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The Question: What Should the UFC Do with Cris ‘Cyborg’ Justino?

Cris “Cyborg” Justino, the same woman who UFC President Dana White once said “committed professional suicide,” is about to make her second start in the Octagon. Indeed, she’s not just participating; she’s holding up Saturday’s event. Justino is the headline attraction in a UFC Fight Night 95 card that is otherwise short on top talent.

Given White’s turnabout, it’s easy to wonder what he’s up to here. On one hand, he’s caved to Justino’s unwillingness to drop to bantamweight; on the other hand, he’s still asking her to cut to 140 pounds for no meaningful reason.

Her bout with Lina Lansberg will be the second straight at that catchweight. This one is particularly head-scratching since Lansberg has previously competed at featherweight and told Fernanda Prates of MMAjunkie that she would have taken the bout at 145.

What’s the end game here? Is the UFC trying to slowly prod Cyborg down to 135, where she can one day set up a payday bout with Ronda Rousey or be a special attraction all her own?

Joining me to discuss it is MMA Lead Writer Chad Dundas.

Mike Chiappetta: Chad, the UFC has booked this as a showcase bout for Justino, even though Lansberg is no sacrificial lamb, having competed in muay thai for a decade with 37 wins in that discipline, according to women’s fighting site AwakeningFighters.com.

Justino gets a home game and a main event slot with a chance to reassert her claim as the most dominant force in women’s MMA. She’s largely expected to do that and add to her four consecutive first-round finishes.

So let’s just go ahead and play out that scenario. What’s next? What is the UFC building toward?

Is it meaningful for her to beat people up with no possibility of fighting for a belt? Right now, the UFC has no featherweight division, and if White is to be believed, there are no plans to add one anytime soon.

From my view, the belt isn’t particularly meaningful for Cyborg in this instance. She is the Invicta champion at 145 pounds and almost universally regarded as the best in the world in the weight class. That is enough. But at this point, she isn’t going to make 135 pounds.

She’s here as a special attraction.

That approach is in line with the UFC’s shift to money (and moneyweight) fights. But at least here, it’s defensible. Unlike its simple cash-grab CM Punk signing, Justino brings bona fides and can someday hook up with Rousey (or Miesha Tate or Holly Holm or Amanda Nunes) for a compelling matchup. How many fans would object to that?

Chad Dundas: In some ways, I guess I’m just happy she’s there at all.

When Cyborg made her promotional debut at UFC 198 in May, it felt like a legitimately big moment for both the fighter and the fight company. Finally, after years of sniping back and forth, their sometimes ugly feud appeared over and done with. The most fearsome athlete in women’s MMA was at long last competing in the world’s top organization, where the lion’s share of the rest of the planet’s top talent make their living.

She blitzed Leslie Smith in 81 seconds during her first fight in the Octagon, and it felt like a gateway to bigger things. Then this booking against the relatively unknown Lansberg was announced, and it felt like…uh…another gateway?

If I had to guess, it seems as though maybe matchmakers want to try to establish Justino as a Mike Tyson-style figure. Perhaps through a series of these one-sided squash matches they can build her into an unstoppable monster.

For hardcore MMA fans, the process is already complete, since it’s essentially the same strategy that Strikeforce employed from 2009 to 2011 and later Invicta did too. But for more casual fans who view MMA only through the lens of the UFC, maybe it will be instructive.

There’s nothing wrong with that approach, as you suggest, but it does make me wonder about the long-term plan.

It’s possible that keeping Justino at 140 pounds makes a future bout with Holm, Tate or Rousey more feasible, but otherwise it seems arbitrary. It’s not her natural weight, and it’s a limit she obviously continues to struggle to make.

So here are my ideas: Either award her a UFC women’s featherweight title and have her defend it at 145 pounds against a revolving door of challengers, or⏤and this is my personal favorite⏤just let her defend the Invicta featherweight title she already has inside the Octagon.

The UFC and Invicta already have some manner of talent-sharing agreement between them. Allowing Cyborg to defend the Invicta strap on the big stage gives the UFC a championship to advertise, offers great advertising for Invicta and gives Justino an added layer of legitimacy.

