Should Frankie Edgar drop down a weight class?We hear this question after every one of Edgar’s fights, whether he wins or—as is the case after UFC 150 last weekend—loses.The arguments for the drop are always the same: Edgar is one of …
Should Frankie Edgar drop down a weight class?
We hear this question after every one of Edgar’s fights, whether he wins or—as is the case after UFC 150 last weekend—loses.
The arguments for the drop are always the same: Edgar is one of the few UFC fighters who does not cut weight and thus is always at a size disadvantage against opponents who regularly cut 20 lbs or more to make the 155-pound limit. Given his success despite that size disparity, imagine what Edgar could do against someone his own size, or even—and this is crazy—has a size advantage.
But after Edgar’s boxing coach, Mark Henry, told the SiriusXM Fight Club radio show (via MMAFighting.com) that he would like to see Edgar drop two weight classes to bantamweight, I realized that no single person has given the most compelling reason for Edgar to make the reduction they are calling for.
Frankie Edgar has an opportunity to claim a position as one of the greatest fighters in the history of the UFC.
Only two fighters—Hall of Famer Randy Couture and future Hall of FamerBJ Penn—have ever held UFC titles in two separate weight classes. Both masqueraded in divisions they probably didn’t and don’t belong in: Couture was fighting heavyweights with 40-plus pounds on him, and Penn is a soft, pudgy welterweight whose natural abilities have allowed him to survive there.
Edgar has already earned the title in his “unnatural” weight class, and could now surpass both of these legends by doing something that they—or anyone else for that matter—have never done.
Consider the current state of the featherweight and bantamweight divisions. Neither is exactly deep or brimming with big-name challengers for their champions. Should Edgar drop to either, he would be, at most, one fight away from a title shot. He has the speed, wrestling ability and cardio to outwork and grind down Jose Aldo Jr, and he’s one of the only fighters in the UFC who can match Dominick Cruz’s footwork.
So assume Edgar drops to featherweight, wins the belt and defends it, then drops to bantamweight and claims that title by 2014 as well. In a period of four years, Edgar could would have won and defended a title in three weight classes. That may happen in boxing, but in MMA it is unprecedented.
It’s time Edgar makes the cut and sets his sights on new horizons, but not because he couldn’t hang with the big boys. Edgar has an opportunity to make history, to be remembered as one of the greatest of all time. Those opportunities do not come very often, and when they do, they need to be seized.
To the average working person $59.99 is a lot of money, and with the UFC offering two, sometimes three pay-per-view events in a single calendar month, that’s a lot of strain to put on the bank account.For myself and others of legal drinking age, the so…
To the average working person $59.99 is a lot of money, and with the UFC offering two, sometimes three pay-per-view events in a single calendar month, that’s a lot of strain to put on the bank account.
For myself and others of legal drinking age, the solution is the local bar where—if you can ignore the guy in the Ed Hardy shirt screaming “headbutt!” every time the fight hits the mat—you can enjoy some drinks and watch the card with a small cover charge at most.
In the interest of sparking the conversation between you and your increasingly inebriated pals, I’ve put together a handy cheat sheet of five topics that you can argue over while you wait for the server to refill your mug. Enjoy the fights, enjoy the beverages, and of course, get home safe on Saturday night!
1. If Frankie Edgar wins the lightweight title, doesn’t Ben Henderson deserve an immediate rematch?
Let’s say that Frankie Edgar earns a close unanimous decision win over Ben Henderson which, given how their first fight went, is a distinct possibility. That leaves both fighters locked in a 1-1 tie and, given that Edgar was awarded an immediate rematch after their first match, shouldn’t Henderson be given the same opportunity?
In a vacuum, that would be the fair thing to do, but a vacuum doesn’t have Nate Diaz waiting in the wings, or Donald Cerrone, Anthony Pettis or even Paul Sass potentially in the mix. UFC president Dana White has already said that Diaz will get the next shot at the title, but you couldn’t blame Henderson for feeling a little swindled if the fighter he already beat walks away with the title and he is thrown back into the ever-growing pool of contenders.
This is the reason that I hate immediate title rematches. Not only do they stagnate the division for up to six months at a time, but they add a level of complexity to the title picture that just isn’t needed. Contenders get their shot, and if they come up short—regardless of circumstance—send them back to the pack and bring on the next one.
