5 Fights We Need After UFC 288

UFC 288 was not exactly a blockbuster card, but it may have opened the door to three compelling title fights and some other cool matchups.

The card was headlined by a bantamweight title fight, with champion Aljamain Sterling defending against Henry Cejudo, the division's former titleholder. It was a close one, but Sterling retained his belt with a split decision.

In the co-main event, Belal Muhammad took on Gilbert Burns in a clash of Top Five welterweights that was thrown together on short notice. Both men seemed to be injured heading into the matchup, and the fight itself was a bit of a dud, but Muhammad ultimately won it by unanimous decision.

Earlier on the card, China's Yan Xiaonan picked up the biggest win of her career to date, knocking out former strawweight champion Jéssica Andrade inside a round.

That fight was preceded by a pair of decision wins at featherweight, with Charles Jourdain defeating Kron Gracie and Movsar Evloev defeating Diego Lopes.

Let's put on our matchmaking hats and take a look at what could next for the card's biggest stars.

It is abundantly clear who bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling will fight next after his decision victory over Henry Cejudo at UFC 288: No. 2-ranked contender Sean O'Malley.

O'Malley, who burst into title contention with an exciting decision win over former champ Petr Yan last year, was in the building for the card and joined Sterling in the cage after the main event concluded.

The UFC's decision to allow O'Malley into the Octagon all but guaranteed he will get the next crack at Sterling, and it makes sense.

Not only is O'Malley one of the division's top contenders, he's also its most popular fighter, so the fight would do good business. Furthermore, there's not really anybody else available. Georgia's Merab Dvalishvili arguably deserves a title shot after a win over Yan, but he is one of Sterling's chief training partners, and they've made it clear they won't fight.

O'Malley is the best option, and the only one.

It's unclear if Henry Cejudo will continue fighting after his UFC 288 loss to Aljamain Sterling. He was retired before the fight and might well retire again after it.

If he continues to compete, it's difficult to say who he should fight, but our pick is a bantamweight clash with flyweight champ Brandon Moreno. It's a bit of a weird one, but hear us out.

Cejudo and Moreno actually have a long-standing beef. They were training partners once, but after some drama on season 24 of The Ultimate Fighter and in their subsequent training camps—which you can get caught up on in this thread from MMA journalist Rodrigo Del Campo González—they've got a score to settle.

In fact, Moreno actually called Cejudo out after UFC 288, urging his former friend to defer his retirement for a grudge match in Mexico, Moreno's country of birth.

It would be a huge fight, as they are two of the best pound-for-pound fighters of the last four or five years.

Moreno will first have to get through a UFC 290 flyweight title fight with Alexandre Pantoja—a man he's lost to twice—but the outcome of that fight really doesn't matter if we're talking about a bantamweight grudge match with Cejudo.

As the flyweight champ put it in his Instagram callout, "...f--k belts, just you and me in the Octagon."

There's been a lot of recent chatter about a potential welterweight title fight between champion Leon Edwards and longtime contender Colby Covington. However, that fight seems absolutely ludicrous after UFC 288 in Newark, New Jersey, where Belal Muhammad picked up a ninth straight win with a decision defeat of former title challenger Gilbert Burns.

Not only is Muhammad riding a far, far better streak than Covington, who is one win over a shopworn Jorge Masvidal removed from a loss to Kamaru Usman, but he and Edwards have a real score to settle.

They met in the Octagon in 2021, but the fight was ruled a no-contest after Edwards landed an inadvertent eye poke and Muhammad could not continue.

It definitely wouldn't have the big-fight feel we want from UFC title fights, as neither man is much of a promoter, but if we're giving any credence to the rankings, it's the only fight to make.

Few people gave China's Yan Xiaonan a shot against former strawweight champion Jéssica Andrade at UFC 288, which is no surprise given that the Brazilian is one of the most accomplished female fighters in UFC history.

Yet the Chinese striker ultimately picked up the best win of her career, putting the former champ down inside a round.

With the win, Yan is now on a two-fight streak, having picked up a decision win over Mackenzie Dern in her next-most-recent fight. It's not the greatest streak we've see in the weight class, but it should be enough to earn her a crack at champion Zhang Weili, also from China, as there is not really anybody else more deserving at the moment.

It could even happen in the pair's homeland, according to UFC President Dana White, which would be huge.

Movsar Evloev was originally supposed to fight No. 11-ranked featherweight contender Bryce Mitchell at UFC 288 but ultimately accepted a fight with the debuting Diego Lopes when Mitchell suffered an injury.

Evloev is considered one of the top prospects in the division and was expected to blow through Lopes, particularly under short-notice circumstances. However, the Russian arguably lost the first round in the face of his foe's submission attempts and ultimately had to settle for a hard-fought unanimous-decision victory.

It did little to improve his position in the division, and in fact, it did more to prove Lopes as a fighter to watch.

From here, it only makes sense for the UFC to re-book Evloev and Mitchell. Evloev has some work to do if he wants to reassert himself as a future contender, and Mitchell, who has a great ground game, suddenly looks like a very tough fight for the Russian.