10 reasons to watch UFC on FOX 23, where it's moving day for main-card fighters

The UFC hasn’t named its events for quite a while, but if the promotion were still doing so, a fitting tag for Saturday’s card would been something like “UFC on FOX 23: Moving Day.”

Each fight on the main card is significant in its respective division, none more so than the main event, which pits Julianna Pena, the No. 2 fighter in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA women’s bantamweight rankings, against No. 3-ranked Valentina Shevchenko. While nothing has been set, there’s a good chance the winner will move on to face champion Amanda Nunes in her next title defense.

In the co-main event, Donald Cerrone looks to pick up his record-tying 20th UFC win with the promotion and move one step closer to a welterweight title shot – and the money that comes with that shot, when he faces Jorge Masvidal.

UFC on FOX 23 takes place at Pepsi Center in Denver. The event airs on FOX following prelims on FS1 and UFC Fight Pass. Here are 10 reasons to watch.

Let’s briefly compare the main event competitors.

Pena is ultra aggressive. Shevchenko is patient and relaxed. Pena (8-2 MMA, 4-0 UFC) is a threat moving forward on the feet. Shevchenko (13-2 MMA, 2-1 UFC) is an excellent counter-striker. Pena has good ground skills. Shevchenko excels in the clinch.

The contrasting strengths are what makes this fight compelling, but Shevchenko does seem to have one advantage, and that is the fact that her style seems made for five-round fights. If Shevchenko can keep Pena at distance and remain calm and take things into the later rounds, the advantage could go to Shevchenko.

Cerrone has been reborn at welterweight, where he’s stopped four straight opponents before the final horn. That run has earned him the No. 7 spot in the 170-pound rankings, a division he hadn’t fought in before February 2016.

Masvidal (31-11 MMA, 8-4 UFC), who is on a two-fight winning streak, is the man who hopes to end Cerrone’s (32-7 MMA, 19-4 UFC) streak, inserting himself in the rankings in the process.

Masvidal can give any welterweight fits, but the knock on him is his tendency to take his foot off the gas at times, something that might have cost him in his recent split-decision losses to Benson Henderson and Lorenz Larkin. Don’t expect that to be an issue in this fight since he explicitly called for this matchup after he said Cerrone took food from his plate on two occasions.

Francis Ngannou has gone from raw talent to No. 14-ranked heavyweight in a little more than a year, winning each of his four UFC fights by stoppage. He’s looked more impressive and more comfortable in each outing.

At UFC on FOX 23, Ngannou gets a chance to take another step up the ladder when he faces former UFC heavyweight champion and No. 9-ranked Andrei Arlovski.

As impressive as Ngannou has been, he remains a work in progress. After all, he started training in MMA only in mid-2013. To put that in perspective, Arlovski (25-13 MMA, 14-7 UFC) had fought 21 times as a pro before Ngannou (9-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) even knew what MMA was.

This fight means a lot for the careers of both men. With a win, Ngannou will become a very promotable fighter. As for Arlovski, who’s on a three-fight losing streak, a win will likely keep him in the top 10, but a loss could put him in a precipitous position.

Jason Knight fought twice in 2016 and won both bouts, and he did so in a way that earned him a lot of attention. Knight always moves forward, he’s aggressive, he’s not big on defense, he puts together good combinations, he sets a fast pace, and he has a solid ground game.

Knight (15-2 MMA, 2-1 UFC) is also free with his in-fight trash talk if he feels it’s warranted. The one thing that could hurt him against fellow featherweight Alex Caceres (12-9 MMA, 7-7 UFC), who is coming off a five-round split-decision loss to fast-rising contender Yair Rodriguez, is his tendency to run low on energy as the fight progresses.

Each time it looks like Nate Marquardt is close to getting his walking papers from the UFC, he comes back with a finish, most recently earning a “Performance of the Night” bonus for his October knockout of Tamdan McCrory.

Marquardt has his work cut out for him in Denver as he faces noted middleweight knockout artist Sam Alvey, who’s coming off a decision win over Alex Nicholson in November.

