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UFC Atlanta mailbag: Kamaru Usman turns back the clock, Rose Namajunas as 125 contender, and Paul Craig’s upkick of doom

LaPhezz June 18, 2025
Jed Meshew https://ift.tt/T62U7ac
UFC Fight Night: Usman v Buckley
Kamaru Usman | Photo by Cooper Neill/Zuffa LLC

UFC Atlanta is in the books, and Kamaru Usman is back in the winner’s circle.

This past Saturday, Usman turned back the clock, putting on a vintage performance against the surging Joaquin Buckley, taking a unanimous decision win. The victory re-inserted Usman in the welterweight title picture and reminded everyone that Usman is one of the very best fighters to ever step in the cage.

On top of that, Rose Namajunas also got back in the win column with a solid performance over Miranda Maverick, and a few other things happened, so let’s talk about it all.

Kamaru Usman

How do you think prime Usman would have fared against this current crop of contenders?

Here’s the thing: Kamaru Usman is possibly the second-greatest welterweight of all-time (people sleep on Matt Hughes, who was a certified demon in his time) and almost certainly one of the 25 greatest fighters of all-time. When you’re that level of fighter, you don’t go quietly into the night. True all-time greats continue to pick up meaningful wins years after their primes, and we saw that on Saturday with Usman.

Here’s the other thing: Usman, in particular, is well-served to age gracefully. Usman’s game was never really about explosive athleticism or reactions, meaning he should hold up better for longer, as age comes for athletic traits first. Usman is definitely past his prime, but even this version of Usman can still be dangerous against the current crop of contenders.

Which leads me to my answer: pretty damn well. The Usman of Saturday is still an absolute handful for the Shavkat Rakhmonovs and Sean Bradys of the world. The Usman of four years ago? He’s a problem for them. A big problem.

Usman is a defensively responsible grappler, with elite takedown defense and solid, fundamental striking. That’s a tough out any day of the week. God love Sean Brady, but even now, I’m not sure he could ragdoll Usman around, meaning his underdeveloped striking game would be a problem. 2020 Usman? I’m taking him comfortably. Now, as for guys like Jack Della Maddalena and Ian Machado Garry, they have a better shot at Usman in either form, as they are more nimble on the feet and could, theoretically, mute some of his offensive grappling.

That being said, I’m still picking prime Usman over almost any welterweight ever, perhaps even prime Georges St-Pierre. The man is an all-time great for a reason.

Rose Namajunas

Can Namajunas become a champion at 125?

Can? Sure. Will? No.

At this point, it seems safe to call Namajunas one of the seven best flyweights in the world, and almost definitionally, anyone who is that high up can become champion. It just takes a couple of lucky breaks and one great night at the office. And for Rose in particular, she’ll need fewer breaks than others because she’s so popular. But I wouldn’t bet the farm on her getting to the belt.

The problem for Namajunas is that she’s not a flyweight. Elite fighters can always find success up a weight class, but at some point, there come serious physical limitations to fighting above your natural weight. Manon Fiorot beat Rose by simply being bigger, and Erin Blanchfield — who isn’t even a massive flyweight — did something similar. Even on Saturday, Miranda Maverick damn near tapped Rose because she wound up on top and is a hoss. The margins for error get so much smaller when you’re fighting up, and that’s the core blocker for Namajunas right now.

Still, there’s very much a world where Zhang Weili moves up to challenge Valentina Shevchenko, and while I favor “Bullet” in that one, if Zhang wins, it’s very possible the UFC goes for Zhang vs. Rose III. And when you won the first two encounters, you’ve gotta like your chances in the third as well.

Rodolfo Bellato and the upkick of doom

Who’s the better actor: Bellato or Aljo?

Is flopping going to be a thing now? It was rewarded last night

For those out of the loop, Rodolfo Bellato vs. Paul Craig ended in a no-contest after an illegal upkick from Craig resulted in one of the most bizarre reactions I’ve ever seen from Bellato, who clearly appealed to the referee before apparently going unconscious and then waking up with no idea what was going on. Since Saturday, I’ve watched every angle of this incident about 1000 times, breaking it down like the Zapruder film, and I genuinely don’t know what happened.