2. Will we get a Fight of the Year candidate on back-to-back weekends?
Given that Donald Cerrone and Melvin Guillard is the co-main event at UFC 150, it’s a distinct possibility.
Once former training partners, Cerrone and Guillard have built their reputations on being two of the most exciting fighters in the lightweight division, and on paper, these two should combine for a fantastic scrap. Guillard brings wicked speed and knockout power, while Cerrone relies on his technical kickboxing, dangerous submission game, and unparalleled mean streak. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where this isn’t an all-out war, especially when you consider that it’s being fought in Cerrone‘s home state of Colorado.
After the out-of-nowhere fireworks display that was Joe Lauzon vs. Jamie Varner last weekend, these could be the best back-to-back Fight of the Nights that we’ve ever seen.
3. Is a return to middleweight what Jake Shields needs to rejuvenate his career?
The last time we saw Jake Shields look like a world-class fighter, he was suffocating Dan Henderson en route to a unanimous decision title defense of his Strikeforce middleweight title.
Welterweight was supposed to be Shields’ optimal weight class, but after an uninspired 2-2 UFC run that included two razor-thin wins, a lopsided decision loss and a 53-second knockout, Shields is back up to 185 lbs to try his luck against Ed Herman.
Herman is a tough draw for someone looking to re-energize their career, and his wrestling abilities should make it hard for Shields to get the fight to the ground and work his Jiu-Jitsu game. Switching weight classes is hit and miss in terms of success rate, but a win over Herman would get Shields back in the right direction and help him to regain a little of the hype he enjoyed when he first entered the Octagon. But a loss would be a pretty significant nail in the coffin for the former top 10 fighter.
4. How high is Justin Lawrence’s career ceiling?
Josh Koscheck and Gray Maynard have proven that you don’t need to win the six-figure contract to become a UFC star and challenge for a title. When he makes his featherweight debut against Max Holloway in the first fight of Saturday’s main card, 22-year-old Justin Lawrence will hope to follow in their footsteps.
Despite just having four professional MMA fights, Lawrence’s striking experience and credentials—a six-time kickboxing national champion and two-time Golden Gloves boxing champion to name a few—have already earned him a Knockout of the Night in his one UFC fight, and his fighting style could quickly turn him into a fan favorite.
But most importantly for his career trajectory, Lawrence is moving to a featherweight division that is still without a laundry list of established stars. Given two years to progress and improve on his wrestling defense, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lawrence challenging for the belt in 2014.
5. Does MMA belong in the Olympics?
I know it doesn’t pertain directly to UFC 150, but the Olympic discussion has permeated every other aspect of our lives during the last two weeks, and figuring out how our beloved sport could exist on a global stage is a fun discussion to have in between bouts.
For one thing, would the tournament be comprised of amateur or professional fighters? Seeing all of the best fighters in the world compete in a month-long tournament for their countries would be a spectacle that would rival the PRIDE-era Grand Prix, but that would also mean that basically every top-tier UFC fighter would be unavailable to fight from about April (factoring in training camps) until mid-August at the earliest. If you think UFC cards are stretched thin now, imagine if they had no top 10 talent to pull from for a four-month stretch. Amateur fighters are probably the way to go, but amateur MMA is still a developing and unorganized mishmash of promotions and gyms. A national MMA governing body would need to be established in this country to determine which fighters to send, and I have a hard time seeing that moving swiftly when we can’t even get the sport legalized in New York.
My feeling is that most fans want MMA in the Olympics because it would add another level of credibility to a sport that is constantly under attack and fighting for mainstream acceptance. But football isn’t in the Olympics, and baseball was just voted out, and both of those sports are doing fine. As for myself, I think Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu lends itself better to the Olympic format, and the 2016 Summer Olympics just happen to be in Rio deJaneiro. Is that perfect, or is that perfect?
There are certain inevitabilities in mixed martial arts that I have come to accept over the years. Dana White will say things he probably shouldn’t say. Nick Diaz will do things he definitely shouldn’t do. Mike Goldberg will yell, Josh Koscheck will ge…
There are certain inevitabilities in mixed martial arts that I have come to accept over the years.
