5 Fights We Need to See After UFC Fight Night 207

It's been easy to deride some of the UFC's recent Fight Night events. But unlike some of its predecessors, Saturday's UFC Fight Night 207 card in Las Vegas was a ton of fun.

It featured an unusually high number of ranked fighters and some excellent finishes—all in the afternoon and early evening, which is always a nice treat for those of us who aren't nocturnal.

The event was headlined by a heavyweight collision between Russia's Alexander Volkov and Suriname's Jairzinho Rozenstruik. Ordinarily, that would be a red flag. The heavyweight division has given us some incredible moments, but the division is also notorious for producing absolute snoozers, and Volkov and Rozenstruik have been involved in some particularly heinous examples.

The pair's fight was exciting and mercifully brief, though, as Volkov used a sizzling right hand to set up a first-round TKO win. There was some jabbering about an early stoppage on social media, but we've seen much worse.

The UFC Fight Night 207 co-main event also ended with a big win for another Russian, as Movsar Evloev burst into featherweight title contention with a win over Hawai'i's Dan Ige, who was ranked No. 10 heading into the matchup.

Elsewhere on the bill, we witnessed some excellent finishes, including crucial victories from strawweight veteran Karolina Kowalkiewicz and rising flyweight star Erin Blanchfield.

It was the kind of card that opened the door to a host of excellent matchmaking opportunities. Keep scrolling for five that we hope to see in the near future.

Former Bellator champ Alexander Volkov reasserted himself as one of the sport's best heavyweights in the UFC Fight Night 207 main event, defeating Jairzinho Rozenstruik with a volley of punches in Round 1.

It was a somewhat uncharacteristic performance from the towering Russian—who has recently been a bit of a slow starter—and one that would ordinarily set him up for a big fight.

Unfortunately, Volkov is in a bit of a weird spot. He has always stayed quite active, so he has already fought many of the heavyweight division's top fighters, with varying results. In fact, he has challenged all the men ranked ahead of him except the champion Francis Ngannou, who is locked in a contract dispute with the UFC, No. 2 contender Stipe Miocic, who's linked to a fight with Jon Jones, and No. 3 contender Tai Tuivasa, who is rumored to be fighting Ciryl Gane in September.

One option that would make sense for Volkov is Moldovan buzzsaw Alexandr Romanov, who has evolved from prospect to bona fide title threat in the span of a few fights.

The Russian just fought a fighter of a similar description in Tom Aspinall and was dominated—on the Brit's home soil, no less. Subjecting him to that kind of matchmaking again so quickly feels a bit cruel, but hey, it's a tough sport.

Let's see if the former Bellator champ can slow the rise of the No. 13-ranked Romanov, who is ready for a big step up after five-straight wins in the UFC.

Russia's Movsar Evloev has long stood out as one of the most promising young talents in the featherweight division, and he strengthened that reputation in the UFC Fight Night 207 co-main event, thumping established contender Dan Ige to a clear-cut unanimous decision victory.

Because Evloev is new to the featherweight Top 15, he has a long list of fresh matchup options at his fingertips. Scan the rankings, pick a name at random, and chances are it would be a fun test for the Russian. But some matchups are definitely more interesting than others.

One we like the look of is a fight with England's Arnold Allen. For whatever reason, the Brit has never generated much buzz despite being 18-1 overall and 9-0 in the UFC. Allen has wins over the likes of Gilbert Melendez, Sodiq Yusuff and Dan Hooker and is also excellent at grappling. That skillset will be crucial to the success of anybody who hopes to hand Evloev his first L.

It's a great fight between two surging young contenders, and the winner would have a legitimate claim to a No. 1 contender fight in one of the UFC's best divisions. Book it.

Alonzo Menifield has been hovering on the cusp of the light heavyweight rankings for what feels like forever. But every time it looks like he's putting it all together, he stumbles.

It happened in 2020 when he lost to Devin Clark and Ovince Saint Preux after a perfect 8-0 start to his career, and it happened again late last year when he had a two-fight win streak derailed by a decision loss to William Knight.

At UFC Fight Night 207, Menifield rebounded from his loss to Knight with a vicious first-round stoppage win over fellow finisher Askar Mozharov. It remains to be seen if he can finally get some real momentum going, but it was a good start.

From here, we'd like to see Menifield matched up with Australia's Tyson Pedro. Pedro is actually quite similar to Menifield in that he has shown flashes of promise but has thus far failed to put together the kind of win streak needed to become a legitimate contender. And as luck would have it, he recently rebounded from consecutive losses with a first-round stoppage of Ike Villanueva back in April.

The fight would make a great addition to a pay-per-view undercard, and it would give us a real sense of where both guys stand in the division.

Karolina Kowalkiewicz needed a win at UFC Fight Night 207 more than any other fighter on the bill. The former strawweight title challenger was winless in her last five fights and was showing all the hallmarks of a fighter who had lost the ability to compete—not only physically but mentally as well.

Thankfully for Kowalkiewicz and her doting fans, things finally went according to plan on Saturday, as she battered fellow veteran Felice Herrig to a second-round submission win via a rear-naked choke. It was the Polish star's first finish since a 2014 TKO over Jasminka Cive under the KSW banner.

After her crucial victory over Herrig, who retired post-fight, we're hoping to see Kowalkiewicz matched up with Canada's Randa Markos. Markos is in a very similar position to the Pole, having recently rebounded from a four-fight losing streak with a sorely-needed decision win over Livinha Souza.

The pair have fought before—in her UFC debut in 2015, Kowalkiewicz beat the Canadian by decision—but that was long enough ago that it hardly bears mentioning. Both women are completely different fighters in 2022.

Match them up to see who really still belongs in the UFC.

At the precise moment that UFC women's flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko began to look downright unbeatable, the division she rules became flooded with fresh new contenders.

Erin Blanchfield, one of the most promising of those new talents, was back in action against JJ Aldrich at UFC Fight Night 207 and took another big step toward title contention with a second-round submission win.

Blanchfield was briefly ranked in the flyweight Top 15 but was pushed out by Tracy Cortez. It remains to be seen if she reclaims her spot after her win over Aldrich, but she deserves a ranked foe in her next appearance regardless.

And she is hoping to make the UFC matchmakers' lives easy.

In her post-fight interview, Blanchfield called for a scrap with the winner of a UFC 276 fight between rising contender Maycee Barber and former title challenger Jessica Eye, ranked No. 14 and 11 respectively.

"I think either of those girls would be a great fight for me," she said at the event's post-fight press conference. "If not, I definitely want someone in the rankings. I'm 3-0 now in the UFC, and I think I deserve that."

Either matchup makes sense for Blanchfield, but most fans will be hoping to see her locked in the cage with Barber, as the pair represent the next generation of flyweight contenders, and they've been matched up to no avail in the past.