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UFC 175: The Important Storylines After the Fight

UFC 175 is in the books, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship should be pleased with their latest offering. Two champions further solidified their claims on the pound-for-pound list, while a number of other competitors had strong showings of their own. Now that the event is over, these are some interesting story lines that should follow the fighters and promotion going forward.

Chris Weidman as the Face of the Promotion

Chris Weidman and Lyoto Machida put on a stellar showcase for the middleweight title. Weidman walked away from the contest with the belt in tow and the opportunity to establish himself as the face of the UFC.

Weidman has already become the darling of the MMA community as he’s been featured on a number of different media outlets. Platforms such as ESPN, Fox Sports and other organizations have become Weidman‘s new playground as he promoted UFC 175. His potential to become the next big star of this sport is widely recognized at this point.

“He has the potential to be the next star,” Jay Glazer told MMA Junkie‘s Mike Bohn. “He’s a good-looking guy, and he’s as down to Earth as you’re every going to get. … He’s the future, and he’s legitimately one of the sweetest human beings you’ll ever meet in your life.”

Stars such as Chuck Liddell and Georges St. Pierre helped push mixed martial arts to its current level of popularity. Weidman‘s victory proved he has the skill to be the next man to carry that baton. The challengers that await him at middleweight are just what he needs to build his name. Timing could not be any more perfect as the UFC is in need of stars to build upon.

Ronda Rousey‘s Dominance

Sixteen seconds was all Ronda Rousey needed to dismantle the newest challenger to her bantamweight title. Alexis Davis was a true underdog coming into this fight, but this quick finish outcome wasn’t expected by most. That leaves the UFC in a tough predicament with what to do with the fighter that is presented as their biggest star on the roster.

Rousey has already defeated six of the women ranked in the top 10 of this weight class. Cat Zingano was forced to the sideline due to her knee injury, but placing her in an immediate bout against Rousey would leave her at a disadvantage.

Rousey has shown interest in facing Bethe Correia, who has seemed to make it a point to take out the champion’s training partners. That potential fight is still a long ways off before the UFC can justify that booking. The same goes with a rematch against Sara McMann. The options are truly limited with what the company can do with the “Rowdy” one.

Holly Holm and Cristiane Justino sit on the outside looking in as the UFC has struggled to get either of them signed to the promotion. While both of these competitors could be booked as potential threats to Ronda’s reign, the MMA community is still far away from seeing either contest.

The UFC is at a point where it needs Rousey more than ever. Unfortunately, a lack of compelling matchups will make it difficult to properly book their champion.

How the UFC will follow up

UFC 175 was set to be a major test for the promotion. 2014 had been less than stellar when it came to pay-per-view buys for the company. This card was stacked with two title bouts in hopes that their defenses would catch the eyes of the viewing public. General response to the event has been widely positive. Now the question turns to how the UFC can follow up for the fans.

UFC 176 was set to go on Aug. 2 and feature the rematch between Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes. Unfortunately the injury bug has hit Aldo once again and puts that card in serious jeopardy. Outside of Jon Jones, the company has struggled to garner much attention for their champions.

The current model of flooding the market with fights haven’t had the best results at this time. Yet the leaders of the UFC seem undaunted in changing their model.

It will be interesting to see how the promotion follows up to such a strong event. Momentum is vital in the sports promotion industry, so the UFC will best benefit by creating cards that immediately capture the attention of mainstream fans. That has already been difficult for much of 2014, but the organization has to find a way to answer the call.

UFC 175 was a very bright spot for a 2014 that has been filled with challenges for the organization. These are just three of the story lines that now follow key fighters and the organization as a whole.

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UFC 175: Keys to Victory for Chris Weidman and Lyoto Machida

Chris Weidman knocked Anderson Silva out at UFC 162. He stopped him again in their rematch at UFC 168 after Silva snapped his leg on a checked kick.
He defeated the greatest fighter on the face of the planet twice, successfully calling the middle…

Chris Weidman knocked Anderson Silva out at UFC 162. He stopped him again in their rematch at UFC 168 after Silva snapped his leg on a checked kick.

He defeated the greatest fighter on the face of the planet twice, successfully calling the middleweight throne his own in the process. Even after doing all of that, some people still feel the newly crowned champ lacks the sort of credibility his predecessor had.

He’ll be stepping into the Octagon against Lyoto Machida on Saturday, July 5 at UFC 175 to do just that—prove he’s deserving of the middleweight crown.

Machida has always been a difficult puzzle for most fighters to solve, but Weidman has never been defeated in his professional mixed martial arts career.

With both fighters set to have their hands full, here are the keys to victory for both Weidman and Machida.

Lyoto Machida: Keep the Distance and Embrace the Boos

Machida is an elusive but remarkably patient counterstriker who can frustrate and evade the most talented fighters who are looking to simply march forward and strike—something Weidman has always been fond of.

