Stock Report: UFC Fight Night 188

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Rob Font just keeps blowing past each new obstacle between himself and a bantamweight title shot.

In the UFC Fight Night 188 headliner on Saturday, Font used a disciplined approach, superior cardio and his lethal jab to leave former champ Cody Garbrandt in the dust. Perhaps surprisingly for a man in his first UFC main event and first five-round fight of any kind, the 33-year-old won going away, as he was the fresher fighter in the fourth and fifth rounds. In extending his win streak to four, Font made a solid case for consideration as a 135-pound title challenger. However, Font is not the only fighter who elevated his stock last weekend, nor is Garbrandt the only one to take a fall. Here is the stock report for “UFC Vegas 27.”

STOCK UP: Carla Esparza

All due respect to Font’s outstanding performance, but Esparza probably helped her own stock more than any other individual fighter on Saturday, and she may well beat him to a title shot once the dust settles in their respective divisions. In the co-main event, Esparza bloodied and battered red-hot contender Xiaonan Yan with ease. The dynamic was simple, straightforward and painfully obvious within the first minute: Yan had no answer for the diminutive Californian’s takedowns and no way to get up once grounded. After a possible 10-8 first round, “Cookie Monster” picked up right where she left off, taking Yan to the canvas again and resuming the ground-and-pound assault. This time, Yan would not survive to hear the horn.

With the dominant win, her fifth straight, the UFC’s inaugural strawweight champion is on the cusp of earning a chance to win back her hardware. That the current champ, Rose Namajunas, is the woman she beat to win the title in the first place only heightens the intrigue. Whether she fights for the belt in her next fight or must pass through one more contender, however, Esparza’s stock is soaring. Those of us who wrote her off as too small, too old or too much of a specialist to compete against the next generation of top strawweights are eating crow. This columnist was one of them; sometimes it doesn’t feel too bad to be proven wrong.

STOCK UP: Jared Vanderaa

Speaking of being proven wrong, I may or may not have said on the Sherdog Radio preview for UFC Fight Night 188 that not only did I not think Vanderaa was a UFC-level heavyweight, but I wasn’t sure there was any one thing he did at a UFC level other than being really big. Pass that plate of crow so that I can grab a second helping. In defeating Justin Tafa in Saturday’s obligatory main card heavyweight slugfest, “The Mountain” looked far, far better than the version of himself that had barely survived his Dana White's Contender Series fight against Harry Hunsucker, then been wrestled into the dirt by Sergey Spivak in his UFC debut. Vanderaa looked to be in better physical condition, and more importantly, came with an excellent game plan. Against Tafa, a squat brawler with big power but a relatively limited arsenal of strikes, Vanderaa used his superior reach and a kick-heavy approach to neutralize most of the danger.

This matters because, although I was being tongue-in-cheek about it ahead of the fight, Vanderaa really is a huge guy, and at 29, is a spring lamb by heavyweight standards. If he keeps getting into better shape and using his physical gifts to his best advantage, well, that makes him a sneaky-athletic huge guy with some skills. Just ask Ben Rothwell, who competed down the card from Vanderaa on Saturday, how long a heavyweight matching that description can keep cashing checks in the fight game.

STOCK DOWN: Felicia Spencer

Coming into her clash with Norma Dumont on Saturday, Spencer was 8-2 and had only lost to the two greatest fighters in the history of the featherweight division: Amanda Nunes and Cristiane Justino. Outside of those two fights, the “Feenom” had dominated just about everyone she faced, including Top 10 fighters like Megan Anderson and Pam Sorenson, making a pretty solid case for herself as the No. 3 woman in the division. Or had a case, at any rate, until Dumont beat her.

Spencer’s split decision loss to Dumont is a setback to her pursuit of another title shot, of course, but it was a close fight that I actually scored in Spencer’s favor. What is more concerning is the optics. Despite the success her opponent was enjoying on the feet, Spencer made few apparent attempts to bring the fight into her world. Considering how badly Spencer has outwrestled and outgrappled all of her recent opponents other than Nunes and “Cyborg,” it was mystifying. Still just 30 and with not even a dozen fights under her belt yet, Spencer will be back, but this was a step back towards the general population at 145 pounds, such as it is.

STOCK DOWN: Xiaonan Yan

The flip side of Esparza’s outstanding showing at “UFC Vegas 27” was Yan. “Fury” was never on the level of her countrywoman Weili Zhang from a standpoint of brute strength and athleticism, but nonetheless it was surprising to see how easily Esparza controlled her, advanced to dominant positions and beat her up with strikes on the ground. Put simply, it made Yan look like a fighter with some glaring deficiencies that nobody had yet managed to exploit. Part of that is due to Esparza being an outstanding wrestler, but Esparza remains one of the smallest women in the division, and few of her other opponents looked quite so hapless on the ground. For Yan, whose 12-fight unbeaten streak had rocketed her into Sherdog’s strawweight Top 10 and even to the edges of the pound-for-pound list, it was a shocking look.