Author: Mike Chiappetta

Floyd Mayweather or Conor McGregor: Who Are We Supposed to Root For?

After all of the pomp and bluster, the expletives and excess, the celebration of depravity and commercialism that is Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor is nearing and not a second too soon.
Saturday’s bout in Las Vegas is a prize fight in the…

After all of the pomp and bluster, the expletives and excess, the celebration of depravity and commercialism that is Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor is nearing and not a second too soon.

Saturday’s bout in Las Vegas is a prize fight in the most literal distillation of the term, a cash grab so audacious, so over-the-top that it should qualify as one of the greatest heists in history. In time, its story should be told not in a 30 for 30 documentary but in a Dateline episode.                

From the outside looking in, Mayweather and McGregor are rivals: one defending his throne and the honor of his sport while chasing a historic 50-0 record, the other an aggressive interloper brazenly overstepping the bounds of athletic practicality. In the realest interpretation of things, though, they are teammates in a score.

For them, the goal has never been a great fight—it’s all about the numbers. As an observer, the reality that they care less about the product than the production may be difficult to accept after coming to terms with parting with your hard-earned cash, but therein lies the rub.

There is a thought out there that the people ponying up their money for this fight are suckers. Some of them surely are. Others? We’re just in it for the good time, the empty, end-of-summer fun that is no deeper than a roller-coaster ride yet leaves you wearing the same goofy smile.

Maybe we shouldn’t look for something more profound than that. To boot, many people are not sure who they should be rooting for.

Mayweather made his way to the forefront of sports with an obnoxious promotional style predicated on the worship of money above all, which would have been palatable as a gimmick if it wasn’t for his continual failure to be a decent human. Three times, he’s been convicted of charges related to domestic abuse against women, and he’s been arrested or cited for violence against women seven times overall, according to the Boston Globe.

With such a record of misogyny, you would think someone in his inner circle would have advised him that his latest business venture was not a good idea. In May, he opened a Las Vegas strip club. The name? Girl Collection. Yuck.

His unsettling objectification and abusive treatment of women is hardly his only transgression. Floyd has long and happily played the villain for many a fight promotion using his wealth as both justification and shield. During the often entertaining yet equally often over-the-line four-day, four-city press tour, Mayweather, a 40-year-old man, venomously whipped the F-word gay slur at McGregor (warning: NSFW language).

Given all this, it should have been easy for McGregor to walk into the arena with the crowd firmly on his side. While that may still prove true, he has tried his damnedest to channel his inner Floyd.

“People are so touchy on words,” McGregor told MMA Junkie when asked about Mayweather’s slur. “It’s absolutely crazy. If he said that, I couldn’t give a s–t.”

Even served a softball, McGregor whiffed with bumbling oafishness. Perhaps that shouldn’t have come as a surprise, coming so shortly after McGregor addressed claims that he’d made a racist statement by offering as his defense that he couldn’t be racist because he was “half-black from the belly button down.”

Combat sports is not opera, but it’s not always so boorish either.

Let’s be frank for a minute. The most compelling fight promotions often toe the line between sports and entertainment, offering a certain kind of exaggerated propaganda that we all implicitly agree to accept as part of the show. The athletes become characters as much as humans. That semi-reality, quasi-fiction existence is the sweet spot for fans. We want to buy into a good rivalry; all we need is a reasonable entry point.

With Mayweather-McGregor, that doesn’t exist. It’s more of a virtual reality, hyperspace ride that causes euphoria and nausea in equal doses. After all, what exactly are they feuding over? Mostly, it’s about net worth, financial acumen and numbers beyond the scale of comprehension for most of us who are just debating whether to fork out 100 bucks.

It’s certainly not about who’s the better boxer. The athletic competition between them was scarcely mentioned during their tour.

At best, we have to hope this is some kind of psychological jockeying for position, a mind game intent on disrupting one another’s concentration on fight night. We’ve seen McGregor successfully employ such a tactic before against longtime UFC featherweight kingpin Jose Aldo.

Throughout the lead-up to their fight, McGregor needled Aldo, a proud Brazilian, with inflammatory claims that went up to and sometimes over the line.

The most famous came in Rio de Janeiro when McGregor claimed the town was his.

