4 Fights We Need to See After UFC on ESPN 65

Lerone Murphy is closing in on a featherweight title shot in the UFC.

The British contender returned to the Octagon in the main event of Saturday's UFC on ESPN 65 card, taking on former interim title challenger Josh Emmett. It was a tough challenge for him, as Emmett is arguably the division's hardest hitter, but he passed it with flying colors, scoring an impressive unanimous-decision win. He probably won't get a title shot next, but his latest win got him very close.

As is often the case with cards at the UFC Apex, the headliners were the only fighters on the bill anywhere near the top of their divisions. Still, the event produced some impressive performances. Chief among those was the latest Octagon win from Pat Sabatini, who shut down knockout artist Joanderson Brito to score a decision win in the co-feature.

Red-hot South Korean prospect Chang Ho Lee also showed out on the card, thumping Contender Series graduate Cortavious Romious to a second-round TKO that was all the more impressive considering Romious missed weight for the fight.

Keep scrolling to see what we'd like to see next for the Saturday card's headliners, as well as our picks for Sabatini and Lee's next move.

Lerone Murphy's career-changing win over Josh Emmett couldn't have come at a much better time for British MMA fans. It was just weeks ago, after all, that the country's top fighter, Leon Edwards, suffered one of the worst losses of his career at the hands of Sean Brady. Thanks to Murphy, they've now got another fighter in title contention to soften the blow of Edwards' defeat.

If the featherweight division were a little less stacked, Murphy might be in line for a title shot right now, with an 8-0-1 UFC record, and wins over solid fighters like Emmett, Dan Ige, and Edson Barboza behind him. However, we've still got to wait to see who claims the division's vacant title when Alexander Volkanovski takes on Diego Lopes at UFC 314 next weekend. Beyond that, undefeated Russian Movsar Evloev is probably next in line — though it sounds like he's got a fight in the works for May 17.

"Today I got offered a fight in the UFC against someone new for May 17th," Evloev wrote on X the day before Murphy beat Emmett. "I have been waiting for Ortega for 3 months I’m not sure what is going on with him, but I’m ready to fight May 17th against anyone."

It remains to be seen who Evloev is fighting on May 17, but based on his post, it's not Ortega. Unless Ortega is outright ducking Evloev, which seems unlikely, that implies he's also not currently in a position to fight, probably due to injury. Unfortunately, that leaves very few good options for Murphy. Max Holloway is headed up to lightweight. Yair Rodriguez is set to welcome former Bellator champ Patricio "Pitbull" Freire to the Octagon at UFC 314. Aljamain Sterling is seemingly uncertain about his future in the sport. Unless Murphy is willing to fight his fellow Brit Arnold Allen, his only choice for his next fight is going to be down the rankings a bit.

In that event, the best choice is clearly Youssef Zalal. Zalal is riding an impressive win over Calvin Kattar. That might not be quite on par with Murphy's win over Emmett, but he's not far behind the top-10 Brit in the rankings, and it would give us some time to see how the huge featherweight fights on the calendar for this spring shake out.

Josh Emmett's absurd knockout power will continue to make him a threat to any featherweight he's matched up with. However, he's now 2-3 in his last five fights, and the lone wins in that stretch were a short-notice KO of Bryce Mitchell, and a close split-decision against Calvin Kattar. If he wants to keep himself in the title conversation, he'll need another win like the Mitchell KO in his next fight.

Why not give him that opportunity by matching him up with a guy in a similar situation, Edson Barboza?

Barboza is also riding a decision loss to Murphy, and like Emmett, is also 2-3 in his last 5 fights. They're in almost identical positions, and as luck would have it, they are two of the flashiest strikers in the weight class. This one would either be a wild, five-round war, or a devastating KO. Anything else seems impossible.

They were supposed to fight in 2020, but that plan fell through due to the onset of the pandemic. Now that that's behind us, let's give it another shot.

After his win over Joanderson Brito on Saturday, former Cage Fury FC featherweight champ Pat Sabatini is now 7-2 in the UFC. And while it's not really relevant to his MMA career, he's also beaten three other UFC fighters in grappling matches in the same timeframe: Alex Caceres, Niko Price, and Herbert Burns. Just an interesting tidbit.

Suffice it to say that he's got some good momentum going, and could be in position for a fight with a ranked opponent in the near future. We'd like to see him take another step in that direction against Brazil's Melquizael Costa.

Costa is now 4-2 in the UFC. That's not a jaw-dropping record on the surface, but his only losses have come against Thiago Moises and Steve Garcia. The Moises loss occurred on short notice, at lightweight, in Costa's UFC debut. Garcia, meanwhile, is now right on the cusp of the featherweight rankings. So both of those losses have aged pretty well. Costa has also won his last three fights, including a decision victory over Christian Rodriguez the weekend before last.

He's in a similar position to Sabatini, and on a similar schedule. Pit them against each other to see who's ready to take the next step.

Chang Ho Lee looks like a fighter to keep an eye on.

The South Korean picked up a split decision over fellow Road to UFC product Xiao Long in his Octagon debut last year. On Saturday, he proved that debut win was just a taste of what he was capable of, as he battered Contender Series grad Cortavious Romious to a bonus-winning, second-round TKO. It was all the more impressive considering his opponent missed the 136-pound bantamweight limit by several pounds, which has a proven correlation to winning fights.

It's far too early to tout Lee as a future contender, but the future certainly looks bright for him. The pick for his next opponent is Elijah Smith.

Smith, who is also a Contender Series product, made his UFC debut in February, with a decision win over Vince Morales. He doesn't have quite the same hype behind him as Lee, but he's on a similar roll right now. Book them for an upcoming Fight Night undercard — maybe the UFC's next stop in Asia, since Lee made the long flight to the States for his fight with Romious.