What you may have missed from yesterday afternoon (Hint: Not much!)
Sure, a legend may have fallen in the main event, but was UFC: Hamburg really worth your time? The answer is no, not really, not unless you are just into watching any and every fighting event regardless of quality. The nine fights leading up to the main event were decisions. Some were more entertaining than others. The effect overall was somewhat numbing. UFC 226 was an incredibly memorable and historic event, only a couple weekends ago; last weekend’s card, Dos Santos vs. Ivanov, had its bright moments; this felt like a low point. Perhaps that isn’t fair to the fighters, but for all but the most invested viewers, it just felt… pointless.
The fact that we found out Gustafsson was injured literal minutes after Anthony Smith called him out was just the icing on the cake. Even in the one knockout that seemed somewhat relevant to a divisional title picture, it turns out the payoff wouldn’t be forthcoming. This is putting aside the fact that seeing Shogun go out that quickly was depressing to a lot of fans, who can recall when Shogun had one of the best chins in the sport, way back, before OSP put him to sleep in 2014 in the fight that signaled his long, Byzantine-esque decline.
Again, this isn’t completely fair to the fighters. Corey Anderson, the artist formerly known as Beastin’ 25/8, put in a stellar performance to best Glover Texeira in a much-improved showing. It’s not completely fair to Nasrat Haqparast, who gave us a glimpse at a potentially bright future with a dominant win over one-time prospect Marc Diakese. But then again, it feels totally fair to fights like Stefan Struve vs. Marcin Tybura, or Danny Roberts vs. David Zawada.
Fortunately, next week we have a truly stellar card you actually want to tune in for. Hopefully The Calgary card headlined by Eddie Alvarez vs. Dustin Poirier doesn’t get lost in the noise.