Preview: UFC on ESPN 40 ‘Santos vs. Hill’

The Ultimate Fighting Championship on Saturday heads back to the UFC Apex in Las Vegas for a show that looks decent on paper. In the main event, former light heavyweight title challenger Thiago Santos tries to turn around his current skid against rising prospect Jamahal Hill. If nothing else, this figures to be more exciting than many of the Brazilian’s recent affairs. In terms of violence, the welterweight co-headliner between Vicente Luque and Geoff Neal appears to have the situation covered, along with the women’s flyweight showcase pitting Ariane Lipski against Priscila Cachoeira. Then there are the two finals from Season 30 of “The Ultimate Fighter”—both are well-matched, and while the participants may be raw, the potential exists to see the birth of some solid UFC careers.

Now to the UFC on ESPN 40 “Santos vs. Hill” preview:

Light Heavyweights

#6 LHW | Thiago Santos (22-10, 14-9 UFC) vs. #10 LHW | Jamahal Hill (10-1, 4-1 UFC)

ODDS: Hill (-260), Santos (+220)

At this point, Santos’ title hopes fall clearly in the what-if category. An extremely raw middleweight prospect when he came to the UFC in 2013, “Marreta” quickly carved out a niche as an impressive knockout artist, owing mostly to his dynamic kicking game. However, even during his peak at middleweight, the Brazilian felt like a bit of a glass cannon against those willing to step up and wade through danger. Eric Spicely memorably scored one of the biggest upsets in UFC history with a first-round submission against him, but Gegard Mousasi and David Branch also charged Santos and scored wins with little issue. After the Branch loss in 2018, Santos moved up to light heavyweight and found himself as the division’s top contender within a year, winning a wild mess of a fight over Jimi Manuwa and then scoring a knockout in a more patient affair against Jan Blachowicz. For about two rounds, the threat of Santos’ kicks was enough to throw off then-champion Jon Jones—until Santos suffered a major knee injury that rendered him relatively ineffective for the rest of the fight, even though he fought through it to the final horn. It was still a shockingly close win for Jones, and were it not for the injury, Santos could have been the man to dethrone one of the all-time greats. Instead, Santos went in for surgery and would not return until over a year later. Santos was already entering his late 30s at the time of the Jones fight, but it looks like the combination of that additional age and the knee injury has taken away most of his effectiveness, at least at a title contender level. Santos’ comeback fight against Teixeira was a wild one that saw “Marreta” score multiple near-finishes before getting tapped out. That has given way to three fights that have been absolutely dreadful, with Aleksandar Rakic, Johnny Walker and Magomed Ankalaev all mostly content to sit back and try to take on Santos from range. In turn, it has exposed that Santos is now much more hesitant than ever to pull the trigger, though he still managed to outpace an absolutely terrible performance from Walker and did at least have some impressive moments of offense whenever Ankalaev decided to open up. The vibes are not great for Santos at the moment, but maybe the Brazilian can rediscover something against Hill.

Hill initially looked like more of a long-term prospect that needed to iron things out than an immediate contender, but “Sweet Dreams” has had a surprisingly impressive run up the light heavyweight ladder from the jump. A long and lanky striker, Hill’s first few performances showed him to be a fighter who needed to build his effectiveness throughout his fights, but that went out the window in short order with quick wins over Klidson Abreu and Ovince St. Preux. Even after a gnarly submission loss to Paul Craig, Hill rebounded with the two most impressive wins of his career. He seemingly knocked out Jimmy Crute multiple times over the course of just 48 seconds, then cashed in on his first UFC main event with a brutal knockout of Walker in February. Unless Hill is suddenly cowed by Santos’ reputation, that means this should be more of a fun sprint than another interminable chess match involving Brazilian. Santos has a decent shot here. Even with his impressive performances, Hill has made himself wide open for an opponent to blast him with a counter, and Santos figures to look much better against an opponent who can provide him with an opportunity for those triggers than someone that tries to peck at him from range. With that said, this figures to be a race to a knockout, and at this point, Hill looks to be much likelier to take the lead, giving him the better chance at finding a finish first. The pick is Hill via first-round knockout.

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Luque vs. Neal
Pauga vs. Usman
Miller vs. Walker
Spivak vs. Sakai
Lipski vs. Cachoeira
The Prelims