It might also create a synergy between the UFC’s main product and the Fight Pass streaming service it’s trying hard to build. Since contender bouts for Cyborg could take place in Invicta and her title fights in the UFC (hopefully on pay-per-view), it could create a nice back-and-forth between the two companies.

It would be different, but it would also be kind of a beautiful arrangement.

What do you think, Mike? Too pie in the sky?

Mike: If it wasn’t for the UFC’s long-held stance against co-promotion, that scenario probably would have happened already. After all, it makes perfect sense to the point that there’s no other reason not to do it.

At this point, the UFC is doing everything but bringing the belt along with Cyborg. During her UFC debut, the announcers mentioned Invicta. They mentioned her championship. They mentioned her history. Her past is well-documented. Her future? There was little they could say about that.

That’s a problem.

In the MMA world, we have become conditioned to look toward tomorrow. The outcome of every fight exists within two planes: the actual result and where the winner stands in the context of the championship picture. Cyborg’s current circumstance robs everyone of the latter.

A career arc is supposed to build toward something. But she’s just treading water, trying to stay afloat until some greater plan is hatched.

That is particularly troubling from her side of the power dynamic. We can see what the UFC gets out of this deal. Cyborg may not be famous in American sports circles, but she came across as a star in her Octagon debut in Brazil, and now she’s headlining a card and helping the promotion fill an arena for an event that is otherwise bereft of star power.

What does she get out of it other than a bigger platform? What will it mean for her future? All White can say is that a fight with Rousey might happen. There are no promises there, which means she’s cutting extra weight and putting herself at additional physical risk for potentially no reward.

As it stands now, the UFC is basically admitting it has no long-term plan for her. That needs to change. The UFC should chart a course for her future, placing something meaningful directly in her path. The great thing is it would benefit Cyborg, the promotion and the fans.

Look into your crystal ball, Chad. How do you think the UFC ultimately handles the Cyborg conundrum going forward?

Chad: If there’s a silver lining here, perhaps it’s that Justino just turned 31 years old in July. She’s been a professional MMA fighter since 2005 but has had only 18 professional fights⏤including years like 2012 and 2014 when she didn’t fight at all. She’s usually the one dishing out the punishment in her fights rather than taking it, so maybe there’s good reason to believe she still has a few years left in her athletic prime.

If the UFC manages to keep her under contract, then a bout with one of the fight company’s other Big Three female athletes will happen. Rousey has never seemed overly excited about the fight, but both Holm and Tate have indicated in the past they would be willing to take the booking. It would just be a matter of making it worth everyone’s while financially.

I tell you what, though: The UFC needs to get this weight class stuff figured out and quick. As we go to press Thursday morning, reports continue to trickle in that Justino is still 10 pounds overweight for Saturday’s fight after struggling with her cut earlier in the week, per MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani. We’ve seen her clash with nutritionist George Lockhart about the details of her weight cut.

On Wednesday, for reasons that still don’t make any sense, we learned she won’t even be afforded the one-pound weight allowance fighters normally get leading up to non-championship bouts.

So, what’s the deal? At this point it’s getting unseemly, and frankly I’m starting to think the UFC is just punishing her for her refusal to make the women’s bantamweight limit. Get the woman in her natural weight class, get her some people to fight and maybe even give her a title.

Just fix it.

Mike: For a long time, I argued that Cyborg could make 135 pounds. Deep down, I still believe she can—eventually. Building and maintaining muscle, after all, is a choice. But it takes time to transform your body, and three years after we began discussing the possibility of Cyborg-Rousey at bantamweight, it seems like she’s only marginally closer to making the weight.

At some point, this experiment gets too perilous and risky to continue with. We’ve about reached that point.

The UFC doesn’t want to give her fights at 145 pounds because it doesn’t have a featherweight class, but a 140-pound class doesn’t exist either. These women’s catchweight fights are created just for her. The company has already given her a category of her own, just one that doesn’t come with the possibility of a belt (and a corresponding pay-per-view bonus) along with it.

It’s time to dispense with the torture and danger we’re putting Cyborg through and either let her fight at her natural class or move on and send her back to Invicta.

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What Kind of Impact Can Chael Sonnen Make for Bellator?