“My name, the McGregor name, my family’s motto … means royal is in my blood,” McGregor said. “That goes way back. So for [Aldo] to say he is the king and I am the joker, if this was a different time, I would invade his favela on horseback and kill anyone that was not fit to work.”

Aldo was so incensed by McGregor’s continually venomous comments that when they finally squared off in December 2015, he abandoned his usual early patience and rushed McGregor with a lowered guard, eating a straight left in a stunning 13-second knockout.

So there is more at play here than two sophomoric multimillionaires who are saying ridiculous and offensive things…and wearing profane (yet admittedly funny) suits (warning: NSFW language)…and showing up late to press conferences with no shirt and an ostentatiously garish fur coat.

Still, there have to be limits. After all, upon clicking the “buy” button on that pay-per-view, no one wants to feel like they need a hot shower.

The sad part is both men are more than capable of being charismatic and humorous while offering fascinating insights on the fight game. The sad part is both of them are masters of their crafts. That should be enough to sell this unique matchup. Instead, they’ve offered many of us at least pause to reconsider.

For those of us destined to pull the trigger on Mayweather-McGregor, which man is worth rooting for? That’s a personal decision based on your values or your preferences for sport. We may all be best served viewing it as the fleeting moment in time it’s designed to be. It might prove thrilling or unsatisfying or confusing—or, most likely, some combination of all three. As with a summer fling, mixed emotions are a fundamental part of the deal.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Jon Jones Reminds Us the GOAT Is Back, and Brock Lesnar’s in His Sights

The steadiness of the UFC fight schedule tends to make everything feel routine. Knockouts become indistinguishable, names become interchangeable, and even the extraordinary struggles to stand out. 
There are exceptions to that, of course, and one …

The steadiness of the UFC fight schedule tends to make everything feel routine. Knockouts become indistinguishable, names become interchangeable, and even the extraordinary struggles to stand out. 

There are exceptions to that, of course, and one of them walked into a UFC arena last night for the first time in over a year. Jon Jones, the 30-year-old former wunderkind, was back from a suspension, the latest in a series of problems that have plagued his remarkable professional career.

When Jones competes, a buzz carries through the mixed martial arts world. For all of the criticism of his personal problems, it’s impossible to ignore his brilliance at his chosen profession. And in case anyone forgot, he reminded them Saturday night, defeating Daniel Cormier in the main event of UFC 214 to regain the undisputed UFC light heavyweight championship that was stripped from him over two years ago. He did it with style points, too, becoming the first man ever to finish Cormier, with a third-round knockout via head kick and punches.

“I made it back,” he told Joe Rogan in his post-fight interview. “Such a beautiful moment. I did a lot of right things to get back in this position. I tell you what, for anyone at home who let yourself down, let your family down, let your peers down, your coworkers down—it’s never over. As long as you never quit, it’s never over. I’m back here.”

And just like that, the world opens up to him again. Just like that, he’s back in the driver’s seat. After politely praising Cormier’s professionalism and class, Jones quickly turned the page to his next professional challenge.

“Brock Lesnar,” he said, letting the crowd rise to the moment, “if you want to know what it’s like to get your ass kicked by a guy who weighs 40 pounds less than you, meet me in the Octagon.”

Jones dropped the mic and walked off, and really, what else did he need to say? 

His performance was enough of a statement, a finish that reminded us he is the greatest talent the young sport has ever seen. Fighting for the first time in 463 days, Jones was incredibly sharp, outlanding Cormier 95-60 according to FightMetric. And at this point, he has nothing left to prove at light heavyweight. He’s never legitimately lost a fight at the weight, his only blemish a disqualification for illegal elbows in a fight he was dominating. He’s defeated the biggest names in the top 10, leaving a move up to heavyweight as the most compelling move he can make.

“I’m up for it,” he said on the FS1 post-fight show. “I think it’s about time for me to be involved in a superfight. I think it’s what the fans want to see, me challenge myself against a heavyweight. Why not do it against one of the biggest and most scary heavyweights? He brings a huge following, so why not?”

The prospective matchup brings with it a potential roadblock, in that Lesnar still has more than six months to serve on a suspension stemming from a positive drug test in 2016. 

If it happened, it would be one of the biggest non-Conor McGregor matches the UFC could produce, a guaranteed home run of an event that could also continue to raise Jones’ profile. 

His legacy, though, is nearly sealed as he continues this legendary streak.

