Stand and Deliver: UFC 313

Every fight matters, but some matter just a little more.

A win is a win, and a loss is a loss, but some feel bigger than others for various reasons. In some cases, the elevated stakes are easy to define—the fighter on a losing streak who knows he or she is likely fighting for their job, or conversely, any title fight in a top regional organization, where the combatants know the big leagues are scouting them. At other times, a fight feels especially important for reasons that are harder to quantify but no less real. Whether it’s the unspoken weight of being a pioneer in MMA from one’s native country or the simple added spice of two fighters who genuinely hate each other’s guts, that fight just means more.

On Saturday, UFC 313 takes place at the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s de facto home stadium, T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Headlined by Alex Pereira, arguably the sport’s most popular active fighter and indisputably its biggest breakout star of the last five years, in a light heavyweight title defense against Magomed Ankalaev, the 12-fight card features contenders, veterans and prospects from just about every stage of the professional fighter’s life cycle. While 24 men and women are set to make the walk this weekend, every single one with plenty on the line, here are a couple who should be feeling just a little extra pressure to stand and deliver:

Oh, The Disrespect, Part 1: Curtis Blaydes

In previewing Blaydes’ upcoming tilt with UFC newcomer Rizvan Kuniev in the top prelim of UFC 313, I was reminded of Brock Lesnar’s Octagon debut at UFC 81 all the way back in 2008, in which the World Wrestling Entertainment star and 1-0 MMA neophyte was matched up with former heavyweight champ Frank Mir. During the build-up to that fight, Mir said something that has stuck with me for nearly two decades. Amid the expected back-and-forth hyperbolic trash talk from a pro wrestling heel and a voluble contender, Mir made a matter of fact and apparently sincere statement to the effect of, “It shouldn’t be this easy for someone to get a fight with me.” Mir went on to back up that sentiment in the cage—with a little help from a golden horseshoe, perhaps.

Let us fast-forward to March 2025 and consider the case of Blaydes. The massive Illinoisan is on the short list of the greatest heavyweight wrestlers in MMA history as well as the most accomplished UFC fighters not to have held an undisputed belt. He is 13-5 with one no contest in the UFC, with all five losses coming against Top 5 (or better) opponents in fights with immediate heavyweight title implications. In every other case, Blaydes has won, generally in dominant fashion. Tellingly, the four men to defeat Blaydes—Tom Aspinall, Sergei Pavlovich, Derrick Lewis and Francis Ngannou (twice)—are among the hardest hitters the sport has ever seen. While the blueprint for beating Blaydes has been an open secret for years—fight off the takedown or get back up, then hit him in the head, preferably hard enough to put him down with a single strike—if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.

That brings us to Saturday and the Blaydes-Kuniev bout. While Kuniev, a longtime teammate of Ankalaev and a veteran of both Dana White's Contender Series and the Professional Fighters League, is a moderately promising heavyweight who should stick around the UFC for a while, there is absolutely nothing in his fight reel to indicate that he can pull off the same kind of sprawl-and-killshot as Ngannou or Lewis. Furthermore, unlike Lesnar, whose established stardom demanded a marquee matchup in his promotional debut, Kuniev is a relatively anonymous up-and-comer.

I wouldn’t blame Blaydes for feeling disrespected by his promoter, but as the adage goes: Respect is earned, not given. If he feels this is a ridiculous booking, the appropriate response is to make sure that by Sunday morning, everyone else thinks it was ridiculous as well. That is best accomplished by steamrolling Kuniev and reminding him, and the UFC’s matchmakers, that there are indeed levels to this game.

Oh, The Disrespect, Part 2: Chris Gutierrez

If “El Guapo” complains of dizziness or nausea this week, it may just be motion sickness from the abrupt change in his perceived status in the promotion. Barely over a year ago, in December of 2023, the Factory X stalwart headlined his first UFC event, and while he came up short against Yadong Song that night, he bounced back last summer with a well-deserved win over Quang Le. Yet now he is set to open up the show in a planned featherweight clash with fellow habitual bantamweight John Castaneda. There is a certain amount of lemons into lemonade happening here, as Gutierrez lost his original opponent, Douglas Silva de Andrade, and it wasn’t until barely a week out from fight night that Castaneda stepped up. Still, it is surprising to find the 33-year-old fringe contender relegated to curtain-jerker status in the opening fight of a good, but not great, pay-per-view undercard.

Gutierrez could be forgiven for wondering whom the heck he pissed off, but the same as with Blaydes, respect is earned, not given. If he doesn’t like opening undercards, if he feels he is still a future contender in the UFC bantamweight division, the best way to accomplish both things at once would be to beat Castaneda, preferably in an entertaining scrap. If he can manage that, he shouldn’t have anything to worry about going forward.