Little by little, Bellator has chipped away at the UFC’s stable of talent, taking a supporting player here, a headliner there. From Phil Davis to Benson Henderson to Rory MacDonald, the additions have given Bellator more recognizable names than it’s ever had. Few, however, have offered the potential versatility and value of its newest signee—Chael Sonnen, a Swiss Army knife of a roster piece who has shown the ability to generate both explosive headlines and impressive box office receipts.

Given the UFC’s recent conversion to money (and moneyweight) fights, its inability or unwillingness to return Sonnen into the fold comes as a surprise.

In the UFC, Sonnen served as one of the promotion’s top salesmen, whether he was plugging his own fight or an upcoming headline act while co-hosting the weekly news show UFC Tonight. When it came to delivering the company’s message, Sonnen was among the best ever to do it.

Now he’s working for the opposition.

Still, there are questions about how effective Sonnen will be in the same role for Bellator.

Even before he hung up his gloves in the aftermath of a two-year suspension for failed drug tests, he had lost three of his last four bouts. He is 39 years old now, and after nearly three years of inactivity, it’s unreasonable to expect him to turn back the clock and summon prime athletic performances. Beyond that, his reputation took another hit after a second career suspension for performance-enhancing drugs.

In truth, however, fans don’t build combat sports mega-events in search of technical mastery or moral exemplars; they get made based on the fight’s backstory or the fighter’s story.

Sonnen’s foundational brilliance was making the fight world care about an athlete who was never gifted with grade-A physical skills and rarely fought in the reckless style that has historically been among the most crowd-pleasing.

Instead, he convinced them with words.

He wrote poems, embarrassed fans, slammed legends and insulted entire nations. Not all of this was good or noble behavior, but it was usually damn entertaining.

It also wasn’t completely genuine.

On at least one occasion, Sonnen broke the fourth wall and explained why he said the things he said. Most notably, in the midst of an ongoing feud with Wanderlei Silva, he was forced to explain who was supposed to be the “bad guy” and who was supposed to be the “good guy,” per MMA Fighting.

In that same interview, Sonnen said that if he came back to MMA, he’d be “teaching class” on how to promote.

Unlike many athletes, Sonnen has spent a considerable amount of time studying the media and fans and how to feed their interests. Some would even say he’s learned how to manipulate both and to great effect. He also is willing to step out on the ledge and say things others would never be willing to say for fear of being viewed in a negative light.

Sonnen understood that good or bad didn’t matter—the only way to box office success was getting people to care.

His degree of difficulty in returning to the same effectiveness comes as the sport has evolved in his absence.

“I want the highest rating, I want the biggest pay-per-view numbers, I want to move more T-shirts and more tickets than anybody else,” Sonnen said during a media conference call to announce his Bellator signing.

While he was gone, someone else usurped Sonnen’s throne as MMA’s top trash-talker. Conor McGregor now wears the crown, earning renown with a style that is more pointed, brasher and more authentic.

McGregor has flashed the same attitude from the day he walked into the UFC for the first time. With Sonnen, we know there’s some degree of make-believe, some wink-wink inside joke that we’re privy to.

Will that kind of approach make an impact in 2016 and beyond?

In some ways, it depends on his foil. Sonnen rose to fame when he targeted longtime UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, a man who was his polar opposite in most important categories. While Sonnen was a grinding wrestler with a motormouth and a propensity to say anything, Silva was a physical marvel who excelled in striking but was often aloof, rarely saying anything of interest.

In that way, they were perfect foes.

For Sonnen to find any similar effectiveness in Bellator, he needs another rival to emerge from Bellator’s roster. He’s already spoken about potential fights with Tito Ortiz, Fedor Emelianenko, Rory MacDonald and Wanderlei Silva.

While Sonnen said Monday in an interview with The MMA Hour that a bout with Ortiz seems the most likely, matchups with any of those recognizable names could result in a ratings bonanza for Bellator if Sonnen gets the proper platforms to promote.

While the UFC advertises its programs throughout cable television, Bellator tends to focus its ads on Viacom-owned properties with an emphasis on Spike. That has given it the feeling of a self-contained ecosystem. Sonnen’s outsized personality offers the company a chance to break out of that mold.