The Dragon is agile enough to prevent even the most talented MMA wrestlers from taking him down and scoring points—again, a pivotal aspect of Weidman’s game.

Machida is not new to the fight game, though. He’s privy to what fans want to see him do: knock the other dude senseless. But, as painstakingly boring as it is for the average MMA fan to endure, that’s only going to happen if his opponent is willing to engage first.

He’s welcomed the boos in previous fights, such as his bout with Dan Henderson at UFC 157, and should definitely welcome them here—he has to stay out of Weidman’s range in order to win this fight.

On paper, this shouldn’t be too difficult of a task for The Dragon to accomplish—he’s faster and far more skilled on foot than the champion is.

Unless Weidman plans to supplement his critics’ arguments with a barrage of boos during his first title defense against somebody other than Silva, Machida just needs to sit and wait for the champion to grow tired of not engaging.

Chris Weidman: Cut Off the Cage and Get the Fight to the Ground

It’s really no secret—Weidman probably needs to get this fight to the ground in order to retain his belt against his striking savant of an opponent.

Sure, Weidman was able to show his improved striking skills against Silva in both of his title bouts, but it’s highly unlikely Machida leaves his hands down and verbally calls at the champion to touch his chin. Knowing Machida and his tactical capabilities, it’s improbable he fires leg kicks in high volume in this fight, too—so go ahead and eliminate any freak-accident leg-snapping incidents from this equation.

Weidman can’t just move forward the way he did against Silva; he needs to be more patient and slowly close off the cage. The champion has to be as careful as ever—even the smallest mistake can stop him from taking the strap as a carry-on on his way back to the Serra-Longo Fight Team.

Closing the distance and maintaining some sort of constant contact with Machida is the only way Weidman takes this fight to the ground. There, and only there, can the champion begin to paint his ground-and-pound and submission-filled canvas en route to securing his title and eliminating all hopes of the second-coming of “The Machida Era.”

Kristian Ibarra is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report. He also serves as the sports editor at San Diego State University’s student-run newspaper, The Daily Aztec. Follow him on Twitter at @Kristian_Ibarra for all things MMA.

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UFC 175 PPV Is a Major Test of UFC’s Strength

It’s no secret that UFC 175 is the biggest event the Ultimate Fighting Championship has put together so far in 2014. The promotion has gone all-in by placing two title fights on one card, as Chris Weidman and Ronda Rousey will defend their b…

UFC is also in a fight of its own. Not against another promotion but rather dwindling pay-per-view figures that have continued into 2014. UFC 175 will be an interesting test of the current strength of the promotion as a whole.

One of the big storylines this year is the fact that UFC is suffering from dropping PPV buyrates. This is not a new trend, as the issue first began to rear its head back in 2013.

A review of the PPV buyrate figures provided by MMAPayout.com shows that numbers were up and down throughout most of the year. Bright spots in the forms of UFCs 158, 159, 162 and 168 stand out as the only events for which UFC cracked the 500,000-buyrate threshold.

One interesting point about those cards is that each one featured a fighter who is no longer competing. Georges St-Pierre (UFC 158) Chael Sonnen (UFC 159) and Anderson Silva (UFC 162 and 168) are all away from the sport for one reason or another. They were some of the most important names of the sport at the time.

Whether intentionally or not, the baton has been passed to today’s fighters, and results haven’t been great.

UFC 175 does feature two individuals who were a part of the biggest cards of 2013. Weidman and Rousey helped carry some of the more successful events of 2013. However, they did not do it alone, and this weekend’s card is missing some key components of those nights.

Weidman is fighting Lyoto Machida, who has never been a huge PPV draw. Rousey is facing off against Alexis Davis instead of coming off a season of The Ultimate Fighter with Miesha Tate. These two factors can drastically affect the success of this fight card. If fans don’t show interest in Machida and Davis as foils to the champions, then this show’s numbers will not break the current trend.

As Dave Walsh of MMANuts.com stated, “UFC 175 is a chance for both [Rousey and Weidman] to not only prove themselves in the cage, but to prove themselves as legitimate stars and champions. They’ll have to do it without the help of Anderson Silva, which should make this a lot more interesting.”

Another blow to this card occurred with the removal of Sonnen vs. Vitor Belfort. That rivalry was a major talking point which was broken up by Sonnen’s failed drug tests, retirement and eventual termination from the promotion. Losing that fight weakens the undercard of an event that even features Urijah Faber in the preliminaries.

UFC 175 is about more than two champions looking to walk out of the Octagon with their belts in tow. This card will help understand how UFC’s scheduling model has affected the interest in their current product.