What I can say confidently is that one of two things happened. Either Bellato was hit with the upkick, and had a delayed reaction to the blow, a la Shane Burgos and Edson Barboza, OR Bellato went flopping for a DQ win and is a world-class actor. After much debate and discussion, I’ve come down on the side of the former.

The big reason I think it’s an honest situation is it makes no sense otherwise. It’s not like Bellato was losing the fight and needed to do something so outlandish to try and get a free win. Bellato was probably winning the round and was massively favored to win the fight. Furthermore, refs never DQ people in the UFC. By far the most likely outcome in that scenario is a no-contest, meaning Bellato would have ruined his own chance at two paychecks or a bonus. That makes zero sense. Plus, I’ve seen MMA fighters act. They are all terrible at it. No chance Bellato is that good.

So, as hard as it may be to swallow, Occam’s Razor is probably correct here, and that scene, while completely bizarre, is not nefarious. Sometimes weird stuff happens in MMA.

Michael Chiesa

What the hell is Michael Chiesa doing with his career? No direction, goals or aspirations it seems.

Vibing, and it’s great.

On Saturday, Chiesa won a dreadfully boring decision win over Court McGee to pick up his third consecutive win and, more importantly, move to 4-0 over fellow The Ultimate Fighter champions. Afterward, Chiesa was open about just kinda fighting because he loves it, and has some small goals to shoot at. It was lovely, and I wish more fighters would be that honest with themselves and with us.

Chiesa is never going to fight for a belt, so why pretend? One of the things that frustrates me the most about sports in general, and MMA in particular, is the ludicrous discourse around titles. Yes, titles are great, but there is much more to life than winning belts. Getting paid to do something you love to do is the most anyone should ever hope for, and Chiesa is doing just that.

Furthermore, there was a period of time when Chiesa was one of the 10 best people in the world at his job. That’s awesome and something that should be celebrated instead of looked at as “Well, he didn’t win the belt.” If I can spend my professional career doing things I like, and being one of the best people alive at that thing, I will consider mine a life well-lived. We should all be so lucky.

Islam Makhachev

What are your thoughts on Islam not wanting to relinquish his 155 lbs belt? would it be the funniest thing in UFC history if the night before they have to drop Illia Topuria and Charles Oliveira to Co-Main because Islam refuses to vacate?

Of course, Islam didn’t want to vacate his title because no one would. There’s no benefit to dropping the belt, and pure upside to keeping it. Topuria didn’t want to bail on his belt either, but the UFC appears to be done with the champ-champ era, at least for now. Which I would like to appreciate, but I think it’s stupid.

The issue is what if Topuria/Makhachev lose? If they lose, and still have their other titles, then either/both men could simply drop back down to defend it, like we saw with Alexander Volkanovski. But by vacating their titles, the promotion now puts a somewhat paper belt on someone else, and if Makhachev/Topuria has to come back to their respective divisions with their tail tucked, it’s a bad look. If Topuria loses to Oliveira, and returns to featherweight to cold Volkanovski again, then what was the point of all that? Same with Makhachev.

And I fear this is only going to continue now that Topuria opened the floodgates. Because while it seems like he’s risking something, he’s not really, and more people are likely to follow suit.

The real answer to this is to simply codify double-champ opportunities. You string together five title defenses, and bam, immediate title fight. Otherwise, you have to abandon the division fully and bump up and fight a contender before you can be in position to challenge for a belt. Because in a meritocratic world, neither Topuria nor Makhachev deserves to fight for a second belt right now (albeit for very different reasons), but that’s not the world we live in.

Thanks for reading and thanks to everyone who sent in tweets (Xs?)! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck because you can send your tweets to me, @JedKMeshew, and I will answer all the good ones! It doesn’t matter if they’re topical or insane, just so long as they are good. Thanks again, and see y’all next week.



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