He showed his crossover ability immediately upon signing with the promotion, generating his return announcement through The Associated Press, the global news outlet that rarely covers any MMA outside the UFC sphere. He will also continue his role as an ESPN analyst, ensuring the leading sports network will have a stake in his bouts.

Already, he’s made an impact. Still, Sonnen will likely have to up the ante to help push Bellator to the next level. In the three years since he last competed, there are more promotions, dates and options than ever. Breaking through all of the noise—even on Bellator‘s basic cable platform as opposed to UFC’s pay-per-view structure—is no longer about screaming the loudest.

It’s about what you say and how you say it. And then following that up by performing.

For all his bluster, McGregor vaulted to superstardom not only because he stalked Jose Aldo around the world for two years but also because when he got his chance, he delivered with a shocking 13-second knockout. Even when he lost to Nate Diaz, he had built up enough credibility to drive his next fight, which ended up being a blockbuster rematch that may have broken the all-time pay-per-view buyrate record, according to Dave Meltzer of MMA Fighting.

Sonnen doesn’t have quite the same equity to draw on, not after his losses, layoff and suspensions.

He will have to convince the masses that at age 39 he is still worth watching and that the stakes behind his fights are meaningful. That will be difficult to pull off for any extended period. Still, everyone loves a good comeback story, and for the time being, Sonnen has the fight world’s attention.

Now it’s up to him to deliver.

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Backed into Corner, Michael Johnson Reasserts Contender Status with Crushing KO

In mixed martial arts, momentum is a single punch, a whisper in the ear, a day off to rejuvenate the mind and body. In a game of millimeters and nanoseconds, one tiny thing can make the difference between winning and losing.
Walking into the Octagon in…

Walking into the Octagon in Hidalgo, Texas, Saturday night, Michael Johnson needed a shift of momentum. Looking in from the outside, plenty seemed to be going against him. He had lost two straight contests. He had undergone surgery on his labrum and rotator cuff, injuries any athletic orthopedist will tell you are among the most difficult to repair. And his opponent, Dustin Poirier, had won four in a row.

By his own admission, his back was against the wall.

But by the time he left, he was barking for big fights and the kind of money Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz are making.

It was a transformation as shocking as the result.

“I say over and over, ‘I have the fastest hands in [the lightweight] division, and I’m the most dangerous guy in the division,” he said in his post-fight interview. “Give me my next victim. Anybody. I’m coming for that title.”

First things first, Johnson had to walk the tightrope Saturday to shine in the kind of scenario that usually leads to either panicked desperation or composed execution. For Johnson, it was the latter and a victory that was undoubtedly the most significant of his UFC career.

McGregor and Diaz money? That might be a tad optimistic, but you can’t blame a guy for putting it out into the universe with a hope and a prayer.

Stranger things have happened. Not to put it on that level, but the result, a 95-second knockout, seemed unthinkable just a few moments before his cash demands. Poirier, after all, was the favorite to win, according to Odds Shark. But there it was, Johnson bringing Poirier’s own words—”a crispy two-piece“—back to haunt him.

It was a right hook-straight left combo that ended Poirier’s night, both punches landing square and sending him crashing him to the mat for some crushing and cringeworthy ground strikes for the finish. Take a look at this thing. It is the epitome of MMA: brutal yet magnificent.

“Speed kills, and when I keep that movement I’m unstoppable in this cage,” Johnson said on the Fox Sports 1 post-fight show.

His talent has never been in question. He has blazing fast hands, power and comes with a wrestling pedigree.

His physical skills are impressive—tantalizing, even.

They are also a source of frustration because the results often don’t match up with the talent. Even though he walked into the cage ranked No. 10 in the world, his results at the highest level have been largely mixed, with an 8-6 career UFC record prior to Saturday night and the propensity to dig himself into trouble.

He’s also been the victim of some bad luck.

In August 2015, he’d won four in a row and was surging toward the top of the division when he met Beneil Dariush. By almost all accounts, he won the fight. Every reporter’s score collected by MMA Decisions was in his favor, and nearly 90 percent of fans felt the same. Yet the judges scored it for Dariush.

Still, the UFC set him up with a high-profile fight with Nate Diaz that December, but Johnson struggled to live up to the moment, losing focus and falling in a decision.