The pressure was ratcheted up for this in a way that he wouldn’t feel even against Lesnar. Because in this fight, he had to regain everything he once held so dear.

On the night Jones won his first UFC championship, his future appeared limitless. At 23, he featured a thrilling yet growing arsenal, he possessed a poise in the cage that seemed unbreakable, and he was the youngest titleholder in UFC history.

There were boundaries that tempted him though, restrictions that are often ignored or flouted by the risk-takers among us. The same audacity that made him great in the cage sunk him outside of it. 

His career self-torpedoed. He could only sit on the sidelines and watch the ascent of his rival Cormier, a two-time Olympic wrestler who captured the belt in his absence.

By the time they got to the cage Saturday night, Jones and Cormier had you believing what you were watching was a battle of frauds, which is exactly what each fighter used to hurt the other the most. 

For Jones, affixing the label to Cormier was the biggest professional slight he could offer. After all, the way he saw it, Cormier didn’t earn the UFC light heavyweight championship belt he carried around so proudly. At least not against Jones. When the youngest-ever champ in UFC history was active, Cormier could not defeat him. He could only capture the mantle of No. 1 when Jones was on the bench for his own string of transgressions.

For Cormier, the slight against Jones was personal. From the beginning, Jones had talked about his religion and family and positivity, only to see the squeaky clean persona he’d been building quickly tarnish in a series of legal and moral blunders.

In reality, they are two of the greatest light heavyweights ever to do it. What we learned Saturday—or perhaps what was reaffirmed—is that Jones is just a level above Cormier. Jones is the GOAT.

What we didn’t learn is just how high he can go. Can Jones move up to heavyweight and dominate the same way? A win over Lesnar—or heavyweight champ Stipe Miocic—would be quite the feather in his cap.

At this point, could anyone confidently say that’s impossible? The answer is no. Anyone who has been watching with an objective eye must acknowledge that when it comes to Jones, the limits of his talent might not yet have been seen. They can simply celebrate that the greatest is back, and that he’s brought his ambitions with him.

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The Question: Should McGregor Have Actually Been Sanctioned to Fight Mayweather?

The Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor world tour kicked off July 11 with four stops at major metropolitan cities across the globe. And with that, we can say, it’s really happening. This pipe dream of a fight that emanated from the eter…

The Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor world tour kicked off July 11 with four stops at major metropolitan cities across the globe. And with that, we can say, it’s really happening. This pipe dream of a fight that emanated from the eternally optimistic mind of McGregor has been willed into reality, and it is set to challenge the record revenue numbers generated by Mayweather’s superfight against Filipino boxing star Manny Pacquiao in 2015.

This is a different animal, however, and something that has rarely been seen at the elite levels of combat sports. It recalls the days of James Toney barking his way into an ill-fated matchup with former UFC champion Randy Couture.

We all remember how that one ended.

Nearly everyone in the know thinks McGregor-Mayweather will end in much the same way, with a one-sided drubbing that proves the obvious: that even a super-talent can’t go into another champion’s area of expertise and best him.

Still, this is a fight that has the sports world buzzing, and to offer the obvious, that mass appeal (translating into cold, hard cash) is the main reason such a fight will be sanctioned.

Really, though, it’s worth asking if that’s OK. In a sport where long-term health is at stake, is anyone interested in the safety of the fighters (i.e. McGregor) or are they all blinded by the dollar signs?

Joining me to discuss this is my colleague and MMA lead writer Chad Dundas.

Mike Chiappetta: I’m going to kick this off with the name Rohan Murdock. Who might he be? Less than two years ago, Murdock was put forth to the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) as an opponent for undefeated super middleweight boxing champion Andre Ward. At the time, Ward was 27-0 while Murdock was 18-1. Guess what? 

The Nevada commission rejected the fight as a mismatch. 

Murdock had 19 pro fights, but he had never faced any elite competition, while Ward was already considered one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world. 

Less than two years later, 0-0 McGregor has been approved to face the greatest boxer of this generation, the 49-0 Mayweather. While it’s true that the makeup of the commission has changed a bit since then, current executive director Bob Bennett was already in his role at that time, as were three of the five current commissioners. 

Given their extensive experience, they should understand the huge chasm in boxing skills between McGregor and Mayweather, and they would be within their rights to refuse to sanction it. In fact, some might even suggest that they had an ethical obligation to reject it.

