UFC 297 – New Blood!

The first Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) pay-per-view (PPV) of 2024 is surprisingly light on pre-show injuries, leaving just two newcomers on the lineup (see it here). On this edition of “New Blood,” the series where I constantly regret not just doing write ups of Contender Series graduates as they’re signed, we look at a pair of graduates with unfinished business.

Serhiy Sidey

Weight Class: Bantamweight
Age: 27
Record: 10-1 (6 KO, 2 SUB)
Notable Victories: Ramon Taveras, Ali Wasuk

A five-fight win streak saw Sidey choke out Gerico Platon for Battlefield Fight League gold and make three successful defenses, with one stop along the way to finish Walel Watson for BTC’s belt. His efforts carried him to Contender Series, where he had to settle for a controversial early stoppage of Ramon Taveras that nonetheless earned him a UFC contract.

Standing an impressive 5’11,” Sidey is a suffocating attrition fighter both on the feet and on the mat. He uses his length to walk opponents down behind a steady jab, consistently attacking the body and switching stance to offer different looks. He’s also quite fond of flying knees and spinning attacks — perhaps overly so — and is eager to sneak in elbows or left hooks in the pocket.

On top of that, he’s got a genuinely ridiculous gas tank and good timing on his counters, especially when reacting to lead kicks. Where he can get in trouble is with his right hand. As disciplined as he usually is in keeping his right hand up when jabbing, the same isn’t true of the opposite side; he’ll load up on the right hand or throw unsafe uppercuts and drop his left hand in the process. Ali Wasuk consistently cracked him with right hands while trading in their rematch and Sidey had a ton of issues with Taveras’ southpaw one-two combination before getting his timing down and finding the perfect counter.

He takes a good shot, but for all the good traits he shares with Max Holloway, I’d rather he not emulate “Blessed’s” defense.

As much of a handful as he is to strike with, he’s arguably more exhausting to grapple. Once he finds the body lock, he can put opponents through rounds of misery with loops of mat return -> punches from turtle -> strikes on the way up -> mat return. He rides quite well, his grip is difficult to break, and he’s quick to threaten with front chokes to manipulate opponents’ positioning. That said, his initial entries aren’t the best, as seen when Taveras easily shut down his attempts to take it south.

Submission-wise, he hit a quick triangle on Platon and easily avoided Watson’s guard attacks, so no red flags there.

As I said, there are a lot of aspects of Sidey’s game that remind me of Max Holloway, even the over-eagerness for spinning moves and flying knees that Holloway eventually grew out of. His ceiling isn’t as high, but he’s still a good addition to the roster and worth getting excited about. His durability and experience should be enough to make him 2-0 over Taveras in their rematch.

His BFL fights are on Fight Pass.

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Ramon “The Savage” Taveras

Weight Class: Bantamweight
Age: 30
Record: 9-2 (5 KO, 3 SUB)
Notable Victories: Cortavious Romious, Martin Day

“The Savage” bounced back from his first-ever defeat by winning four straight, among them a first round submission of UFC veteran, Martin Day. Though his first Contender Series bid resulted in that aforementioned early stoppage, he got another shot a month later and made the most of it, flattening the favored Cortavious Romious inside of 30 seconds.

Power counters are Taveras’ tools of the trade. Though he’s plenty lethal on the front foot with stiff jabs, blistering crosses, and hard body kicks, he loves to slip just out of range of incoming fire before coming back with a murderous left hand. There’s an impressive amount of variety to that money shot, from your traditional straight to the jaw to a sneaky uppercut downstairs that can halt opponents’ momentum in its tracks, and his check right hook is nothing to scoff at either. Solid head movement and range management keep him safe while he’s loading up to return fire, as seen when he slipped most of Romious’ volleys before putting him down with that left hand.

His power is murderous and his awareness is excellent, but he’s not invincible. Most notably, he keeps his hands low both in general and when pulling his punches back. Sidey successfully baited out Taveras’ counter left, popped him with a jab while Taveras’ left hand was at hip height, then slammed home a right cross before Taveras could bring his hand up. Taveras’ reflexes aren’t going to save him if he gets too predictable.

It’s also worth noting that Taveras’ competition before Romious and Sidey was extremely poor. Day was the best of them at 8-6 and the 5-5 Edward Massey actually knocked Taveras out in 2021. Romious was admittedly a great scalp, but he also got sucked into Taveras’ preferred firefight within seconds. It remains to be seen whether Taveras is adaptable enough to handle high-level strikers when his power and speed aren’t enough.

As for his grappling, he was quick to shut down every level change that came his way in the footage I saw and slapped a lightning-quick power guillotine on Day when the latter overextended. That awareness and timing that make him such a fearsome counter-puncher seem like they do a good job of warning him of incoming takedowns as well.

Taveras is guaranteed excitement whenever he steps into the age and a genuinely nasty finisher. My big concerns right now are his unproven adaptability and the fact that he fights out of an underwhelming camp; he’s way too gifted to have to settle for Austen Lane as his most noteworthy training partner. Still, I’m glad he’s in the Octagon, even if I do think Sidey figured him out enough to score a decisive finish this time.

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Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 297 fight card right here, starting with the early ESPN+ “Prelims” matches online, which are scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. ET (simulcast on ESPNEWS at 8 p.m. ET), before the pay-per-view (PPV) main card start time at 10 p.m. ET (also on ESPN+).

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