The hard thing for me with Gaethje is how badly outclassed he is in some pretty major areas of MMA. He's got a great chin, great kicks, good hands, great cardio, but Khabib and Oliveira make him look like an absolute novice the second they get into grappling exchanges. I understand Gaethje wants to stand and bang, but I just don't see any evolution in those areas, which is unfortunate. Because of that, him vs Islam isn't terribly compelling for me. It's the classic puncher's chance fight.
I am so tired of hearing about Conor. I saw a headline about how impressive it'd be for him to have TKOs in 4 weight classes. Umm, yeah, if you were fighting guys who were actually from that weight class. He has one win in seven years and it's against a washed up Cerrone. Just go away already.
Any rumors as to what will headline 300? The card will obviously be very solid, but I can't think of a compelling headliner. Super quick turnaround with Adesanya fighting the winner at 297? Aspinall-Pereira for the interim HW belt. I feel like this is their just in case headliner.
I'd like to see Gaethje get the next shot because it's a fresh matchup. I do think Islam
probably runs through him, but Oliveira already got his shot and Islam
did run through him. It is complicated, though, because Oliveira stopped Gaethje and I think there is reason to believe Islam-Oliveira would be better than the first one, but still.
I don't really care about people talking about Conor. My biggest problem with Conor is how long this took. Chandler has fought 5 times in the UFC and they have all been fun fights. He fought 3 times in 2021, 2 in 2022, and 0 in 2023 because he was waiting around for Conor. So instead of seeing a fun fighter fight, we saw nothing from him. I can't fault him for it, but I'd much rather have seen Chandler-Arman or something in 2023 than waiting all this time to see Chandler-Conor.
For UFC 300, I think they are hoping DDP beats Strickland so they can do DDP-Izzy. That's the only champ that kind of makes sense to me.
Pantoja wouldn't headline over Leon.
O'Malley and Volk are booked.
Islam's probably not going to be in camp during Ramadan
Maaaaybe Pereira-Hill? Not sure when Hill is expected back.
Jones is probably still out. I don't think they'd have an interim fight over the actual WW title fight (unless it was a massive star which Aspinall isn't).
I think Weili and/or Grasso might get added to pad the card, but they wouldn't headline.
Both Luke and BC predicted Gaethje-Max for the BMF belt, but I don't think that would headline over an actual title fight either.
So unless they got like Rousey-Holm 2 or Rousey-Tate 3 or some other "break glass in case of emergency", I think it's DDP-Izzy (*pending DDP beating Strickland) or Leon-Belal.