistent about using his jab despite having a genuine head-snapper.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s been devastatingly effective so far. It’s just a style with an expiration date. Also, he needs to stop trying to coax the ref into stopping the fight when he’s going for the kill. He did that in both the fights I watched and it’s not a good habit.
There’s not much recent footage of his grappling, unfortunately. He shut down Vallejos’ takedowns well enough, and while he doesn’t get quite low enough on his own level changes, he did hit a very cool high-crotch slam on Vallejos before effectively letting him up. With someone like Borralho on his side, I don’t imagine his ground game being a liability.
Though I don’t peg him as a title contender, Silva’s going to put on some real shows in UFC. He’s also going to absolutely murk debut foe Westin Wilson, who doesn’t have the range management skills to keep Silva at bay or the defense to survive his offense.
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Tom “Big Train” Nolan
Weight Class: Lightweight
Age: 23
Record: 6-0 (4 KO)
Notable Victories: Bogdan Grad, Adam Cook
After making his amateur debut at just 16 years old, Nolan racked up a 6-1 record before turning professional in 2020. Five wins on the Australian circuit sent him to Contender Series, where he needed just 83 seconds to knockout Bogdan Grad and claim a UFC contract.
Nolan’s team certainly picked an appropriate nickname, as the 6’3” giant loves nothing more than running over opponents. That’s not to say that he doesn’t know how to use his range; on the contrary, he has a nice arsenal of kicks, including the snap kick to the body that more tall guys need to utilize, and throws a very crisp straight left. He just seems to be in his element once he’s bullied opponents to the fence, where he’ll put them in a blender of punches and elbows while slamming home knees whenever they dip their heads.
The effectiveness of his shock-and-awe approach was on full display in his 2022 finish of City Kickboxing’s Adam Cook. Cook took advantage of Nolan’s overcommitment to score takedowns and put him in bad spots on the ground, but Nolan essentially sapped the life out of him with mauling assaults every time he made it back to his feet. That downright freakish gas tank of his is a weapon, and a potent one at that.
While I’m not saying he has to turn into Wladimir Klitschko, I do think he’d be well-served dialing it back just a bit. His punching form can fall apart when he commits to a blitz, leaving his chin exposed, and he doesn’t always protect his chin with his free hand. His forward momentum can also leave him open to takedowns, which Cook exploited and more recent foe Aiden Aguilera attempted to exploit.
That said, he does seem to be getting sharper fight to fight, so the prognosis is good.
On the grappling side, he’s got quality submission defense and is always looking to get back to his feet. Cook put him through a never-ending chain of submission attempts without ever really getting close to a finish. At the same time, Cook also racked up quite a bit of back control when Nolan tried to turn to his knees and stand. Surviving bad positions is important, of course, but you have to know how to break away from your opponent. Just look at Jun Yong Park’s recent loss to Andre Muniz to see what happens when that aspect of your grappling is missing.
To his credit, Nolan’s pressure eventually forced Cook to take worse and worse shots, allowing him to keep it standing and plug away for the finish.
Offensively, he’s quick to threaten front chokes when opponents take poor shots. He doesn’t seem hugely interested in forcing the grappling, though, as he let up Grad after dropping him.
Nolan definitely looks like one to watch. His blend of size, speed and cardio is something to behold. With a couple more years of seasoning, I wouldn’t be too shocked to see him knock on the door of the Top 15. At the very least, he’ll be far too much for debut foe Nikolas Motta, who seems to have lost all confidence and durability.
Felipe “Felipinho” Bunes
Weight Class: Flyweight
Age: 33
Record: 13-6 (2 KO, 8 SUB)
Notable Victories: Yuma Horiuchi, Yoni Sherbatov
Bunes’ run on the Russian circuit ended in a 1-3 skid, prompting him to take his talents to LFA. After falling to an overweight Jussier Formiga in his promotional debut, he returned to the win column with a split decision over Wascar Cruz, then knocked out Yuma Horiuchi for the Flyweight title.
As you might expect from someone who trains with the Pitbull brothers, Bunes is technically sound, well-rounded and darn violent when he wants to be. On the feet, he utilizes an impressive-for-Flyweight, 71-inch reach to potshot with one- and two-punch combinations to the head and body. Despite being so lanky, he’s remarkably quick, and he’s also happy to bust out spinning techniques at a moment’s notice alongside the more traditional punches and low kicks. Should opponents get inside, he’s got strong clinch knees with which to punish them.
It’s a stout, technically sound striking offense let down by a handful of issues. For one, his tall, flat-footed stance leaves him open to low kicks, which Horiuchi exploited to good effect before Bunes finally timed a check hook perfectly. On top of that, he can back straight up and has a tendency to bring his left hand back low, especially when sitting down on a heavy right.
I do also want to point out that he can get overly fond of the spinning attacks. He was doing a remarkably good job of shutting down Formiga’s vaunted grappling before a whiffed spinning back kick allowed Formiga to take his back and choke him out Grasso-Shevchenko style.
His grappling looks sharp overall, as seen when he hit a flying triangle armbar on Yoni Sherbatov when the latter caught a head kick. Formiga, who boasts some of the best back takes in MMA history, only managed to secure dominant position because of the aforementioned spinning back kick giving him a golden opportunity. He times his entries well, plays a heavy top game, and can hit some quick back takes of his own, though he throws less ground-and-pound than I’d like.
That said, he did have issues securing and maintaining position against a journeyman in Cruz for the first half of their fight, at one point getting swept after trying to move from side control to mount.
My assessment? Solid, but unspectacular. Outside of the spinning techniques, there’s nothing hugely eye-catching about his game either offensively or defensively. He’s also 33 years old, so it’s unlikely we’ll see the improvement necessary for a title run. Unfortunately for him, he’ll need it, as debut foe Josh Van has him outclassed in terms of striking.
His LFA bouts are on Fight Pass.
Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC Vegas 84 fight card right here, starting with the ESPN+ “Prelims” matches, which are scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. ET, then the remaining main card balance (also on ESPN+) at 7 p.m. ET.
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