Still, I can’t be an absolutist about this. I must try to put myself in their shoes and understand why such a decision would be nearly impossible to make. With so much money at stake, the fight is going to be made somewhere. Budget shortfalls across America are crippling states, making the prospect of turning down a cash injection from tourism and taxes unpalatable. There must be some pressure from the top to pull this off without a hitch, as if it’s some kind of heist. (And in a way, it is.)

On one hand, no one wants to be a party pooper. This fight is going to be one of the sports events of the year, and fans are incredibly excited about it. That’s a great thing!

On the other hand, what does the commission exist for if not saying no to such folly? Their short mission statement includes the phrase “The Commission administers the State laws and regulations governing unarmed combat for the protection of the public and to ensure the health and safety of the contestants.”

By approving this fight, are they abandoning that pledge?

Chad Dundas: I have to admit it looks pretty damning on the surface, Mike, especially when you start things off by throwing out the Murdock example. If all we had here were the numbers, it would look unjustifiable to throw a man with zero professional boxing fights out there against the greatest pugilist of his generation.

The fact is, Mayweather’s worst sparring partner probably has more boxing experience than McGregor.

But—as you note—we’d be naive to think the NSAC was ever going to do anything besides quickly rubber-stamp a fight of this magnitude. 

And you know what? In this case, I’m OK with it.

Maybe, as an MMA reporter, I’m just sticking up for my guy here, but I have a hard time framing McGregor as a helpless sheep who’s being thrown to the wolves. Do I think he’s going to get unbelievably schooled by Mayweather in their boxing fight? Of course I do. 

But I don’t fear much for McGregor’s physical health in this matchup.

He’s not just some jerk off the street, after all. McGregor has been fighting professionally for nearly a decade, has been at the pinnacle of MMA competition for the last two years and is the first man ever to simultaneously hold two different UFC titles in two different weight classes.

If he were going out there to fight an in-his-prime Mike Tyson, I might consider it unconscionable malice to sanction this fight. But the truth is, he’s not.

Mayweather has never been a particularly ferocious offensive fighter. Most likely, he’ll foil McGregor’s amateurish style with his peerless defense and movement and cruise to a unanimous decision.

Make no mistake, Mayweather will win the match in a landslide, but I don’t think McGregor’s in tremendous danger of grievous bodily harm.

Am I wrong, Mike?   

Chiappetta: When we think of Mayweather, we consider him as a strategic boxer. He’s patient and crafty, and he creates traps for opponents to fall into. That’s been his standard operating procedure for two decades. Because he takes his time, we don’t view him as a “dangerous” fighter, but when we take into account the skill differential, isn’t it possible that Mayweather opens up his offense in a way that he won’t do against actual peers?

Generally, I tend to agree with you, Chad. It’s more likely that McGregor will leave with some bruising, a black eye, and a whole lot of cash than it is that he gets knocked out cold and hard. But what’s the point of going through the dog and pony show of sanctioning fights if not thinking about these hard questions?

According to the Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports (ABC), a commission may approve a fight if the following information is similar: boxing record, boxing experience, boxing skill and physical condition.

Everyone on the Nevada commission would have to admit that in only one of those categories are Mayweather and McGregor “similar”: the last one. 

Is that enough? 

Again, I’m not saying I don’t want to see it or won’t watch. I do, and I will. Some of what I’m saying is hypocritical. But the commission is supposed to be better than me and you. They are supposed to think about the things fans (and fighters) don’t want to think about, and they are supposed to put the health and safety of the athletes first. It is crystal clear that is not happening here. It is crystal clear that is not even a remote concern.

McGregor may not get brutally knocked out, he may even have a couple of good moments, but for the most part, the chasm between him and Floyd should make everyone uncomfortable. 

That the Nevada commission could overlook that so casually makes me think not just about this August spectacle, but about the other decisions they are making in the name of money or staying in the good graces of powerful fight promoters. 

I’m sure everyone involved with the commission is blinded by the money involved or the spectacle of it all, but come fight night, that is one group that is going to be watching breathlessly in hopes that nothing goes sideways. 

Am I being too harsh on them, Chad? You seem less bothered by their rubber-stamping, so what responsibility do you think they have here?

