5 Fights to make after UFC Fight Night: San Antonio

The AT&T Center housed a UFC event for only the second time ever this past Saturday with the previous time being in 2019 and were treated to an excellent night of fights. With the result of the main event bringing a bit more structure to the UFC bantamweight title picture in for both the men and the women.

5. Holly Holm vs Julianna Peña

*Photo from Getty Images*

Right now, there are multiple fighters gunning for Amanda Nunes' and with Holly Holm convincingly beating Yana Santos she inserted herself directly into that list. The UFC had been trying to book Nunes against Irene Aldana but that match up has yet to be confirmed. Considering this, a clear-cut path at this moment would probably be to match up Holm and Peña against each other and the winner faces Raquel Pennington who is on a sneaky five fight win streak since losing to Holly Holm three years ago. Pennington and Holm have already fought multiple times in the past, so a fresh match up seems more logical if the UFC decides to book Nunes and Aldana.

4. Maycee Barber vs Casey O'Neill

It feels odd to match up someone coming off a win against someone coming off a loss. Considering this, Barber and O'Neill both showed legit promise before Barber was beaten by Roxanne Modafferi. A fight in which Barber blew out her knee, Barber's only other loss is to the current champion Alex Grasso and has since racked up four straight wins despite some of her decisions being questionable. O'Neill is experienced the first loss of her career to former title challenger Jennifer Maia where she was out struck but refused to take a step backwards and landed decent striking offense on the feet. O'Neill was coming off a long layoff before the Maia fight in which she was recovering from knee injury herself. Good match up that could elevate either winner.

3. Nate Landwehr vs Alex Caceres

*Photo from MMAJunkie*

This bout was originally scheduled for the San Antonio card before Caceres had to withdraw from the fight for undisclosed reasons. The UFC kept Landwehr on the card and matched him up with Austin Lingo who Landwehr submit in the second round. Alot of fans including myself were really looking forward to seeing this fight upon its initial announcing and were upset to see it fall through. Hopefully Caceres is good to go considering Landwehr continued his winning ways.

2. Marlon Vera vs Petr Yan

The timing for this one never made sense until now. While Vera was ascending through the rankings on a four-fight win streak since losing to Jose Aldo with finishes against former champions like Dominick Cruz and Frankie Edgar. Yan was tangled up with Aljamain Sterling and the bantamweight championship and now finds himself on a three-fight losing streak. Regardless, this is a former champion against a legit contender who is known for taking out former champions. Only thing is Petr Yan is relentless.

1. Cory Sandhagen vs Merab D'Valishvilli

*Photo from SportsZion*

With Merab beating Petr Yan earlier this month and then saying he refuses to fight Aljamain Sterling for the bantamweight title because they are such close training partners and friends... Sandhagen could use that to fuel his fire considering how impressive he looked against Chito. Sterling is set to fight Henry Cejudo in May and Sean O'Malley is more than likely going to get the next title shot after that. This division has drastically changed over the course of the past three years and it has been amazing.