UFC St. Louis featured an exciting five-fight main card that ended with three finishes and two Performances of the Night bonuses.
UFC veteran, Derrick Lewis defended his relevancy in the heavyweight division taking down Rodrigo Nascimento in what was the Brazilian’s first UFC main event appearance.
Rodrigo Nascimento
Rodrigo Nascimento was stopped by Derrick Lewis in the third round of their main event bout on Saturday night.
Nascimento is now 4-2, 1 NC in the UFC and had his four-fight unbeaten streak snapped. Nascimento’s most impressive victories in that span were two split decision wins against Tanner Boser and Ilir Latifi.
Nascimento is just 31 years old and has a lot of time left in his pro career. No need to rush, Nascimento should get another veteran like Marcos Rogerio de Lima. Marcos has 18 fights with the UFC. Marcos just defeated Junior Tafa back in February and also has a stoppage loss to Derrick Lewis in his previous fight. The bout would make sense and could easily grace a main card.
Nascimento’s next fight: Marcos Rogerio de Lima
Nursulton Ruziboev
Nursulton Ruziboev suffered the first loss of his UFC career when Joaquin Buckley defeated him in a unanimous decision victory in the co main event slot of UFC St. Louis.
Ruziboev is now 2-1 with the promotion including two first round finishes over Brunno Ferreira and Sedriques Dumas. Nursulton defeated both fighters at 185lbs. before dropping to 170lbs. for his most recent fight.
Ruziboev had won ten in a row dating back to 2019, with just two of those fights being at 170lbs. He has been incredibly successful in the middleweight division especially in his pre-UFC career.
If the 6’5″ fighter wants another welterweight fight: Give him the winner of Charles Radtke vs Carlos Prates, who fight June 8th.
As for middleweight-Ruziboev was slated to take on Caio Borralho back in November of last year. While that is way too high of a matchup for Ruziboev right now, Ruizboev did call out Gerald Meerschaert back in March. Solid name for him and he should get the call out that he wants at middleweight thanks to how much he’s won at that weight.
Nursulton’s next fight at welterweight: Winner of Charles Radtke vs Carlos Prates
Nursulton’s next fight at middleweight: Gerald Meerschaert
Alonzo Menifield
Alonzo Menifield was violently finished in just seconds on Saturday night by Carlos Ulberg.
The stoppage snapped Alonzo’s five-fight unbeaten streak, featuring the likes of Dustin Jacoby, Jimmy Crute, Misha Cirkunov and Askar Mozharov.
Menifield is now 8-4-1 with the UFC. Menifield has also had a lot of cancelled fights while with the promotion. Most of the time Menifield eventually ends up getting the opponent, just at a later date. One of the few guys Menifield has not ended up fighting off of his cancelled bouts list would be Nicolae Negumereanu. The two were originally scheduled to fight in June of 2022 before Nicolae withdrew. Nicolae’s most recent fight was also a first-round stoppage to Carlos Ulberg at the end of 2022. However, Nicolae has been inactive since that bout and he is also, obviously unranked.
A solid back up choice for Menifield would be the winner of the Dominick Reyes vs. Dustin Jacoby fight scheduled for June 8th. Reyes was scheduled multiple times to take on Carlos Ulberg this year and both times the bout fell through. Jacoby’s most recent fight was a unanimous decision loss to Alonzo Menifield back in December. Might seem redundant but with Reyes still hanging onto a fringe Top 15 ranking, the winner of the bout should come out ranked, even if just barely.
Either scenario would be a solid next matchup.
Menifield’s next fight: Dominick Reyes vs. Dustin Jacoby winner
Mateusz Rebecki
Mateusz Rebecki suffered his first loss in the UFC on Saturday night, at the hands of the 15-fight UFC veteran in Carlos Ferreira.
Rebecki entered the bout a heavy favorite but was ultimately stopped late after suffering tons of damage, in what was an entertaining comeback for Ferreira.
Mateusz is now 3-1 with the UFC since winning his Contender Series bout back in 2022.
As usual, the lightweight division is incredibly busy. There are a couple of matchups that potentially make sense for Mateusz. The deciding factor will likely be just how fast can Mateusz turnaround and fight again after the late stoppage.
Chase Hooper, among others, would be a solid matchup for Rebecki. Hooper picked up an impressive win on the undercard of UFC St. Louis and has been steadily improving since entering the UFC in 2019. Hooper is currently on a 3-fight win streak and has 9 fights in the UFC despite having less than 20 pro fights. Rebecki already has 21 fights of pro experience so the extra UFC experience would aid Hooper and make the bout a more even matchup.
Rebecki’s next fight: Chase Hooper
Alex Caceres
Alex Caceres lost his second straight bout via unanimous decision when he was defeated by St. Louis’ own, Sean Woodson.
Caceres’ last win came in June of 2023 against Daniel Pineda. Alex has now won two of his last four since the end of 2022.
Nate Landwehr would be a great opponent for Alex Caceres. Landwehr last competed against Jamall Emmers at the tail end of March, stopping him at the end of the opening round. Caceres was actually scheduled to fight Landwehr back in March of last year but withdrew from the bout. It’d be the perfect time of the pair to run that matchup back.
Caceres’ next fight: Nate Landwehr