Dundas: I don’t think you’re being too harsh. I think you’re mostly on the money. In a theoretical way (and most practical ways, too) I agree with you. Those are all the things that a state athletic commission is supposed to do, and it’s not too harsh to want to hold them to the standards they are meant to keep.

But anyone who has ever had the misfortune of sitting through an NSAC meeting—either in person or streamed online—has had any notion of it as a pristine and wholly principled body dashed in a heartbeat. You and I have both probably seen athletic commissions in a number of states do things that made us cringe, Mike.

In my view, sanctioning a fight like Mayweather vs. McGregor is far from the worst thing I’ve seen an athletic commission do. This fight may be way out on the fringe of what is appropriate, but for now, I’m OK with it.

McGregor might be a fish out of water here. He won’t win this bout—or, if he does, it’ll be the biggest upset in the history of modern sports—but he’s a still a high-level professional fighter. He ought to know how to defend himself enough to at least keep it from getting scary.

And maybe I’m playing both sides of the coin here, but if we are going to have a borderline spectacle fight like this, I feel better having it in Las Vegas. At least in the fight capital of the world the commission, referee, ringside officials and physicians stand a good chance of being highly experienced.

I’ll take that over having this fight in Missouri or Texas or almost anywhere else—and we both know that’s what would’ve happened if the NSAC had turned up its nose and refused to sanction it. The promoters and fighters would’ve packed up the circus tent and kept moving until they found a state willing to give the green light.      

Maybe I’m wrong, Mike. Maybe the things that await McGregor inside the boxing ring will be so horrific that it changes my mind. Maybe I’ll regret that this fight was ever made.

But for now, I’m riding the wave, baby.

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Trailing and Injured, Robert Whittaker Defeated Yoel Romero and Fate

About 10 minutes into the most important fight of his life, things weren’t exactly going well for Robert Whittaker. He was trailing after losing each of the first two rounds, his opponent Yoel Romero had a documented history of dominating third rounds,…

About 10 minutes into the most important fight of his life, things weren’t exactly going well for Robert Whittaker. He was trailing after losing each of the first two rounds, his opponent Yoel Romero had a documented history of dominating third rounds, and worst of all, Whittaker was injured.

Sometime early in the first, Romero had hit him with a kick in the same left leg he had hurt in training, aggravating the injury. It is difficult enough facing a former Olympic wrestler on an eight-fight win streak. Now he had lost all room for error. 

It was one of those moments where Whittaker would have been well within the norm to believe everything had begun to slip away from him. To believe that because Romero was far older and had overcome so much more in life, that maybe this was meant to be his night.

After all, Whittaker is only 26. His future, it would be easy to reason, is still way in the future. There would be time to overcome a loss, especially to a rampaging Romero. 

So returning to his corner between rounds of the UFC 213 main event, how did he feel?

“It was unstable,” he said in his in-cage post-fight interview. “I know that Romero will capitalize on any weakness he sees, so I had to play it off. It’s pretty bad but champions are made of this stuff.”

No stability in his leg, no room for error, and for the final three rounds, Whittaker (19-4) rose to the occasion. For the final 15 minutes, he was as close to perfect as he needed to be. He controlled the volume, he shut down Romero’s wrestling, he sprinted to the finish line in the fifth when everything hung in the balance.

It was a championship performance, even if it was only the interim belt on the line. Truly, he may be the best middleweight in the world, above even current champion Michael Bisping.

“That was the most agonizing 15 minutes I’ve had,” Whittaker said. “But it’s unbelievable.”

Whittaker was the contender that most never saw coming. After winning his season of The Ultimate Fighter: The Smashes in 2012, Whittaker went 2-2 in his first four fights as a welterweight, eventually getting knocked out by Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson.

As he tried to tread water, he came to realize that the weight cut was costing him more than it offered. After one more fight, he decided to abandon the cut in favor of competing at his more natural class of middleweight.

Unburdened by the change, he was immediately a revelation, tightening up his striking and earning back-to-back knockouts. It’s been onward and upward ever since, with Whittaker punching his ticket to the interim title fight after knocking out the Brazilian star Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza. 

In some divisions, seven wins is enough for a title shot, but Whittaker needed the eighth. Now, after Saturday, the UFC finally said he would get to face champion Bisping later this year.