This has been a pattern for Johnson, winning when he shouldn’t and losing when he’s favored. According to noted MMA gambler Luca Fury, Johnson has gone just 2-6 as a favorite, while thriving as an underdog:

As often happens in MMA, a loss led to introspection and changes. The biggest one, he suggested, was physical. After being bothered by shoulder pain for a while, Johnson visited a specialist, finding out he had a hole in his labrum, among other problems.

A hole in the labrum. That’s significant.

“I’m not using it as an excuse in any previous fights, but there was something going on, you could see it in my fights,” he said during a fight-week media interview.

Maybe more so than that, on Saturday, we could see what he is like when healthy. Hopefully for his sake, this is the time when everything jells. In a division that ages quicker than most, he’s 30 years old. He can’t afford many more setbacks.

At least this time around, it looked like his performance level was in reach of his talent.

In a sport so complex, it’s often a simple thing that makes the difference. Whether he’s a tick faster after surgery, his confidence is back or he simply embraced the pressure of the moment, Johnson has a clean slate. He’s suddenly a contender again. He once again matters. Momentum is funny like that.

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Stipe Miocic’s Championship Mettle Bodes Well for Battle with Cain Velasquez

Stipe Miocic’s challenge Saturday night involved multiple layers. Break out of the shadows of CM Punk’s highly publicized debut. Rise above the madness of the near-brawl following the Fabricio Werdum-Travis Browne fight. Defeat one of the most decorated heavyweights in combat sports history. Defend the UFC heavyweight championship for the first time. And do it all while facing the pressure of a rabid, sold-out hometown crowd.

UFC 203 was the kind of manic setting that can sidetrack the unfocused, and for a moment, everything seemed ready to unravel for Miocic. Just a minute into the fight, his opponent Alistair Overeem dropped him with a left hand, then moved in to close with a guillotine.

As danger zones go, this was DEFCON 1 status.

For a long time, the submission was Overeem’s signature, with nine of his victories coming via that specific choke. Miocic was in trouble, so much that later, Overeem would say that he felt Miocic tap out during the sequence—although replays showed no such tap—but he found a way out. He stayed composed, and he persisted.

If there was a championship moment in the fight past his later bombardment of Overeem that actually ended it, this was it. Everything on the line, panic an abundant resource, and Miocic out-savvied an MMA O.G.

“I wasn’t even close to tapping,” Miocic said in the Fox UFC post-fight show. “He had my neck. I know that, but I passed guard and he let go. I don’t understand how he thought that [I tapped]. But I put him to sleep, so it’s all good.”

The courageous moment is an excellent sign for the 34-year-old champ, who made his first successful title defense in the process.

Miocic will have to show increasing levels of resolve as the target on him grows. On Saturday, on the same card, No. 1 contender Fabricio Werdum emerged victorious. But since Miocic‘s knockout of Werdum is still fresh in the minds of most, it will likely be Cain Velasquez who gets the next crack at him. The two-time former champion is fresh after stopping Travis Browne on punches at UFC 200, looking revitalized in the process.

In many ways, Velasquez is the only fighter on the roster that can equal the breadth of Miocic’s physical skills.

Miocic is a unique talent because of his athleticism. In truth, there are not that many great athletes in professional mixed martial arts. But Miocic played two sports in college, lettering in both wrestling and baseball. He also was a Golden Gloves champion boxer. You can see some of that background in his footwork, technique and power. Beyond those gifts, his conditioning has proved to be elite, as he’s been able to create and sustain a torrid pace for five-round fights.

Velasquez is his contemporary in that department, a heavyweight that lands 6.49 strikes per minute, according to FightMetric, good for fourth all time among all divisions. Miocic, for comparison, lands 4.93 strikes per minute, still far ahead of most heavyweights.

That conditioning was what kept Miocic in the fight when he was in trouble, as not only did he rise to his feet, but he quickly shifted modes from defensive to aggressive as he began to chase Overeem around the cage.

Meanwhile, Overeem suddenly looked as though he had tired, with hands drooping to his side. With that setting, Miocic capitalized, landing a right behind the ear, and then bulling Overeem to the ground.

