UFC 331's veteran cull: Tuivasa, Chikadze and the one exception
Tai Tuivasa has lost seven straight and Giga Chikadze four. Marlon Vera was cast in the same role at UFC 331 and won instead. What the odds said about all three.
Three men walked into UFC 331 on Saturday as betting underdogs against younger opponents, and all three were there because the UFC needed somebody to stand across from a project. Tai Tuivasa at +330. Giga Chikadze at +340. Marlon Vera at +165.
Two of them did what the price said. One of them did not, and the one who did not is the reason this is worth writing about rather than shrugging at.
Tuivasa has now lost seven in a row
Let me put the run down in full, because saying "he's on a skid" does not carry it.
- December 2022: knocked out by Sergei Pavlovich, round one.
- September 2023: submitted by Alexander Volkov, round two.
- March 2024: submitted by Marcin Tybura, round one, in a fight named after him.
- August 2024: split decision to Jairzinho Rozenstruik.
- January 2026: unanimous decision to Tallison Teixeira.
- May 2026: unanimous decision to Louie Sutherland.
- Saturday: split decision to Robelis Despaigne.
That is seven, over nearly four years, and his record is now 15-11. He is 33. The last three have gone to the cards, which is its own kind of news, because the version of Tuivasa that sold pay-per-views was a man who either detonated somebody in round one or got detonated himself. What is left is a durable heavyweight who goes fifteen minutes and loses close ones to people the promotion is trying to build.
Despaigne is 38 and 7-2, a former taekwondo Olympian the UFC has been carefully feeding since he arrived. He needed a split decision to get past a man who has not won since 2022. Read that sentence again and ask which of the two the matchmaking was serving.
I like Tuivasa. Most people do, and that is precisely the mechanism: a fighter who is beloved, durable and no longer dangerous is the most useful object in a matchmaker's drawer. He draws, he shows up, he is unlikely to embarrass the prospect by winning, and every loss is priced into the next booking rather than ending it. Seven fights of that is not a career being managed. It is an asset being depreciated.
Nobody involved is behaving irrationally. The promotion is getting a recognizable name into a prospect's record at a fraction of what a ranked heavyweight would cost, the shows sell, and the fighter keeps earning. That is the trap in this whole subject: the incentives are working exactly as designed, and the only person carrying the downside is the one absorbing the punches.
Chikadze got the version where the punches land
Joanderson Brito needed 1:57. Chikadze landed seven significant strikes out of twelve thrown before it was over; Brito landed twenty of twenty-seven.
That is four straight losses for Chikadze, now 15-7, and the shape of them matters more than the count: unanimous decision to Arnold Allen in July 2024, unanimous decision to David Onama in April 2025, then stopped by Kevin Vallejos in round two last December, and stopped again on Saturday. The decisions became knockouts. He is 38, and the kickboxer whose whole game was built on an untouchable lead leg has now been finished in consecutive fights by men who walked through it.
The gap between those fights is also part of the story. Allen in July 2024, Onama nine months later, Vallejos eight months after that, Brito nine months after that. Four fights in twenty-six months, each one a step down the card, each one against a hungrier featherweight. There is no mystery about what that sequence is.
And then Vera won
Here is the exception, and it deserves the space.
Marlon Vera had lost four in a row himself: the five-round title fight with Sean O'Malley in March 2024, Deiveson Figueiredo that August, a split decision to Aiemann Zahabi last October, and David Martinez in February. Ranked tenth at bantamweight on our September 15 board, 33 years old, and booked against Charles Jourdain, five years younger and a -190 favorite.
Vera stopped him in round three.
Photo: Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Russell R. Rhodes Jr. / Public domain
It is his first finish since he knocked out Dominick Cruz in August 2022, four years and six fights ago, and it came in exactly the role the other two were cast in: the recognizable veteran on a losing run, priced as the stepping stone, matched against a younger man with a division to climb. The only difference is the outcome, and the outcome is not a small thing. A +165 winner resets a career in one night in a way that nothing else in this sport does.
The obvious objection is that I am reading a pattern into three fights that happen to have shared a card, and that fighters lose because they get older and slower, not because of a conspiracy in the matchmaking office. Fair, and half conceded: Chikadze is 38 and was beaten by a better featherweight, full stop. But the bookings are not random. Somebody chose those three opponents, the market understood immediately what each fight was for, and the prices were right two times out of three.
What Saturday actually proved
Not much about the sport, and quite a lot about the business. The betting market is the most honest public statement anyone makes about a fighter's standing, and it said out loud that Tuivasa, Chikadze and Vera were there to lose. Two of them obliged. One of them turned the transaction over and took the thing the other man was supposed to receive.
If you want to know what the promotion thinks of a veteran, do not read the press release. Read the opening line.
Full results, stats and scorecards from the card are on the UFC 331 event page.