Preview: UFC on ESPN 51 ‘Luque vs. Dos Anjos’

After a few shows with live fans, the Ultimate Fighting Championship heads back to the UFC Apex for UFC on ESPN 51 this Saturday in Las Vegas. At least the event has some interesting fights near the top. A crucial welterweight tilt headlines festivities, as Vicente Luque looks to reaffirm his relevance against former lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos—a man attempting to make one more run towards a title. A similar story unfolds in the co-main event, where Cub Swanson looks to keep the surprisingly successful back end of his career chugging along with a win over Hakeem Dawodu at 145 pounds. Beyond that, Chris Daukaus seeks a new start at light heavyweight in a difficult matchup against Khalil Rountree, and a women’s strawweight pairing between Polyana Viana and Iasmin Lucindo should result in some fun at 115 pounds.

Now to the UFC on ESPN 51 “Luque vs. Dos Anjos” preview:

Welterweights

#10 WW | Vicente Luque (21-9-1, 14-5 UFC) vs. #9 LW | Rafael dos Anjos (32-14, 21-12 UFC)

ODDS: dos Anjos (-118), Luque (-102)

This main event is a crucial fight for each man’s future, and it feels surprisingly early to say that about Luque. For years, “The Silent Assassin” was the UFC’s dark horse at 170 pounds. Initially an afterthought coming off his season of “The Ultimate Fighter” due to a middling regional record, Luque hit the ground running in terms of both success and excitement. An all-offense fighter capable of applying pressure and pace in every phase, Luque won in 10 of his first 11 trips to the Octagon, only losing to future welterweight champion Leon Edwards. Add in that Luque was racking up finish after finish in absolute barnburners, and it became baffling that the UFC was not putting its promotional weight behind him and made it all the more cathartic when a 2019 “Fight of the Year” contender against Bryan Barberena finally gave both men the notice they deserved. Later in 2019 saw Luque finally draw some ranked competition in the form of Stephen Thompson, and while that resulted in his second UFC setback, it was once again the best fight on the card, doing little to dull his growing reputation as a must-see fighter. It also gave way to another four-fight winning streak that got Luque further than ever towards a title shot—up until a 2022 campaign that saw Luque’s momentum suddenly stop, raising some questions as to where he goes from here. First, Luque got paired in a main event rematch of a 2016 bout, which saw a much rawer version of Belal Muhammad get knocked out in just 79 seconds. The second time around, Muhammad exposed what has always been one of the concerns about Luque’s style; his constant pressure comes with a relatively simple approach that relies heavily on winning a war of attrition. With Muhammad having developed into one of the smartest strategists and most adaptable fighters in the sport, it was not necessarily a shock that he was able to thread the needle and walk away with a clear decision win. Then came Luque’s most bout—a loss to Geoff Neal roughly a year ago. It was a sneakily difficult fight for Luque that figured to be a brutal war win or lose, and it turned into a surprisingly one-sided defeat. Neal’s hand speed consistently beat Luque to the literal punch and led to the first knockout loss of the Cerrado MMA rep’s career. The loss of Luque’s durability would be bad enough given how much his style depends on it, but recent news raises even more worries, as it turns out that he had to be cleared for this fight after suffering a brain hemorrhage in the aftermath of the Neal bout. Hopefully, everything is fine moving forward, but even without that issue, there is concern that Luque might be suffering the effects of a long and brutal career at just 31 years of age. Now, he looks to turn back the seemingly ageless dos Anjos.

Dos Anjos’ career is a testament to his persistence and hard work, even going back to the beginning of his UFC run. He debuted in 2008 and found himself quickly on the cut line after two straight losses, only to rebound and wind up as one of the most underrated fighters in the history of the sport. A grappler by trade, dos Anjos slowly built out a pressure striking game that fully got noticed with a dominant 2013 victory over Donald Cerrone, which set up a breakout 2014 campaign that ended with the Brazilian as then-lightweight champion Anthony Pettis’ top contender. Dos Anjos was clearly set up as an afterthought for what was meant to be Pettis’ coronation as a top star, but he instead spoiled the party with a dominant decision, completing his rise from journeyman to elite fighter. Dos Anjos seemed set up for a lucrative title run that would help cement his legacy, but it unfortunately coincided with the first spate of injuries in his career. Dos Anjos reigned for over a year but made only one title defense—he ran over Cerrone in a rematch—and missed out on a big-money fight against Conor McGregor before surprisingly dropping the title to Eddie Alvarez. A subsequent loss to Tony Ferguson froze dos Anjos out of the title picture, so the former lightweight champion moved to welterweight for a run that started off successfully but quickly hit the point of diminishing returns. Dos Anjos managed to ride his pressuring style to contender status, but more powerful opponents with wrestling chops at the top of the division were able to neutralize him quite successfully. Dos Anjos made a three-fight sojourn back down to 155 pounds that was neither a failure nor a clear success—injuries marred a lot of that time, but dos Anjos did quite well before and even during a loss to Rafael Fiziev—but without a clear path to a title shot, he has made the choice to stay healthy, avoid a massive weight cut and see what he can do back at welterweight. His return to 170 pounds was expectedly successful in a clearly advantageous pairing against Barberena, but dos Anjos does figure to wind up running into the same issues in terms of size and physicality that plagued his first run in this weight class. There is a decent shot that happens here, as this is set up as a fight where these two meet each other head-on, and Luque is the type of solidly built welterweight-sized fighter that has shut down dos Anjos in the past; and even if dos Anjos does wind up with a strength advantage, Luque’s potent grappling game could serve as an antidote that suddenly ends the fight in his favor, or at least gives his counterpart some second thoughts about wrestling. A little over a year ago, this would look like a well-matched fight that clearly favored Luque, so a lot of the call comes down to weighing his subpar performance against Neal and particularly the subsequent medical issues coming out of that fight. It just does not feel like a smart time to side with Luque, even if there are a lot of signs that a bounce-back victory is possible if he comes in at near peak form. The pick is dos Anjos via decision.

Jump To »
Luque vs. Dos Anjos
Dawodu vs. Swanson
Rountree vs. Daukaus
Lucindo vs. Viana
Nchukwi vs. Dobson
Fremd vs. Pickett
The Prelims