Given Overeem’s experience—over 50 MMA fights—it could have been a dangerous position for Miocic. Instead, he battered the former Strikeforce, DREAM and K-1 champion from inside his guard, posturing up and landing a series of punches to the head that closed the show with 33 ticks left in the first round.

Still, Miocic admitted the pressure was difficult to handle, saying he would prefer to fight overseas than at home because of all of the extra demands on his time leading up to it.

But he better get used to it. When you’re the champion, pressure is the name of the game. It’s the second opponent, standing alongside the man you’re facing. Sometimes, it’s even the more imposing one.

For now, Miocic wants a break. He’s fought three times in the first nine months of 2016 and managed to squeeze in a wedding as well. He owes his wife a honeymoon. That seems fair. But other than that, he’s the best kind of champion, one that’s at the height of his confidence, and one that’s on call.

“I’m not going to pick and choose where I fight or who I fight,” he said in the post-fight press conference. “If they want me to fight on Saturn, I’ll fight on Saturn. I’m the heavyweight champion of the world.”

Velasquez will put him to the test. And after Saturday night, we can be sure that Miocic is up for the challenge.

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Josh Barnett’s Win Against Andrei Arlovski Means Little, and That’s Just Fine

For both Josh Barnett and Andrei Arlovski, the end is near. There’s no denying that. Both UFC heavyweights are pushing 40 and have gone through tough recent stretches. Those factors, along with their past histories as former UFC champions, made a matchup between them a perfectly reasonable idea, even though it also meant only one of them could walk out of the Octagon in Hamburg, Germany, with a belief he had put things back on track.

From the beginning, those were the only stakes here. A fight built for two.

Sometimes we get too caught up in the search for big stakes to accept these kinds of fights until … well, until fights like this come along.

Sometimes it’s these kinds of nights that remind us the personal stakes are often more important than the bigger picture. The kind of nights that end with fighters saying things like what Barnett said in the post-fight press conference (NSFW language).

“It’s not just winning and losing out here,” he said. “Look who he’s fought and who I’ve fought. We have wins against all-time greats. It’s not so trivial. One of his recent losses was [Alistair] Overeem, who’s in a title fight, or Stipe [Miocic], who’s the champ. It’s not like we’re going out there fighting the bum-of-the-month club. We’re going out there and we’re fighting the best the world can provide. If we lose a few, that happens, but who else besides us is capable of going out and meeting that kind of opposition time and time again?”

“Great speech,” Arlovski said, and the two reached out and shook hands.

In other words, it was a match based on the respect of what they’ve done and where they’ve been—a pairing of kindred spirits forged through the parallel lives they’ve led.

For the record, it was the older of the two who left with something of a reprieve. Two months from his 39th birthday, Barnett (35-8) became the first man ever to cause an Arlovski submission. It came via rear-naked choke, and it came in the latter’s 39th professional fight.

Those are big numbers, ones that came only with time and success. No one survives this long amid MMA’s merciless environs without ever touching greatness, and Barnett and Arlovski (25-13, 1 no-contest) can both lay claim to reaching those heights.

And even amid these hard times—Arlovski walked in on a two-fight losing streak, while Barnett had dropped two of three—on Saturday, the fight between them was everything it would have been nearly a decade ago, when they had first been scheduled to pair off.

At the time, Barnett was living the ronin lifestyle as a gun-for-hire, while Arlovski had wiggled his way free from the UFC. Both were clearly among the best heavyweights in the world when the short-lived Affliction promotion attempted to put them together—a pairing that ultimately fell apart before they could square off.

All this time later, the two are still as game as the wildest of pit bulls, with no surrender wired into their DNA.

The fight didn’t quite have the right elements to be called “epic,” but maybe “vintage” is a more apt description. Everything they had flashed in their early days was on display. From Arlovski’s power to Barnett’s clinch work to a sudden ending forged in courage.

The finishing sequence came when Barnett seemed to be in the most trouble, after taking an illegal but accidental eye poke. The referee missed it, and Barnett turned his back as he retreated to the cage. Arlovski chased him into the corner and cracked him with a clubbing right hand. Barnett, however, was able to initiate a clinch and ultimately take him down, ultimately working his ground advantage into the choke.