Dana White will say things he probably shouldn’t say. Nick Diaz will do things he definitely shouldn’t do.
Mike Goldberg will yell, Josh Koscheck will get booed and Cecil Peoples will turn in scorecards that make us want to pull our hair out.
And after a Greg Jackson fighter gives a boring performance, critics will descend upon the Internet like dingoes to an unwatched baby carriage to spread their venom across cyberspace.
That’s where we find ourselves today, after Clay Guida turned his UFC on FX 4 fight with Gray Maynard into a track meet and tried to hit-and-run his way to victory.
Fans were quick to decry this as the work of Jackson’s safety-first mantra, with UFC president White saying to Ariel Helwani post-fight, “Some goof put it in his head that running around in circles might win him the fight.” Now roundtable discussions are being posted on websites across the country, and podcasters have their B-block topics penciled in.
Even Strikeforce middleweight champion Luke Rockhold chimed in on the action, saying on a conference call (h/t MMA Junkie) to promote his upcoming fight with Jackson-trained fighter Tim Kennedy that he’s, “… not a fan of Greg Jackson gameplans, so I just hope that [Kennedy] comes out and fights me in the middle, and fights me everywhere.”
We’ve seen this storyline play out before, most recently when Carlos Condit won the UFC interim welterweight title over Nick Diaz with a stick-and-move game plan. And, just as they are doing now, fans were quick to put Jackson on blast for a boring fight (that frankly wasn’t very boring at all).
But every time this criticism reaches a fever pitch, I can’t help but shake my head and marvel at how silly it all is. Like most generalities, the “Greg Jackson fighters are boring” storyline is easy to poke holes into. And if you pump the brakes and examine it for a second, you realize just how silly it is for a few reasons.
1. Jackson trains a lot of fighters, and most of them deliver night in and night out.
Jackson/ Winkeljohn MMA is a huge gym, and fighters from all over the world travel to Albuquerque to seek out their coaching. And when you have so many fighters under your banner, it’s inevitable that a few of them are going to put on a snoozer from time to time. But when you declare that Jackson coaches fighters to be boring, you conveniently forget to mention a few people.
Jon Jones seems to finding new and more vicious ways to finish fights, be it by face-shattering elbow strikes from the guard or spine-adjusting standing guillotine chokes. And if he keeps it up, he’ll have more finishes than he is years old by next year.
Brian Stann has knocked out three of his last four opponents and hasn’t seen a fight go to decision since he dropped down to middleweight in mid-2010.
Leonard Garcia has earned two Fight of the Nights in his last three fights, and his game plans consist of throwing 100 mph fastballs down the middle of the plate and daring his opponents to hit them as far as they can.
Travis Browne is a highly regarded up-and-coming heavyweight, and he added both a Submission of the Night and a Knockout of the Night to his resume in the last year.
Hell, Cub Swanson earned Knockout of the Night on the very same card that Guida and Maynard fought.
In fact, start listing the Jackson fighters who you think are boring, then make a list of Jackson fighters who you are happy to see on an upcoming fight card. I promise that the latter list will be a lot longer than the former.
2. We fans have a “What have you done for me lately?” mentality.
MMA fans seem to suffer from this unique form of amnesia where they can’t remember anything past the previous 15 or 25 minutes that they just watched.
Going into UFC 143, Carlos Condit had knocked out three straight opponents, and even his prior split decisions were fun to watch. No one was noticing that it was Jackson sitting in his corner as he starched Dan Hardy and Dong-Hyun Kim to the tune of back-to-back Knockout of the Nights.
But as soon as Condit shifted his style to adapt to Diaz’s blitzkrieg punching—and avoiding a brawl was exactly what Condit needed to do to win that fight—suddenly he was a boring fighter.
The same goes for Guida. And look, I won’t defend what you saw on Friday as watchable or good. He tried the game plan that Frankie Edgar used to best Maynard, but he didn’t do it well, and we suffered as a result.
But Guida has been one of the most reliable fighters when you need a good scrap for the last several years. It was in just his last fight that he was teaming up with Ben Henderson to put on a fight that we were pining over. If only that fight had been on the UFC on Fox’s national broadcast, we moaned, that’s a fight we want casual fans to see and be introduced to the sport with.
