Preview: Craig vs. Oezdemir
Alternating runs of wins and losses have defined the
Ultimate Fighting Championship run of
Volkan
Oezdemir, and he needs to start a new streak of the positive
kind if he wishes to remain a factor in the light heavyweight
division.
Heading into his matchup with
Paul Craig
at
UFC Fight Night 208 this
Saturday at O2 Arena in London, England, the cards appear to be
stacked against the 32-year-old Swiss knockout artist. On a
two-fight skid and facing a fighter in Craig who has won five
straight, in front of a UK crowd that is likely to be
overwhelmingly vocal in its support of the surging Scot, Oezdemir
has his work cut out for him. That is par for the course:
Oezdemir’s 5-5 mark in the Octagon might look pedestrian on paper,
but as much as anything else, it reflects his brutal slate of
opposition. Despite having exclusively faced ranked contenders from
his very first UFC appearance, “No Time” once won his way to a
205-pound title shot. The road back to another chance at gold now
goes through London, and Craig.
As he prepares for his latest test at “UFC London,” a look at five
moments that have defined Oezdemir’s career to this point:
1. Stockholm Shocker
Heading into his sophomore UFC appearance against
Misha
Cirkunov at UFC Fight Night 109 on May 28, 2017 in Stockholm,
Sweden, Oezdemir was the antithesis of a hot prospect: a young
Swiss light heavyweight who had knocked out a bunch of anonymous
foes in European regional shows, gone 1-1 in a couple of
appearances in
Bellator MMA, and then disappeared for two years to
pursue kickboxing. After returning to MMA, he was signed by the
UFC, debuting against
Ovince St.
Preux in a fun fight and
prevailing by questionable split
decision. As a reward—or punishment—for the iffy win, he was
then booked to face Cirkunov, who was at the time 4-0 in the UFC,
on an eight-fight win streak overall, and appeared to be well on
his way to title contention. Until meeting Oezdemir, that is. After
a couple of wild exchanges on the feet, Oezdemir—as a nearly 5-to-1
underdog— clipped Cirkunov with a short right hand that sent the
Latvian-Canadian judoka face-first to the floor, completely
unconscious in just 28 seconds. Whatever cachet Cirkunov carried
into the fight had been taken from him by mugging, and the light
heavyweight division had a new problem.
2. Ticket: Punched
Realizing that it had something in the young bruiser, the UFC next
booked Oezdemir against fellow knockout artist
Jimi Manuwa
on the pay-per-view main card of UFC 214, which was headlined by
the light heavyweight title rematch between
Jon Jones and
Daniel
Cormier. In what was all but proclaimed to be an eliminator
fight for the next shot at the 205-pound belt, the two faced off on
July 29, 2017 in Anaheim, Calif. “Poster Boy” was fresh off
posterizing St. Preux and
Corey
Anderson in back-to-back knockout wins, and entered the cage as
a nearly 2-to-1 favorite. Manuwa and Oezdemir clinched almost
immediately and the British kickboxer shoved his foe to the fence,
where Oezdemir crushed him with short uppercuts up the middle.
Hurt—and clearly startled by Oezdemir’s power—Manuwa disengaged and
tried to reset in open space, but Oezdemir gave chase, put him down
with big left hand, and pounded him into oblivion with ground
strikes. In just 42 seconds—adding up to barely over a minute of
total cage time for two brutal knockouts—Oezdemir had completed his
transition from quiet newcomer to title contender.
3. There Are Levels to This
After Jones’ drug test failure invalidated his UFC 214 win over
Cormier, “DC” inherited the belt vacated by his nemesis and kicked
off his light heavyweight title reign with a first defense against
the red-hot Oezdemir. Their meeting, in the co-main event of UFC
220 in January of 2018, would be an educational experience, and
certainly a humbling one, for Oezdemir. While former NCAA
All-American and Olympic wrestler Cormier was of course expected to
have the advantage on the ground, he first demonstrated that he
didn’t necessarily need it. Cormier easily ducked Oezdemir’s
massive haymakers, navigated his superior reach and tagged him with
punches. Once he looked for the takedown in earnest, everything
became academic. After running out of time on a rear-naked choke
attempt late in the first round, Cormier picked up where he left
off in Round 2. The champ took the challenger down, quickly moved
to a crucifix, and rained down unblocked punches and elbows until
referee
Kevin
MacDonald mercifully stepped in at the two-minute mark.
4. A Win Is a Win
The one-sided loss to Cormier indicated that Oezdemir needed
further development before challenging for another belt, but “back
to the drawing board” became something closer to “back to square
one” when he lost his next two fights as well, to
Anthony
Smith and
Dominick
Reyes, both of whom parlayed wins over “No Time” into title
shots of their own. The closest thing Oezdemir got to a softball
was a matchup with fringe contender
Ilir
Latifi—still a Top 15 fighter, just not a Top 5 fighter—and he
responded by knocking out the stocky Swede after a one-sided fight
at UFC Fight Night 156. Oezdemir then was booked against rising
contender
Aleksandar
Rakic, a matchup that inspired significant déjà vu. Like
Cirkunov, Rakic came into the fight on a massive win streak—12
straight, the last four of those in the UFC—and like St. Preux,
he fell to Oezdemir by contentious
split decision.
5. Crossroads in London
Back in 2017, the St. Preux fight had muted some possible shine for
a debuting fighter, but by the time of the Rakic fight in December
2019, Oezdemir was a known quantity and a veteran face in the
division, and in some sense, any win was good enough. Never mind
that the decision was terrible and the fight itself was dull—that
was more the fault of the cautious Rakic than the kill-or-be-killed
Oezdemir, anyway—it was a second win in a row for a former title
challenger. It was more than enough to vault him directly back into
top-tier matchups, where he has come up short in consecutive fights
with now-champ
Jiri
Prochazka and
Magomed
Ankalaev, who may well be the next challenger for the belt. In
a sense, Oezdemir has never really left the title picture, but if
he plans to be more than a chapter in other contenders’ stories, he
will need to get back on track against Craig this weekend.