“He gave a lot to me tonight,” Barnett said. “He came out here to win, and I really appreciated him being there and trying to give the fans out there a great fight.”

It was like that from the beginning. Both heavyweights wobbled each other within the first minute of the open, and the pace remained relentless throughout.

“He comes at you wild, a bit savage,” Barnett said, describing a sequence where Arlovski refused to concede his opponent’s defensive effective, expending energy with a series of uppercuts he described as “absolutely apes–t.”

But Barnett survived the moment and pressed his advantage on the ground when he got it, nearly finishing Arlovski in the second with a hail of ground strikes near the end of the round. In total, he landed 66 strikes in during the five-minute frame, according to FightMetric, and by the time it ended, Arlovski was bloodied and hurt, taking about 10-15 seconds to rise to his feet after the horn.

Still, he fought on. Of course he did.

Tomorrow, it will be no different. Despite losing three in a row, Arlovski wasted no time in declaring his career would continue forward, saying he would take time off “and come back stronger.”

At 37, there can only be so many tomorrows left for him, and for Barnett as well. Whether they spend those days chasing a title or simply staving off retirement is no longer particularly important to either one of them.

And for us? Well, sometimes, a fight doesn’t have to mean much in the grand UFC scheme to mean much to us. And sometimes, it’s nice to be reminded of that.

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The Question: How Should UFC Handle Paige VanZant Amid Growing Star Power?

Paige VanZant had a pretty productive weekend, picking up a technical knockout win in her return to action at UFC on FOX last Saturday night. Living up to her exciting style, she blasted Bec Rawlings with a jumping switch kick that made the rounds across the news world. She made SportsCenter. She was featured in London’s the Daily Mail. Even Forbes wrote about it.

That’s the kind of treatment stars get, and VanZant is certainly raising her profile with every appearance. She’s already told us Hollywood was interested. She’s held them off for now, but there are definitely going to be distractions and temptations coming her way. That’s the nature of stardom.

For now, though, VanZant is saying all the right things. She wants to focus on her fight career and wasted no time saying she’d like to compete on the next UFC on Fox show in December. That’s great.

From the UFC’s side, how exactly does it handle her next few steps? On one hand, VanZant is 7-2 and ranked No. 10 in the strawweight division. On the other, she’s still just 22 years old.

Joining me to discuss the promotion’s conundrum is MMA Lead Writer Chad Dundas.

Mike Chiappetta: This is a recurring issue for UFC matchmakers. Some youngster gets signed, makes a big splash and garners an inordinate amount of media attention in a small amount of time. What do you do next? Take your time with that talent in cultivating them, or shoot them up the ladder toward a title shot and see how they handle the push?

There is no easy answer here. Even conservatism often backfires. Look at someone like 20-year-old Sage Northcutt, for example. Northcutt was slow-played, paired with opponents of similar experience levels, but stumbled anyway, getting choked out by Bryan Barberena in his third Octagon bout, forcing a reset to his UFC career.

VanZant did well until she was paired with Rose Namajunas, who at 24 is not much older than VanZant but was a step above.

From my perspective, this is a situation where the UFC will face backlash either way. If it pushes VanZant against Top Fivers, it’ll be accused of moving her up too quickly and stifling her growth. If it takes a more cautious approach, it’ll be criticized for the hyper-promotion of someone who hasn’t yet truly earned it.

It’s incumbent upon it to ignore the commentary and condemnation. VanZant is still building her base and shouldn’t be rushed. You could see that in her first-round performance Saturday. She expends a lot of energy for no purpose. There is a lack of efficiency there. Those are signs that she needs time to develop. The UFC would be wise to offer it. She’s a big enough star now to draw interest regardless of opponent, so give her the chance to mature her game before moving her up to the division’s best.

There is always the temptation to rush things, but this is one time to hold back a present-day payoff for the future.

What do you think, Chad?

Chad Dundas: VanZant is an interesting case for me because she’s one of the first UFC fighters I feel a complete, borderline generational disconnect with. Not only do I not understand what she offers me as an MMA fan, I feel like I’m not supposed to understand. Like she’s not here for me. Like I’m not in her demographic.