So in one fight, Guida goes from putting on a performance (with Jackson in his corner) worthy of being an ambassadorial effort for the masses, to a boring point-sparrer. This is the biggest problem with the boring Jackson stigma—it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fighters can give dozens of exciting performances, but as soon as they put on one sub-par outing, it must be Jackson’s fault.
Frankly, that makes no sense.
3. Critics see everything through GSP-tinted glasses.
It’s no secret that Georges St-Pierre has hit a bit of a rough patch with the Internet faithful. The much-maligned welterweight champ hasn’t finished a fight since 2009, and he has placed a premium on takedowns, positional control and a general aversion to risk.
As Jackson’s most famous fighter, St-Pierre has become a poster child for what fans think they hate about Jackson’s camp. And I won’t defend him here, as discussing St-Pierre’s title reign deserves more than a couple of token paragraphs.
But I caution you, the fan, to not let your disappointment with St-Pierre’s recent fights color your opinion of entire group of fighters, or a coaching staff, or a coach because I really believe that that is what has happened here.
Game plans are a necessary part of success in mixed martial arts, and having a game plan usually doesn’t mean circling away from your opponent and peppering them with jabs. And the next time that one of Jackson’s fighters fails to entertain—and with so many fighters seeking him out, there will be a next time—let’s keep the discussion on the fight itself and not turn it into the same old song and dance.
Generalities are easy to write, but they rarely tell the whole story.
UFC 146 was the day that Dan Hardy saved his career.The former welterweight title challenger, in search of his first win since late 2009, finally snapped his four-fight losing streak by starching kickboxing specialist Duane Ludwig with a patented left …
UFC 146 was the day that Dan Hardy saved his career.
The former welterweight title challenger, in search of his first win since late 2009, finally snapped his four-fight losing streak by starching kickboxing specialist Duane Ludwig with a patented left hook.
Coming into Saturday night, there was little doubt that a loss would be the end of Hardy’s UFC career, no matter how much Dana White, Joe Silva and company love his penchant for “bringing it.” Three losses in a row are usually a quick ticket out of town, and fans were already calling for Hardy’s contractual head before he even stepped into the Octagon against Ludwig.
(Side note: I’ll never understand the bloodlust of fans in regards to cutting fighters. These competitors literally put their lives on the line for our entertainment and we applaud fighters who ‘go for it’ and don’t ‘play it safe.’ But lose a couple of fights—even in exciting fashion—and watch the tweets roll in from people calling for your livelihood to be taken away. Talk about cold-blooded.)
But now that Hardy has a fresh winning streak to build on, he leaves behind a less-than-esteemed list of colleagues who still have their collective backs against the wall. Consider this your ultimate Who-Needs-A-Win list, as we take a look at the fighters with the worst current UFC losing streaks and where they will go from here.
We sports fans are a quantitative bunch.There’s nothing we love more than having a single, definitive number to summarize the performances of our favorite athletes or teams, especially when we can use that number in a heated argument against a dissenti…
We sports fans are a quantitative bunch.
There’s nothing we love more than having a single, definitive number to summarize the performances of our favorite athletes or teams, especially when we can use that number in a heated argument against a dissenting point of view.
Kobe Bryant averaged over 27 points this season and carried his team to the playoffs, you say? Well sure, I retort—but he only shot 43% for from the field. Two dozen players in the league could do that and more if they averaged 23 shot attempts a game.
ERA. PPG. QBR. We can’t get enough. And when we’re finally at a level of information overload, we come up with new statistics that are supposed to be deeper and more accurate than the ones they’re replacing.
ERA becomes xFIP, PPG evolves into efficiency rating, etc.
Mixed martial arts is the new kid on the block, with FightMetric leading the charge on quantitative MMA statistics. This is a wonderful thing, because statistics help give clarity to something complex. So while a new MMA fan might not be able to articulate the finer technical points of a double-leg takedown, they can look at Georges St-Pierre’s sport-leading 77.3% takedown accuracy and know that he’s pretty good at putting his opponents on their backs.
