Former middleweight champion-turned-analyst Michael Bisping made his feelings clear, as have many of the regular UFC watching public as far as the stakes for this weekend’s flyweight title fight headliner in Rio. Alexandre Pantoja should win emphatically, against a plucky contender given an unlikely shot of a lfietime to win gold just four bouts into his promotional stint. Will he?
Bisping: Pantoja has no weak areas
Alexandre Pantoja (c) vs. Steve Erceg for the UFC flyweight championship
UFC 301 headliner, at the Farmasi Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Main card from 3am BST on Sunday, main event ringwalks anytime after 5am
ALEXANDRE Pantoja’s resume speaks for itself. A pair of wins over former two-time champion Brandon Moreno, the same also applies against #1 contender Brandon Royval while the 34-year-old also previously outfoxed Alex Perez and Manel Kape.
Nicknamed The Cannibal, he makes his first appearance of 2024 this weekend against a relatively newcomer in Australia’s Steve Erceg (12-1, 3-0 UFC) and no-one is expecting the 28-year-old to emerge from the lion’s den victorious.
Michael Bisping expressed as much on his YouTube channel when previewing this weekend’s pay-per-view main event after the craziness of UFC 300 in mid-April has seen subsequent fight events receive considerably less fanfare in the aftermath.
“Pantoja, this man’s phenomenal. He’s pretty much gone through the entire flyweight division, you name it, he’s been there and done it. Got no weak areas, got a strong mind, is resilient, an amazing gas tank, can strike and wrestle, got world-class jiu-jitsu and is a nasty bastard on top of it.”
Erceg earned the shot on the basis of limited top-10 ranked contenders above him being available and deserving it, besides perhaps Muhammad Mokaev [6].
A second-round knockout win over ranked contender Matt Schnell on March 2 unwittingly set the wheels in motion while Mokaev scored a UD3 win over Perez that same night, though it admittedly wasn’t an exciting performance by comparison.
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“Will he get it done? Love Steve Erceg, nice guy but this isn’t the one, not right now, and I say that with respect to Steve. I wish you all the best brother, hope you can prove me wrong. Pantoja is too skilled, too experienced.”
- Bisping’s view, as shared on his YouTube channel
Moicano, good friends and an American Top Team teammate of Pantoja, shares the view of many that Erceg isn’t a big enough opposition name to draw the casual audience in, having only been in the promotion for eleven months.
During a podcast episode with former flyweight king Demetrius Johnson, the #10 ranked lightweight contender wasn’t convinced by the risk vs reward element for his compatriot and cited the Jorge Masvidal vs. Colby Covington grudge match as the sort of build Pantoja should look to create with future opponents.
“This guy’s dangerous but only three UFC fights, nobody knows who he is, not going to sell any pay-per-views. I think Pantoja wanted to fight in Brazil bad because it’s his home, but don’t think it was very smart in the business side.
People don’t realise how this is a business. We need to create a story behind the fights – like Masvidal and Covington – they got bigger because of the beef. UFC and they profited off that, if you see Pantoja fighting another guy nobody knows, it’s not good for the show. Pantoja is better than him everywhere.”
He also opined a matchup against Mokaev would create more intrigue than Erceg, even after a grapple-heavy showing in his Perez win last time out.
The 23-year-old was a highly decorated amateur champion in submission grappling and wrestling, has earned exposure aplenty given his allegiances to England – where he moved aged 12 – and continues building an impressive resume too.
Whether we’ll see that by year’s end remains to be seen but first, Pantoja cannot afford to take his eye off the ball among home comforts this weekend.
UFC 301 card, is as follows
Main card
Flyweight: Alexandre Pantoja (c) vs. Steve Erceg [10]
Bantamweight: Jonathan Martinez [12] vs. Jose Aldo
Light-heavyweight: Anthony Smith [10] vs. Vitor Petrino
Middleweight: Michel Pereira vs. Ihor Potieria
Middle: Paul Craig [13] vs. Caio Borralho [14]
Prelims
Featherweight: Jack Shore vs. Joanderson Brito
Women’s strawweight: Karolina Kowalkiewicz [13] vs. Iasmin Lucindo
Lightweight: Elves Brener vs. Myktybek Orolbai
Light: Joaquim Silva vs. Drakkar Klose
Early prelims
Light: Mauricio Ruffy vs. Jamie Mullarkey
Women’s flyweight: Dione Barbosa vs. Ernesta Kareckaite
Light: Ismael Bonfim vs. Vinc Pichel
Fly: Alessandro Costa vs. Kevin Borjas
Mo and Sports 