Irish clean sweeps at two consecutive Dublin events was always a big ask.
The crushing defeats to Cathal Pendred and Paddy Holohan bookended three thrilling victories for Aisling Daly, Neil Seery and Norman Parke on a captivating card at the 3Arena.
But what’s next for the Irish lads and lass in their next octagon outing. We’ve popped on our matchmaking hat and this is who we’d match the fighting Irish up with next time around.
Cathal Pendred
We honestly weren’t expecting The Punisher to hand Tom Breese his first professional defeat on Saturday night but we also weren’t predicting the kind of demolition that he’d be on the receiving end of.
The gaps in Pendred’s striking repertoire were almost instantly exploited by Birmingham’s Breese and the Dubliner’s nose was streaming with blood after a matter of moments.
Breese was always going to be a bridge too far for Pendred and we think he ought to take a step back now to accept a less difficult fight because, at this stage of his career, he’s out of his depth with the likes of John Howard and Tom Breese.
Li Jingliang is a welterweight on a similar career trajectory as the Chinese fighter is currently 2-2 in the UFC and also coming off a loss. It would be a fascinating stylistic match-up and would allow both fighters a realistic chance to get back in the win column.
Aisling Daly
The deafening shouts of “wahey!” as Aisling Daly put a stamp on her decision victory with ground and pound is something that will stay with us forever.
Ais the Bash found an extra gear with with the incessant Irish roar and backed up her pre-fight claims that she’d gone through the best camp of her life.
Apart from a decent triangle attempt from Ericka Almeida, Daly remained in control for the vast majority of Saturday night’s strawweight clash and didn’t look at all out of her depth on the mat with the BJJ black belt.
For her next outing, we wouldn’t mind seeing Daly take on Maryna Moroz.
The Ukrainian fighter burst onto the scene with an unexpected submission victory over Joanne Calderwood before coming unstuck against next strawweight challenger Valerie Letourneau in August.
The vast majority of both fighters’ wins have come by way of submission and we’d love to see another back-and-forth grappling match with Daly involved.
Neil Seery
Fair enough, he was out-gameplanned by Louis Smolka but we think it’s about time for the UFC to give Seery another test such was the dominance he showed over Jon Delos Reyes on Saturday night.
Seery brings guaranteed entertainment value and we’d love to see him given the chance at a top-15 guy, although he may not be ready just yet.
We say “take the chance” and offer Seery a Sergio Pettis and see whether 2 Tap can hang in there with the bigger names at 125 lbs because he’s too good for the likes of Delos Reyes.
Pettis would be a good gauge of where Seery stands in the flyweight division and it would be a barnburner for the fans.
Norman Parke
He’s back baby!
After experiencing back-to-back defeats for the first time in his career, Stormin’ Norman Parke got himself back to winning ways with a tough but clear decision victory over Reza Madadi.
What’s next for the Bushmills lightweight? We could suggest a rematch with Gleison Tibau after the somewhat disputed split decision earlier this year but that would be a bit of a cop-out.
We wouldn’t mind seeing Parke take on someone like Adriano Martins in his next bout.
Martins is 3-0 since being knocked out by Donald Cerrone at the start of 2014 and earned a performance of the night bonus against Islam Makhachev earlier this month.
Parke v Martins would be an entertaining scrap and an excellent candidate to see who breaks into the top-15 at 155 lbs.
Paddy Holohan
It was like someone turned the 3Arena crowd on mute when Paddy Holohan resignedly tapped twice on the mat after failing to defend a Louis Smolka rear naked choke towards the end of the second round of Saturday night’s main event.
While Smolka has looked tremendous in his last three bouts and will definitely be rewarded with a ranked fighter for his next fight, Paddy Holohan finds himself in a bit of a quandary.
3-2 is not the kind of UFC record that lends itself to title runs and it seems that The Hooligan has struggled to get a head of steam going in the octagon.
The bright lights of his first UFC main event may have gotten to him and we think he’d be better served working his way back up the card, starting with a bout against Chris Beal.
Beal was being pegged for great things after his pair of UFC victories against Patrick Williams and Tateki Matsuda before dropping two to Neil Seery and Chris Kelades.
Holohan needs to regroup, a ship-steadier is required and we think Beal is the perfect option.