If Ronda Rousey and Chris Weidman really are two of the biggest stars that this sport has to offer, then PPV numbers will support that “fact.” If not, UFC will find itself in an interesting position that will need to be addressed one way or another.

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Dana White Wants B.J. Penn to Retire If He Loses to Frankie Edgar

B.J. Penn will forever be known as one of the most dominant lightweight champions MMA and the UFC have ever seen. That doesn’t mean the 35-year-old welterweight and lightweight champion should fight forever, though.
Win or lose, UFC preside…

Win or lose, UFC president Dana White thinks he needs to step in before allowing Penn to continue his career.

“This is B.J.’s last fight possibly,” White said on Tuesday on Fox Sports 1. “If he wins, we’ll see what he does from there, but if he loses, I will actually push for him to retire.”

Scheduled to make his return to the octagon—this time at 145 pounds—against Frankie Edgar, many are left to wonder what version of Penn they’ll see.

Will it be the guy who dismantled Joe Stevenson, Sean Sherk, Kenny Florian and Diego Sanchez in his run as the lightweight champion?

Or will it be the guy who only captured one victory in his last six Octagon appearances?

Since 2010, Penn has only seen his hand raised once—a knockout over Matt Hughes, who went on to retire just one year after.

It wouldn’t be fair to completely disparage Penn as a force in the featherweight division, especially since he spent the last two years of his fighting career scrapping with much bigger, stronger fighters at 170 pounds.

It’s possible that fighting smaller, but faster, fighters at 145 pounds is all that Penn needs to recapture the dominance he once enjoyed as a lightweight.

But considering the issues he had with a faster fighter in Frankie Edgar back in August and April of 2010—when Penn was only 31-years-old—it’s highly unlikely that fans will see “The Prodigy” return to his former glory.

Win or lose, Penn’s legacy as one of the best fighters to ever grace the Octagon will last forever.

“It could be possibly watching Michael Jordan playing his last basketball game,” White said. “It could be Tiger Woods’ last golf game.”

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Johny Hendricks: Added Weight Won’t Help Georges St-Pierre in Rematch

Rumor has it that former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre has spent some of his time away from the cage adding some extra muscle.
St-Pierre first got the rumor-mill going when he posted this photo, captioned “Working on putting on some muscl…

Rumor has it that former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre has spent some of his time away from the cage adding some extra muscle.

St-Pierre first got the rumor-mill going when he posted this photo, captioned “Working on putting on some muscle mass,” onto his Instagram profile:

MMAfighting’s Ariel Helwani later confirmed on Twitter.

It turns out that current UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks doesn’t care—there’s no way he sees himself losing to St-Pierre, 200 pounds or not, for a second time.

He told MMA Fight Corner (via MMAFighting):

“I’ve heard GSP’s been watching my fights. Re-watching stuff because he’s going to have to put himself in more danger to hurt me, to mess up my game. That puts him in trouble. He’s been able to get away with so much because he’s been able to out-wrestle people. He can’t out-wrestle me. He can’t out-strength me. No matter how much weight he puts on. I think he’s at 201 pounds right now. They said he’s beefing up because he felt weak against me. He’s going to feel weak, even if he’s at 201.”

It’s difficult to imagine St-Pierre any bigger than he was when he first fought Hendricks. Already known as one of the bigger, more muscular fighters at 170-pounds, it may not be ideal for St-Pierre to add all that weight and still be athletic enough to perform at welterweight.

No worries, though—there’s another division that could suit St-Pierre and his newfound muscle mass just fine.

St-Pierre always cited the need to increase muscle mass as one of the major reasons a superfight between he and Anderson Silva never came to fruition. He was in the midst of one of the most dominant championship runs the UFC has ever seen and simply didn’t have the time to walk away and train for a move up in weight class.

Walking away from the sport and tearing his ACL might just be what St-Pierre needed to finally make the move to middleweight.

Sure, St-Pierre would be giving up quite a bit of height in moving up to middleweight, but the Firas Zahabi-trained fighter shouldn’t have too much trouble coping with height, so long as he retains most of his speed and tactical prowess.

A move up in division probably wouldn’t sit well with Hendricks, considering he still hasn’t technically defeated the Canadian superstar. But, while Hendricks is cognitive of the fact he didn’t see his hand raised in his bout with St-Pierre back at UFC 167 in November, he feels that the way he fought against St-Pierre warranted a new champion.

“There’s a sense of me that I sort of felt like Robbie Lawler was my title defense because of the Georges St-Pierre fight,” Hendricks said of his victory over Lawler for the vacant UFC welterweight title. “That’s the way I’m looking at it. It’s not technically my title defense but I’ve got the same mindset.”

In reality, it’s probably in Hendricks’ best interest to simply move on from that St-Pierre fight—he’s got a torn bicep and a flock of new challengers to worry about.

