NM’s UFC lineup has played musical chairs
New competition has surfaced since state’s first show in 2014
Then there were four. Now there are six. Mere numbers, however, don’t begin to tell the story.
Saturday at the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho, the UFC will stage its second card in New Mexico. Six fighters based in the Albuquerque area — Ray Borg, Devin Clark, John Dodson, Tim Means, Diego Sanchez and Lando Vannata — are scheduled to perform.
The original number was seven, but on Monday it was announced that Nicco Montaño has withdrawn from her scheduled fight against Macy Chiasson due to a knee injury.
The first time the UFC came to town, on June 7, 2014, four Albuquerque-based fighters were on the card: Dodson, Sanchez, Rustam Khabilov and Erik “Goyito” Perez.
This increase doesn’t so much represent growth, though, as evolution.
And not so much cooperation as competition.
It was a far different landscape in 2014.
Back then, all four local fighters who fought on the UFC card
trained at Jackson-Wink MMA — then and now New Mexico’s biggest and most influential gym, and among the world’s strongest. Perez, Khabilov and others may have moved on, but any gym with Jon Jones and Holly Holm topping its roster must be reckoned with.
But now, some 5½ years later, J-W is only one of five different entities that will be represented by the local contingent.
Jackson-Wink, in fact, does not top the list. That list:
■ Jackson’s Acoma, three: Borg, Dodson, Vannata. And Montaño would have made four.
■ Jackson-Wink, two: Clark, Dodson.
■ FIT-NHB, one: Means.
■ Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone’s BMF Ranch, one: Dodson.
■ Team Diego Sanchez, one: Sanchez.
And, yes, Dodson logs training time at Jackson-Wink, Jackson’s Acoma and the BMF Ranch in Edgewood — something, perhaps, that only “The Magician” could pull off.
Generally, the relationships between these entities are not nearly as collegial as Dodson makes it look. Asked during a recent interview if there were rivalries among them, Vannata took things a bit further.
“There’s a lot of animosity between gyms, still,” he said. A little history: In 2014, Jackson-Wink had Albuquerque’s UFC connection almost to itself. Jackson’s Acoma did not exist at the time, nor did BMF Ranch. Jackson-Wink had dozens of UFC fighters at the time. FIT-NHB, then Jackson-Wink’s only rival, had only two: Means and Borg.
Tom Vaughn, FIT-NHB cofounder with wife Arlene Sanchez Vaughn, once worked for Jackson-Wink co-founder Greg Jackson.
The Vaughns haven’t said a lot, at least publicly, about their feelings toward Jackson-Wink. It certainly hasn’t fostered goodwill, though, that several FIT-NHB fighters over the years have left for J-W.
One of FIT-NHB’s proudest moments came in April 2014 when Borg defeated Jackson-Wink’s Nick Urso on a Legacy FC card at Route 66 Casino Hotel — earning a UFC contract that might have gone to Urso had he won that night.
Some two years later, Borg left FIT-NHB for Jackson-Wink.
And now, come Saturday, Urso, co-founder of Jackson’s Acoma, will work Borg’s corner.
Urso and Clint Roberts, both former Jackson-Wink fighters, opened their new gym at Jackson-Wink’s old location in 2018.
Neither man, Roberts in particular, had left J-W on the best of terms. But Urso said their focus was not so much on MMA competition as teaching personal defense to members of the community. (Despite the name, Urso says Jackson plays no role there.)
Well, look at Jackson’s Acoma now.
Vannata was the new gym’s first UFC fighter, leaving Jackson-Wink in 2018 because, he told mmajunkie.com, “I just wasn’t really happy there . ... A lot of people I didn’t mesh with and just couldn’t go there without being on edge.”
Borg made the move to Jackson’s Acoma in 2019. “There were just some things going on over there (at J-W) that I wasn’t happy with,” he told the Journal.
Montaño, who’d won the inaugural UFC women’s flyweight title while training at FIT-NHB, switched to Jackson’s Acoma early in 2019. “I just wanted to see what else was out there,” she said.
Through it all, Dodson has remained close to former J-W teammates Borg and Cerrone — who’d emphatically broken ties with Jackson-Wink in 2018 — as well as his coaches and teammates at Jackson-Wink. Thus, he plays the field.
Then there’s Sanchez, the guy who started it all. It was his 2005 victory in the inaugural The Ultimate Fighter competition that brought Jackson-Wink to the UFC, and vice versa.
Before his July 6 fight in Las Vegas against Michael Chiesa, Sanchez made the surprise announcement that he’d left Jackson-Wink.
“All I know is I wasn’t learning,” he told mmajunkie.com.
With fitness guru and MMA neophyte Josh Fabia in his corner, Sanchez lost to Chiesa by lopsided unanimous decision.
Nonetheless, it appears Fabia again will be in his corner when he faces Brazil’s Michael Pereira on Saturday.
Thus, it’s been an eventful and entertaining 5½ years between events.
May Saturday’s event be equally entertaining.