That’s the right call. Bisping hasn’t competed since escaping with a decision against 46-year-old Dan Henderson last October. Since then, he’s publicly flirted with Georges St-Pierre in a matchup that was promised, fell apart and has spent the last two weeks undergoing emergency resuscitation in hopes of being revived.

Still, if Bisping was going to fight any middleweight, it seemed up until Saturday night that it would be Romero, who was never shy about calling out Bisping, reminding him he was on the way to tangle.

The two had a built-in albeit mild feud that will have to be back-burnered for the kid who punctuated a remarkable streak with a remarkable ending. 

After two rounds, according to FightMetric, Romero (13-2) had out-landed Whittaker 63-17 and had converted three takedown tries. The rest of the way, Whittaker landed 77 strikes to Romero’s 51 and allowed only a single takedown out of eight attempts. 

While some were quick to point to Romero’s decreased output in the final three rounds, such an assessment fails to offer Whittaker credit for his early scrambling and ability to return to his feet quickly, forcing Romero to expend copious amounts of energy for little gain. 

“I knew he always tries to dictate the pace and control of the fight with wrestling,” Whittaker said on the Fox post-fight show. “He did surprise me with the volume of wrestling, but it took a toll on him. He tried to set a pace he couldn’t keep up with.”

Finally, it seems, we found something that Romero can’t do.

Prior to last night, it seemed he refused to subscribe to human bounds. He has a body that an artist might sculpt with clay and then think to himself that he’s gone too far. Muscles on muscles, sinewy and lithe. That aesthetic exterior, though, is something of a facade. Romero is 40 years old, having come to MMA after a life spent in amateur wrestling, and after escaping Cuba.

He is 40, and time is of the essence. Prior to the fight, he spoke about winning the belt and bringing it back to Cuba to show his son he had to leave behind and whom he hasn’t seen for 11 years. For a while, it seemed like fate.

Still, even after Whittaker’s late takeover, the fight was up for grabs late in the fifth. It was a battle of wills, and Romero wasn’t ready to give in. Trying to escape Whittaker’s vaunted left hook, Romero slipped the punch but then slipped down to the mat. Whittaker pounced, draping himself on Romero and riding out most of the rest of the round while sealing his comeback.

Whittaker’s career arc isn’t a usual one for fighters who end up wearing gold. On the way up, he overcame an inconsistent opening to his UFC career and a misguided division switch. On the way to (interim) gold, he overcame an injury, a slow start and a rampaging Romero.

There have been plenty of places for him to quit, big moments for him to back away from, yet nothing seems to faze him. He’s quiet and polite, an anti-Bisping personality who fights with the same grit and resolve as the champ and who, because of it, earned the opportunity to surpass him.

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Trailing and Injured, Robert Whittaker Defeated Yoel Romero and Fate

About 10 minutes into the most important fight of his life, things weren’t exactly going well for Robert Whittaker. He was trailing after losing each of the first two rounds, his opponent Yoel Romero had a documented history of dominating third rounds,…

About 10 minutes into the most important fight of his life, things weren’t exactly going well for Robert Whittaker. He was trailing after losing each of the first two rounds, his opponent Yoel Romero had a documented history of dominating third rounds, and worst of all, Whittaker was injured.

Sometime early in the first, Romero had hit him with a kick in the same left leg he had hurt in training, aggravating the injury. It is difficult enough facing a former Olympic wrestler on an eight-fight win streak. Now he had lost all room for error. 

It was one of those moments where Whittaker would have been well within the norm to believe everything had begun to slip away from him. To believe that because Romero was far older and had overcome so much more in life, that maybe this was meant to be his night.

After all, Whittaker is only 26. His future, it would be easy to reason, is still way in the future. There would be time to overcome a loss, especially to a rampaging Romero. 

So returning to his corner between rounds of the UFC 213 main event, how did he feel?

“It was unstable,” he said in his in-cage post-fight interview. “I know that Romero will capitalize on any weakness he sees, so I had to play it off. It’s pretty bad but champions are made of this stuff.”

No stability in his leg, no room for error, and for the final three rounds, Whittaker (19-4) rose to the occasion. For the final 15 minutes, he was as close to perfect as he needed to be. He controlled the volume, he shut down Romero’s wrestling, he sprinted to the finish line in the fifth when everything hung in the balance.

