Stock Report: UFC Fight Night 217

Sean Strickland on Saturday led a pack of contenders looking to get back on track, or take a step forward, at UFC Fight Night 217.

In the light heavyweight main event of “UFC Vegas 67,” Strickland stepped up on less than a week’s notice and won a unanimous decision over fellow middleweight standout Nassourdine Imavov. In so doing, the 31-year-old “Tarzan” snapped the first losing streak of his professional career, blunted Imavov’s momentum in the 185-pound division and reaffirmed his place as a contender there.

Strickland was not the only ranked fighter with a lot at stake at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Up and down the main card in particular, UFC Fight Night 217 featured numerous matchups with quiet implications for divisional rankings and title pictures. In the wake of “UFC Vegas 67,” here are some fighters whose stock rose or fell in notable fashion.

STOCK UP: Dan Ige

As a reliable action fighter and one of the standout alumni of the first season of Dana White's Contender Series, Ige may have been secure in his UFC roster spot whether he won or lost to Damon Jackson on Saturday despite having lost four of his last five, but at the very least he was fighting for any last vestige of contender status. That the UFC matched “50K” against Jackson, who came in at 5-1 since rejoining the promotion in 2020, spoke volumes: Jackson had earned his chance to prove himself against an opponent with name value, and Ige was in the position of steppingstone.

It was not to be, however. Ige outstruck Jackson for a round and change before blasting him with a short left hand late in the second frame. The walk-off TKO was reminiscent of the savagery of Ige’s initial run up the featherweight ranks, and once he followed it up with a heartfelt tribute to One Championship teen atomweight phenom Victoria Lee, who tragically passed away in December, it completed the most memorable night any fighter from UFC Fight Night 217 can claim.

STOCK UP: Abdul Razak Alhassan

Like Ige, Alhassan entered the Apex on Saturday on a 1-4 skid and with plenty to prove, but unlike Ige, Alhassan’s recent performances had not been uniformly entertaining, and he had missed weight twice in that span to boot. For those reasons, “Judo Thunder” was probably fighting for his continued employment in his prelim feature against Claudio Ribeiro, who came in fresh off the Contender Series on a six-fight winning streak. The old lion refused to be a meal for the young lion, however, as Alhassan dropped a competitive first round to the Brazilian, then rocked him early in Round 2. Relentless and accurate follow-up strikes closed out the show just 28 seconds into the round, and just like that, Alhassan’s recent record could be rephrased from “lost four of five” to “won two of his last three.” That 2-1 run coincides with the Ghanaian-American’s decision to relocate his training from Fortis MMA in Texas to Elevation Fight Team in Colorado, vindicating that move and preserving his place in the middleweight division.

STOCK DOWN: Ketlen Vieira

She may have been fighting second out of five main card fights, but Vieira was probably the fighter at “UFC Vegas 67” who would have been closest to a title shot with a win. “Fenomeno” carried a 7-2 UFC mark into her clash with perennial bantamweight contender Raquel Pennington, and those seven wins included victories over previous champs Miesha Tate and Holly Holm, as well as former title contenders Sara McMann and Cat Zingano. Only a pair of ill-timed losses, the last of which was compounded by missing weight, had kept Vieira away from a shot at Amanda Nunes, but a win over Pennington would have put three wins and two years between Vieira and that most recent setback.

The fight looked like most Vieira fights, as she and Pennington put in three rounds of grueling, grinding clinch work and low-volume striking. The difference came when the scores were read, and Vieira came out on the wrong end of a split decision. While most observers seemed to believe the Brazilian should have won, it was her fourth split verdict in 10 Octagon appearances; she is now 3-1 in those, but her apparent inability to put a decisive stamp on rounds leaves her at the mercy of the judges, calling into question whether she can string together enough wins to rise to the top of even the threadbare women’s 135-pound division.

STOCK DOWN: Jimmy Flick

Thanks to Sijara Eubanks’ completely unsurprising blown weight cut and subsequently scrapped curtain-jerker against Priscila Cachoeira, Flick earns the dubious honor of losing the first UFC bout of 2023. When “The Brick” announced his retirement at the end of 2020, right after landing a flying triangle choke on Cody Durden in his UFC debut, it was mildly surprising. The then 30-year-old Oklahoman had signed with the UFC from DWCS just months before, and his sensational submission of Durden was just the kind of highlight-reel moment that often helps a prospect stand out from the Contender Series pack.

When Flick rejoined the UFC a few months ago, it wasn’t so surprising—MMA retirements almost never stick, especially if the retiring fighter has a UFC roster spot awaiting their return—but it ended up being an object lesson in striking while the iron is hot. His flying triangle was on the sizzle reel, but we needed to be reminded of it after two years. He had aged from 30 to 32, squandering a serious chunk of the athletic prime of a fighter in the lighter divisions. Most importantly, he looked rusty, uncomfortable and tentative in the cage, getting chewed up on the feet by Charles Johnson en route to a first-round TKO loss. Flick will surely get another chance or two to bounce back in the UFC, but he may never again be quite the hot ticket he was before that hiatus.