Marquardt has not won two consecutive fights since he followed a 2011 decision over Dan Miller with a 2012 TKO of now-UFC champ Tyron Woodley in a contest that earned Marquardt the Strikeforce welterweight title.

The book on Alvey (29-8 MMA, 6-3 UFC) is that he’s almost exclusively a counter-striker, so expect a veteran like Marquardt (35-16-2 MMA, 13-9 UFC) to alternate between distance work and the clinch in the hopes of avoiding Alvey’s power. That might not make for an exciting fight, but it is the path of least resistance for Marquardt.

Raphael Assuncao spent nearly two years outside the octagon dealing with ankle issues. When he returned at UFC 200, the promotion matched him up against T.J. Dillashaw, who was six months removed from losing the UFC bantamweight title to Dominick Cruz.

Dillashaw cruised to a unanimous-decision win in that contest, ending Assuncao’s seven-fight winning streak.

Assuncao’s opponent, Aljamain Sterling, is also coming off a loss, the first of his career, after dropping a split decision to Bryan Caraway in May.

This fight will go a long way toward showing if Assuncao (23-5 MMA, 7-2 UFC), currently ranked No. 4 at bantamweight, remains a potential title contender. As for No. 11-ranked Sterling (12-1 MMA, 4-1 UFC), he needs this win to show the promotion that despite his relative inexperience, he’s a threat right now and no longer a prospect.

At UFC Fight Night 103 The MMA Lab had one of its top prospects debut with the UFC. That fighter, Drakkar Klose, earned a unanimous-decision win over Devin Powell, keeping his unbeaten record intact. At UFC on FOX 23 the Arizona fight camp has another debuting fighter, former RFA light-heavyweight champion Jordan Johnson.

Johnson is also unbeaten and has gone the distance once, when he claimed the RFA title win a win over LeMarcus Tucker.

Like Klose, the question about Johnson is whether he has what it takes to compete against UFC-level talent?

Johnson (6-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) gets his first chance to answer that question when he meets Luis Henrique da Silva (12-1 MMA, 2-1 UFC), who recently saw his streak of 12 consecutive stoppage victories come to an end when he tapped to Paul Craig’s armbar at UFC on FOX 22.

Eric Spicely

Eric Spicely was the second biggest underdog on the card when he faced Thiago Santos at UFC Fight Night 95. Less than three minutes into that fight, Spicely locked on a body triangle and slipped in a rear-naked choke for the upset submission victory. The stunning finish earned Spicely a “Performance of the Night” bonus and likely saved his job with the UFC.

Spicely (9-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) is once again an underdog, albeit by a smaller margin, heading into his middleweight fight against Alessio Di Chirico (10-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC), who’s a well-rounded fighter. He scored an emotional win over Garreth McLellan in August, days after an earthquake hit his home country of Italy.

Jeremy Kimball

Jeremy Kimball makes his UFC debut in his home state of Colorado at UFC on FOX 23, stepping in to face Marcos Rogerio de Lima on one week’s notice.

Kimball has run off four straight victories since a 2014 submission loss to Chris Camozzi on the local scene.

Don’t expect this one to last long; Kimball (14-5 MMA, 0-0 UFC) has gone the distance only three times in his career while de Lima (14-4-1 MMA, 3-2 UFC) has not left the first round in five consecutive fights while winning three of those contests.

Alexandre Pantoja

Two former flyweight champions, both competitors on Season 24 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” meet in the UFC Fight Pass featured prelim.

Alexandre Pantoja (16-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC), a former RFA champion, was the first pick of Team Cejudo on the reality show, and he made it to the semifinals before losing a unanimous decision to Hiromasa Ogikubo. Erick Shelton (10-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC), a former Caged Aggression champion, was the second-to-last pick, but he too made it to the semifinals, where he dropped a majority decision to Tim Elliott.

In a division hungry for new talent, this is the kind of fight that could earn the winner a shot at a top-15 opponent.

For more on UFC on FOX 23, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.