Ulberg’s UFC tenure didn’t get off on the right foot, as the City Kickboxing representative threw everything including the kitchen sink at Kennedy Nzechukwu in his debut, only for the Fortis MMA man to absorb it all and collect a second-round finish of his own.
But since then, “Black Jag” has been making strides and stacking positive results. He rebounded with a unanimous decision victory over Fabio Cherant in his sophomore appearance inside the Octagon, dropped Tafon Nchukwi with a jab and secured the first-round finish in his next fight, and most recently earned a patient, technical first-round stoppage win over Nicolae Negumereanu at UFC 281.
Because he trains at City and was hyped by his famous teammates, most notably middleweight champ Israel Adesanya, Ulberg touched down in the UFC with tremendous expectations heaped upon his shoulders. But he’s still quite young in his shift to MMA, as this weekend’s bout with Ihor Potieria will be just his tenth appearance, but so far, the progress has been impressive.
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Potieria is a fellow Dana White’s Contender Series grad and enters off a stoppage win over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua where he incurred the wrath of fight fans for performing his elaborate post-fight celebration after felling the former light heavyweight champion and retiring legend. “The Duelist” is 19-3 overall, but built that record against marginal competition before arriving in the UFC, and dropped his debut to Negumereanu back at UFC 277.
Ulberg appears to be connecting the dots on how to make his considerable striking skills, tremendous size, and obvious power work for him inside the Octagon, and it’s going to be fascinating to see how he continues to progress over the next few fights. He has the raw tools to blossom into a contender down the line, and my hunch is that we’ll see him with a number next to his name in the not too distant future.