Lawler and Matt Brown are scheduled to face off on July 26 to determine the No. 1 contender upon Hendricks’ return. Rory MacDonald just proved to the world that he doesn’t always have to sit back and coast in his victory against Tyron Woodley. Even Woodley, who woefully underperformed in his last bout, is taking no time off to redeem himself in his next fight against Dong Hyun Kim—a welterweight currently riding a four-fight winning streak with back-to-back TKO finishes.

The overflowing crop of challengers hasn’t stopped Hendricks from thinking about certain fighters more than others, though.

Hendricks is currently on the mend from a torn bicep he suffered before his title fight with Lawler. He won the title, but not at full strength —part of him wonders what could have been had he been closer to 100 percent at UFC 171.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’ll throw with whoever’s the No. 1 contender. I’ll fight them. I’m not going to run away from that, but there’s a part of me that wants to see how I can do against Robbie Lawler, healthy. Then again, there’s part of me that wants to sort of train for Matt Brown or Rory MacDonald or whoever else is out there.”

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For BJ Penn, a Win over Frankie Edgar Would Breathe New Life into His Career

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that B.J. Penn is a future UFC Hall of Famer. His mixed martial arts career began inside the Octagon at UFC 31, and over the course of his career he elevated the lightweight division to its marquee status and is one of only two men to hold UFC titles in two weight classes. A win over Frankie Edgar at the TUF 19 Finale on Sunday could add a new chapter to the legacy of “The Prodigy.”

Since losing the UFC lightweight title to Frankie Edgar in April of 2010, and the rematch that August, he ventured back up to welterweight with his 21-second starching of Matt Hughes at UFC 123. The win was thought by many to be the beginning of a career resurgence for the former champion.

He fought to a draw in his next bout against Jon Fitch at UFC 127, in a very close fight that he was competitive in. He followed that up with a decision loss to Nick Diaz, where after a surge of action in the first round, he couldn’t keep up with the blistering pace of Diaz, and by the end was doing little more than absorbing punishment. The resurgence hadn’t come, and it became clear that the days of licking his opponent’s blood off his gloves were in the past.

The loss to Diaz was an emotional one for B.J., who told Joe Rogan during his post-fight interview that it would probably be the last time we saw him in the cage, and he didn’t want to go home “looking like this” anymore. It seemed very likely that we had seen The Prodigy fight for the final time.

He returned a year later after to answer a challenge from Rory MacDonald. MacDonald picked him apart in the fight en-route to a unanimous decision, leaving Penn in a familiar spot of being badly beaten and dejected. Going into his third fight with Edgar, Penn has won just one of his last six fights.

The variable that needs to be considered is the move to featherweight that Penn will be making for the first time in his career. Those thorough beatdowns by Diaz and MacDonald occurred at 170 pounds, which despite the victories over Hughes was never a good fit for Penn.

A “motivated BJ Penn” is a saying that has almost become lore in the mixed martial arts world, similar to “Prime Chuck Liddell” or “Wanderlei in Pride.” Motivation to train has always been the biggest hurdle for Penn to get over in his career. Making the cut to 145 pounds will necessitate Penn to stay active and will push him to train hard.

Although Penn doesn’t have any personal animosity towards Edgar, a few statements made recently have gotten under his skin.

“It’s not really an emotional thing, but I’ve seen that he really wants to make me retire,” Penn said on the pre-fight conference call. “And how am I going to feed myself and feed my kids if I retire? But I’ll remember that next Sunday when we step in the ring.”

The losses to Edgar eat away at Penn, and he was willing to make the drop to featherweight to avenge them. Penn is 35 years old. He isn’t the youngest fighter in the world, but he isn’t so advanced in age that a good performance seems out of the question.

He’s got a tough task ahead against the man who took his belt, and it really will take a motivated B.J. Penn to get past Edgar. We may see Frankie Edgar come out and use his speed and footwork to outbox Penn just like he did in their first two fights. But, we may see a lean, scrappy B.J. Penn storm out of the gate looking to finish his adversary quickly and decisively.

And should he defeat the No. 3-ranked featherweight, the rest of the Top 10 is no walk in the park either. Defeating Frankie Edgar would create some seriously interesting fights in the featherweight division. Put a newly invigorated B.J. Penn against fighters like Cub Swanson or Chan Sung Jung and you have main event fights that would draw some eyeballs.

He has spent some time with the Nova Uniao team in preparation for this fight, and a win over Edgar would put him right back into the forefront of the minds of MMA fans who marveled at his destruction of the lightweight division from 2007-2009.

Penn has already earned his place as one of the pound-for-pound greats and was arguably the best lightweight fighter of all time. He’s got a chance to prove that he still has what it takes to get it done and reclaim the glory that he reveled in as one of the most feared fighters in the UFC. A victory would certainly breathe new life into his already prodigious career.

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