This past Saturday on the prelims of UFC 299, we saw a big time matchup in the lightweight division. Former lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos (32-16) was returning to the division where he became a champion and he was taking on “Gamer” Mateusz Gamrot (24-2) who was looking for his third straight win.
When the fight started out, RDA was looking great. He landed a beautiful knee on Gamrot that had him hurt early. Gamrot went for a takedown but it was stuffed then he was dropped by a right hand. To Gamrot’s credit, he was able to recover quickly and ended up getting a takedown eventually and controlled the second half of the round.
Still, I gave the first to RDA. That said, Gamrot did a sensational job neutralizing Dos Anjos over the next couple of rounds. With a mixture of takedowns, pressure, and volume, RDA just couldn’t get anything going. The next two rounds felt pretty easy to score and I scored the fight 29-28. All three judges gave the fight to Gamrot as well at UFC 299.
What’s next after UFC 299?
With this win, Mateusz Gamrot has moved into the fifth spot in the lightweight rankings. It appears that he sits just outside the title picture at 155. He lost his UFC debut by split decision, however since that loss, he’s gone 7-1 with the lone loss coming against Beneil Dariush.
During that stretch, he has this win over RDA and wins over Arman Tsarukyan and Jalin Turner. That said, after this win Gamrot is in limbo. Next month at UFC 300, Justin Gaethje will fight Max Holloway for the BMF title. On the main card as well, former champion Charles Oliveira will face Arman Tsarukyan.
Dustin Poirier just knocked out Benoit Saint-Denis this past weekend as well. Lightweight champion Islam Makhachev is wanting to fight in June. With that, I find it unlikely that either of the UFC 300 winners will get the title shot based on the timeline. If I was to guess now, if Makhachev defends in June, it’ll be against Dustin Poirier.
If that happens, my guess is the winner of that title fight will face one of the winners from 300 later in the year. If Makhachev wins, I would guess October when the promotion always seems to hold a PPV in Abu Dhabi. If Poirier wins, I wouldn’t rule out November’s MSG card or the end of year card in Vegas.
If Poirier wins and Makhachev gets an immediate rematch, the 300 winners will likely fight for a title shot. However, if Makhachev wins, one of the 300 winners will get the next shot and the other will be left out. Let’s say that Makhachev and Gaethje win. Those two will likely fight for the UFC title this year.
That would leave either Arman Tsarukyan or Charles Oliveira available. One of those guys would be a great next fight for Gamrot. If it’s Tsarukyan, there’s history there with the two having a very competitive fight with Gamrot winning. If it’s Oliveira, that’s just a fun fight to think about given the styles of both men. As you can see, it’s a little murky at 155 for Gamrot and we are going to have to watch it all play out over the coming months.