I’m a 38-year-old man. I’m married and have two children. I don’t have Instagram. I’ve never seen an episode of Dancing with the Stars. When I see a 15-second video clip of VanZant dancing in her driveway, the only thing it makes me feel is mildly confused about what I’m watching and why it exists.

I guess I just don’t get it.

But you know what? That’s OK. I don’t have to get it.

Here at Bleacher Report we have some metrics that suggest a lot of people do get VanZant. She racked up approximately half a million pageviews between three high-profile stories the company did on her over the weekend. To come straight from her breakout DWTS appearance and knock out Rawlings with a highlight-reel kick in the second round is about as good a performance as she could hope for on a nationally televised fight card.

So I guess I’m willing to take that at face value as kind of a cool moment for her.

Perhaps VanZant eventually develops into one of the best fighters in her weight class. Perhaps along the way she picks up a new generation of fight fans and they, like me, end up becoming lifers. But, like you mentioned, I think that’s going to take some serious sculpting from a matchmaking department. At this point she’s not ready to get tossed in there with any of the best strawweights in the world. Until she is, I’m just not sure I can see what is so compelling about her.

Mike: Chad, with these comments, you have officially reached a point of no return, like the grandfathers who complain today’s generation of basketball players doesn’t play the game “the right way,” and who pine for the days of Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle whenever they see a baseball player wearing his hat backward.

VanZant’s persona is the sunshine-blonde who is happy in life and bubbling over with personality. While I admit that it’s far from the many counterculture anti-heroes that populated the sport in our early days covering it, she is like the living embodiment of the millennial generation. Young, free-spirited, social-media savvy and focused on fun.

You and I are heavy consumers of the MMA product, but we have to remember that sports leagues and organizations are focused on demographics more than ever. One of the UFC’s great assets—one that helped spark a $4.2 billion sale—is the youth of its audience. VanZant speaks to the teenagers and 20-somethings in that group, which is why the UFC should take caution with her.

The one argument I could see for rushing her is the threat of Hollywood, something I wrote about in the aftermath of the fight. The UFC brass may have some concern about other offers encroaching on VanZant’s time and availability, but I would resist the urge to move too fast.

For the next two or three fights, I would try to match her with fighters on the edge of the Top 15. Give her a striking stylist first, then a ground fighter, then a wrestler. See if she can pass those tests before moving her up. We saw that her loss to Namajunas didn’t set her popularity back, but give her the chance to develop a bit more before she gets that kind of opportunity again, with the hope that she will be better prepared and that it will make a bigger fight.

Chad: That did come off a bit curmudgeonly, didn’t it? Look, though, I don’t think anybody can deny that recent cases like VanZant, Northcutt and CM Punk represent a significant departure from the way the UFC has done business in the past. Typically, the best fighters in the world first distinguish themselves in the cage, and during that process we determine which ones also have magnetic personalities.

For examples of this, think Robbie Lawler, Dominick Cruz or even—cue dramatic music—current strawweight champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk.

People like VanZant, Northcutt and Punk stand out because for them the process seems to have been inverted. The fight company tabbed them as individuals it could promote first and figured out if they deserved it later.

I’ve got nothing against that strategy, per se, but—curmudgeon alert, again—the old way seemed more organic to me and a much easier fit for my old-man brain.

But if that’s where we are, that’s where we are and I agree with the sentiment that for the good of everyone involved, VanZant ought to be brought along slowly. The trouble might be that she’s already the UFC’s No. 10-ranked 115-pound fighter. I’m not sure how many more stunning knockouts she could author before sheer numbers dictate she has to fight a real contender.

Mike: That’s a fair question, but one I think the UFC can use VanZant’s age to deflect. After all her attention and exposure, she’s still just 22. That’s young in any professional sport, let alone one like MMA, with its many disciplines and facets to master.

She has all the tools to make her career a success. She’s young, athletic and driven, is surrounded by strong coaching and management teams and has the public’s eyeballs on her. They are all the ingredients to a perfect recipe. But like every recipe, it needs time.

For VanZant and the UFC, their patience—or lack thereof—will determine whether she ascends as high as her current star would suggest. To be sure, there are no easy paths to realizing her ultimate potential, but given her extreme youth, time is on her side, and all parties involved should use it.

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