It was a championship performance, even if it was only the interim belt on the line. Truly, he may be the best middleweight in the world, above even current champion Michael Bisping.

“That was the most agonizing 15 minutes I’ve had,” Whittaker said. “But it’s unbelievable.”

Whittaker was the contender that most never saw coming. After winning his season of The Ultimate Fighter: The Smashes in 2012, Whittaker went 2-2 in his first four fights as a welterweight, eventually getting knocked out by Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson.

As he tried to tread water, he came to realize that the weight cut was costing him more than it offered. After one more fight, he decided to abandon the cut in favor of competing at his more natural class of middleweight.

Unburdened by the change, he was immediately a revelation, tightening up his striking and earning back-to-back knockouts. It’s been onward and upward ever since, with Whittaker punching his ticket to the interim title fight after knocking out the Brazilian star Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza. 

In some divisions, seven wins is enough for a title shot, but Whittaker needed the eighth. Now, after Saturday, the UFC finally said he would get to face champion Bisping later this year.

That’s the right call. Bisping hasn’t competed since escaping with a decision against 46-year-old Dan Henderson last October. Since then, he’s publicly flirted with Georges St-Pierre in a matchup that was promised, fell apart and has spent the last two weeks undergoing emergency resuscitation in hopes of being revived.

Still, if Bisping was going to fight any middleweight, it seemed up until Saturday night that it would be Romero, who was never shy about calling out Bisping, reminding him he was on the way to tangle.

The two had a built-in albeit mild feud that will have to be back-burnered for the kid who punctuated a remarkable streak with a remarkable ending. 

After two rounds, according to FightMetric, Romero (13-2) had out-landed Whittaker 63-17 and had converted three takedown tries. The rest of the way, Whittaker landed 77 strikes to Romero’s 51 and allowed only a single takedown out of eight attempts. 

While some were quick to point to Romero’s decreased output in the final three rounds, such an assessment fails to offer Whittaker credit for his early scrambling and ability to return to his feet quickly, forcing Romero to expend copious amounts of energy for little gain. 

“I knew he always tries to dictate the pace and control of the fight with wrestling,” Whittaker said on the Fox post-fight show. “He did surprise me with the volume of wrestling, but it took a toll on him. He tried to set a pace he couldn’t keep up with.”

Finally, it seems, we found something that Romero can’t do.

Prior to last night, it seemed he refused to subscribe to human bounds. He has a body that an artist might sculpt with clay and then think to himself that he’s gone too far. Muscles on muscles, sinewy and lithe. That aesthetic exterior, though, is something of a facade. Romero is 40 years old, having come to MMA after a life spent in amateur wrestling, and after escaping Cuba.

He is 40, and time is of the essence. Prior to the fight, he spoke about winning the belt and bringing it back to Cuba to show his son he had to leave behind and whom he hasn’t seen for 11 years. For a while, it seemed like fate.

Still, even after Whittaker’s late takeover, the fight was up for grabs late in the fifth. It was a battle of wills, and Romero wasn’t ready to give in. Trying to escape Whittaker’s vaunted left hook, Romero slipped the punch but then slipped down to the mat. Whittaker pounced, draping himself on Romero and riding out most of the rest of the round while sealing his comeback.

Whittaker’s career arc isn’t a usual one for fighters who end up wearing gold. On the way up, he overcame an inconsistent opening to his UFC career and a misguided division switch. On the way to (interim) gold, he overcame an injury, a slow start and a rampaging Romero.

There have been plenty of places for him to quit, big moments for him to back away from, yet nothing seems to faze him. He’s quiet and polite, an anti-Bisping personality who fights with the same grit and resolve as the champ and who, because of it, earned the opportunity to surpass him.

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UFC 213: After Crushing Rousey and Tate, Amanda Nunes Fights for Legacy

Dating back to 2006, the UFC has circled the weekends surrounding Independence Day as among the most important of its annual calendar. Since then, the group of names that has headlined its pay-per-views during that time of year include a Who’s Who of U…

Dating back to 2006, the UFC has circled the weekends surrounding Independence Day as among the most important of its annual calendar. Since then, the group of names that has headlined its pay-per-views during that time of year include a Who’s Who of UFC greats and legends: Brock Lesnar, Anderson Silva, Conor McGregor, Tito Ortiz and Quinton Jackson, just to name a few. 

