Rob Font

I don't think Marlon Vera wins that fight against Rob Font in the main event if it happened a few years ago. Not that he wouldn't be capable, but he didn't ...

But all of Arlovski’s experience in the octagon has benefitted him to the point where he knows how to keep these fights close in the eyes of the judges. All Romanov has been able to do to this point is dispatch the competition in front of him. That decision reinvigorated Dawson, and in what was easily his toughest matchup to date on paper, he totally dominated Jared Gordon en route to a third-round submission. The difference, of course, is that all those fighters have been tested and delivered against high-ranked opponents in big spots. There’s no desire from Arlovski to roll over to any of these younger athletes, and the fact he still has this type of grit and determination at 43 is extraordinarily impressive. This is not the division in which you want your chin to start failing you, and while there’s not enough evidence yet to know what type of liability it might be for Font at this point, it’s definitely something he needs to be cautious about. Arlovski is a former UFC heavyweight champion and legend of the fight game. Vera might have his time, though, and with the most finishes in divisional history on his resume, he brings a level of danger to the octagon that can be an X factor in any fight. Two of Vera’s knockdowns came at the tail end of rounds he was arguably losing, but it swung the momentum in his favor. It’s hard to sit here and feel angry about Andrei Arlovski finding any type of success at this stage of his career. He showed it in his comeback win over Frankie Edgar in November that ended with a devastating front kick, and he showed it again vs. The three knockdowns he landed were critical, and the damage he inflicted on Font’s face was impossible to ignore.