And since MMA is still in its infancy relative to other mainstream sports, it gives us the unprecedented opportunity to shape the way the sport is covered. We can leave useless statistics at the door and focus on the ones that matter. It’s with that idea in mind that I present to you a notion that might seem extreme at first, but it comes with merit:
It’s time we stop paying attention to MMA career records.
I’ll admit from the start that this proposition is UFC-centric, but it’s a fact that the UFC is the presumptive major leagues of MMA. Bellator puts on some fantastic fights, and Strikeforce still has some top-level talent (until the inevitable day when Zuffa shifts them over to the big-brother promotion), but the vast majority of the best fighters in the world call the Octagon home.
With that in mind, take a look at the career records of two current UFC fighters:
Fighter A: 20-8, 17 finishes
Fighter B: 16-7, 14 finishes
Based on those numbers, you’d assume that fighter A was better, based on the fact that he’s managed to win more with a better winning percentage. But let’s adjust those numbers to include just these fighters performances in the UFC and include the win/loss streak that they currently are on.
All of a sudden, your perception of those two fighters shifts dramatically.
Fighter A is Jeremy Stephens, a four-time bonus winner but not someone who is anywhere near the top of the lightweight division. Fighter B is Nate Diaz, who has a legitimate claim to fight for the lightweight title.
This is just one of a hundred similar comparisons that highlights the importance of UFC records over career records. It’s the reason that Mark Munoz (12-2 career, but 7-2 in the UFC) is knocking on the door for a title shot, but Michael Kuiper (11-1 career, but just 0-1 in the UFC) probably won’t be on the main card in his next UFC appearance.
My point is that for the vast majority of fighters currently in the UFC, their records outside of the promotion are hardly indicative of the successes or failures that they’re experiencing in the Octagon.
Fighters simply do not face the same level of competition on a fight-to-fight basis anywhere else in the world, and their numbers become skewed as a result. Miguel Torres’ pre-Zuffa record is 32-1, but does that tell us much about a fighter who’s gone 2-2 since the UFC absorbed the WEC?
So with the goal of creating an accurate reflection of record, I propose that we place our primary focus for UFC fighters on two statistics: record inside the Octagon and current UFC winning streak—both of which are direct indicators as to who are the top fighters in each weight class.
When Bruce Buffer introduces both fighters, I want to hear their UFC records, not the inflated numbers that they earned while climbing to the big leagues.
This isn’t to say that career records should be completely discounted, but they should be treated just like a first baseman’s minor league on-base percentage, or a quarterback’s college career touchdown totals.
The reality is that other promotions are a minor league of sorts, and a win in King of the Cage doesn’t hold the same historical value as does a win in the UFC. So, when a fighter like Hector Lombard makes his promotional debut in August, by all means introduce him as a 31-2-1 (1 NC) fighter. But after that bout, his introduction should begin with, “This fighter has a 1-0 (or 0-1) UFC record, 31-2-1 (1 NC) overall.”
Now, I understand the perceived diminishment that this type of focus would have on the accomplishments of veteran fighters from the PRIDE era, with guys like Wanderlei Silva (4-6 UFC record) and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (4-3 UFC record), in particular. Similarly, fighters like Lombard and Gilbert Melendez have earned their positions in the sport by clearing out the divisions of their respective promotions.
But to this sentiment, I have two points:
First, to adopt a focus on UFC records does not mean to create a vacuum where no other MMA history exists. We can appreciate the accolades that these veterans rightfully earned without confusing their position in the sport today.
Second, and most important, this shift in focus is not done with the past in mind but for the benefit of the future.
With Josh Barnett’s loss last Saturday, we are rapidly reaching the point where the PRIDE gladiators of old are on their last legs. At the same time, the fighters that are the champions of today (Jon Jones, Junior dos Santos) and tomorrow (Rory McDonald) are making their name solely in the UFC. Five years from now, it’s conceivable that the UFC and Bellator will be the only two major MMA promotions in the country, with the vast majority of PRIDE fighters long retired.
Our stat system should be reflective of that environment, not of one where the best fighters are stretched across multiple organizations across multiple countries.
We as fans and writers are in the unique position of shaping the way the MMA is covered and discussed. For the sake of clarity and consistency, consider a gradual shift in discussion and analysis, and we’ll reap the benefits of mainstream understanding in the future.