Among that group, Amanda Nunes‘ name looks somewhat out of place. Yet for the second year in a row, she will headline the key weekend. 

Nunes, the woman who battered Miesha Tate at last year’s Fourth of July weekend event and who retired Ronda Rousey with a one-sided whipping last December, gets the call to top-line the card once again.

In an era where champion’s reigns are remarkably short-lived, the current UFC bantamweight queen hopes to solidify a hold on a division that less than two years ago was synonymous with Rousey. In the process, she aims to polish her own legacy.

On paper, Nunes—who is facing Valentina Shevchenko at Saturday’s UFC 213—looks like an obvious winner. Not only is she riding the momentum of defeating two of the best-known female fighters ever in Tate and Rousey in back-to-back bouts, but she’s also bigger than Shevchenko and holds a victory over the challenger in a March 2016 bout.

That’s a lot trending in Nunes‘ direction, yet astute observers can’t help but flash back to the final five minutes of Nunes-Shevchenko I.

After 10 minutes of dominating the fight—a pair of judges even scored the second round 10-8 for Nunes—the Brazilian badly faded in the final round. She was rocked with a hard elbow, her strikes lost all steam, and her output cratered. By the end of the round, Shevchenko had outlanded her by a total of 41-3, according to FightMetric stats.

While Nunes (14-4) held on for a unanimous-decision victory on the strength of the first two rounds, her disastrous final stretch has cast a specter over her chances in the rematch, which is scheduled for five rounds. On some sports books, according to Oddsshark, Shevchenko (14-2) is even a slight favorite, with many onlookers believing a 25-minute championship fight will prove the difference. To that, Nunes scowls.

“I got tired in the round round and she showed up, but I beat her clean,” she said during Wednesday’s edition of UFC Tonight. “I was tired but she didn’t finish me. Imagine me when I’m ready for five rounds.”

It’s a fair position, if only there was some evidence in her late-round beliefs. Nunes has only been out of the first round in four of her last 11 bouts. One was the disastrous third with Shevchenko. In the others, she lost via TKO to Alexis Davis in the second round, via decision to Sarah D’Alelio, and via submission to Cat Zingano in the third.

And in both the Davis and Zingano fights, she suffered the same kind of unraveling as against Shevchenko, winning the first round big and then getting mauled thereafter. To boot, in Round 2 against Davis, she was outlanded by a ludicrous 76 strikes, while in the last two rounds of her fight with Zingano, she was outlanded 79-4.

That’s an indefensible trend with indefensible numbers for a UFC champion, and if Nunes hasn’t fixed her stamina issues, Shevchenko will probably add to the narrative that the Brazilian is a one-round wonder.

Alternatively, Nunes offers Shevchenko plenty to worry about. She is unquestionably the most powerful striker in the bantamweight division, with four UFC knockouts—the most in divisional history.

Nunes‘ success has largely come on the strength of her power, often arriving in sharp barrages. As a complementary skill, she also boasts a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt. Along with her impressive athleticism, that combination offers many chances at victory for her. 

Legacies are made of successes, yes, but they are also the byproduct of careful moment-by-moment, in-fight decision-making. For Nunes, she has to determine whether to follow her usual aggression or pull back and pace herself for the long haul. If she goes for an early finish and doesn’t get it, she may not have enough gas to go the distance. If she is overly cautious, she might put herself in the hole on judges’ scorecards.

The result hangs in the balance. Since July 2011 when Tate won the Strikeforce bantamweight title, she and Rousey have been involved in every single Strikeforce/UFC title bout.

That run is now over. Does that make Nunes the face of women’s MMA?

“I’m the champion. I have to be,” she said during a recent media conference call. “I’ve proved myself. I got the belt at UFC 200 and I defended against Ronda Rousey. I’m the most dominant in the division. I think I am, and I will keep proving it until people understand I’m here to stay, and I will do it. This is my next step, Valentina. I will keep it going.”

To do that, she must figure out herself on the way to figuring out Shevchenko. This is not so easy to do. As indestructible as she currently looks, that stamina is a hole in the same way that Rousey‘s striking defense was. It can either be repaired or exploited.

With Rousey and Tate in her rearview mirror, Nunes has already dispatched arguably the two most famous female MMA fighters ever. Now she is fighting for legacy. Now she is fighting herself.

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