Daniel Cunningham
This past Saturday night in the main event of UFC Vegas 114, we saw a big time matchup between two powerful featherweights. Former interim title challenger Josh Emmett (19-7) was taking on rising star Kevin Vallejos (18-1).
At just 24-years-old, Kevin Vallejos is already making waves inside the octagon. In his last fight, he was still just 23 and he knocked out elite striker, Giga Chikadze to get himself into the rankings. This was another test as he was facing a very powerful Josh Emmett who has been in there with some of the best in the world.
Emmett’s power is legendary but this felt like a fight that was setup to build the star that is Kevin Vallejos and he didn’t disappoint at UFC Vegas 114. From the jump, he was stalking Emmett and Emmett was so far on the outside of exchanges that he never got close to hitting Vallejos clean.
Vallejos looked insanely clean with his striking and eventually, he dropped Emmett. Once he had him hurt, he never let him recover and he scored the first round finish on Saturday night.
What’s next after UFC Vegas 114?
With the win, you know that Vallejos will at a minimum, take the 11th ranking that Emmett had before the fight. That said, I would personally put him 10th which is the ranking that is currently held by Brian Ortega who is planning on moving to 155 pounds.
Vallejos looks like he can be a star and I think he’s going to be a future UFC champion on this current trajectory. Now, in terms of his next fight, there are a lot of options out there. He wants to fight Yair Rodriguez and honestly, I love that fight but I’m not sure that Rodriguez would fight someone that low in the rankings compared to him.
I would look out for two winners from upcoming fights. Next month, Aaron Pico and Patricio Pitbull will fight at UFC 327 and then the following month, Melquizael Costa takes on Arnold Allen at an Apex main event. Either of those winners would be an excellent next fight for Vallejos.
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