LAS VEGAS – When he opened his UFC tenure with five straight wins, Augusto Sakai was on the verge of heavyweight stardom. Then he ran into a buzzsaw in Alistair Overeem in September 2020 and had his momentum halted with a fifth-round TKO loss. Midway through 2021, he was knocked out by Jairzinho Rozenstruik and experienced a skid for the first time. And later that year, Tai Tuivasa shut him down with a second-round KO.