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Holly Holm Loses, De Randamie Sidesteps Cyborg and Featherweights in Disarray

The thing about “new” is that it is supposed to be fresh, unblemished, perfect. And easy. New is supposed to be carefree and undemanding of its owners.
If only the UFC matchmakers had it that good.
After years of hemming on the …

The thing about “new” is that it is supposed to be fresh, unblemished, perfect. And easy. New is supposed to be carefree and undemanding of its owners.

If only the UFC matchmakers had it that good.

After years of hemming on the idea of a women’s featherweight division, the promotion finally caved and established a belt, but only after they were left in a lurch and with few other options. It was a reluctant undertaking, and the bungling of the booking left long-term ramifications that are still resounding.

At Saturday night’s UFC 208, the echo continued to reverberate.

Sure, the UFC finally crowned a champion when Germaine de Randamie defeated Holly Holm in a unanimous decision, but it was a moment that wasn’t close to the positive it should have been. Instead, the organization was left with a controversial outcome, a falling star, a champion ready to sidestep her first challenger and a top contender still facing a potential performance-enhancing drug violation.

These three women are the entirety of a division, meaning the division is in total and complete disarray.

First things first.

Holm may end up being the biggest story of the night after suffering her third straight defeat. Once a clear golden girl heir to Ronda Rousey, Holm has lost every bit of momentum she earned on that legendary night in Australia.

One year ago at this time, Holm was on top of the world. A few months removed from that shocking knockout over Rousey, she had upped her profile with a series of appearances on major media shows, and on the verge of following Rousey into superstardom.

Better yet, she assured the fight world that fighting was her life, that nothing would distract her from her focus.

But then she faced a stunner of her own, submitting to Miesha Tate late in a fight she had been handily winning, before losing an uninspired decision to Valentina Shevchenko last July. The stretch marked the first two-fight losing streak of her combat sports career.

On Saturday, she wasn’t completely outclassed by De Randamie—and in fact, she had the fight’s most significant strike, a straight left that dropped De Randamie to her knees in the fifth. But for at least the early part of the five-rounder, Holm had trouble finding her opponent and ate stiff counter strikes for her trouble.

Time after time, Holm failed in her takedown tries—she went a woeful 0-of-9, according to FightMetric—and the inability to meaningfully threaten De Randamie there limited her offense.

The decision was controversial, but that it ends like this, at the hands (and feet) of De Randamie is as big a surprise. As a UFC entity, the Dutch fighter wasn’t anonymous, but she wasn’t far off. Despite a stunningly successful kickboxing career, her time as a mixed martial artist had been mostly inconsistent.

Until now, she had been unable to translate her mythical 37-0 kickboxing background to the cage in any kind of reliable manner, particularly against fighters who would not be scared off by what she had accomplished in the past. Most times she had stepped up to experienced competition she either struggled (split-decision win over Julie Kedzie) or lost (Amanda Nunes).

As a result, she had never really even established herself as a serious title threat as a bantamweight.

Even on Saturday, she needed a bit of help. At the end of the second round, De Randamie and Holm were exchanging, and a moment after the horn sounded to signify the close of action, she fired off a right hand that wobbled Holm.

Incensed, Holm’s corner called for a point-deduction, but referee Todd Anderson took no action. The next round, the same situation, another De Randamie right hand after the bell.

Again, Holm’s corner demanded a point be taken away, but Anderson instead issuing a warning.

Had he followed through on a deduction, the fight—which all three judges scored 48-47—would have been ruled a draw.

“It was in [the] heat of [the] moment, I apologize,” De Randamie said. “The first time (the ref) said it was on the buzzer, it wasn’t late. It was in the heat of [the] moment. I apologize. I’m not like that.”

That was certainly of little comfort to Holm.

“You look at the scoring, and you look at what the ref has to do, and yes, that could have changed the whole way the fight went,” said Holm. “But I look at what I could have done differently, and it could have changed the fight, too.”

The matchup was a strange one from the get-go. After years of flirting with longtime featherweight queen Cris “Cyborg” Justino, the UFC signed her and asked her to go through multiple weight cuts in trying to push her towards 135. Justino never made it all the way down to the bantamweight limit, but her efforts went in vain after the UFC booked a featherweight title fight without her.

To be fair, the promotion did try to include Justino in the inaugural pairing, but after she asked for an extra month to recover from her difficult September 2016 weight cut, the UFC balked and quickly moved on without her.

For those that pay attention to such developments, it immediately put a fugazi stamp on the UFC 208 proceedings.

Now, De Randamie is the champion, but what does it mean? There may not be a single MMA fan alive who thinks she is the best women’s featherweight on earth. Not one. Even if Justino comes with a caveat, and even if it’s a huge one, she has just been too good for too long to ignore.

So the UFC is effectively asking fans to live in a world of make-believe where this belt isn’t just a place-holder.

Adding a degree of difficulty to that is De Randamie herself. Just seconds after winning, she was asked by UFC announcer Joe Rogan about the possibility of facing Cyborg, who happened to be in attendance at Brooklyn, New York’s, Barclays Center for the show.

“You know, I want to fight everybody,” the Dutch fighter said. “If she’s the one I have to fight, I’ll fight her. Right now I need surgery on my hand, so I’ll get surgery.”

She went on to say that this surgery was something she really needed, saying she had broken her hand. That sounded reasonable until she explained that she’d injured it against Larissa Pacheco. Two years ago.

And so, while the UFC would like to say the stage is set for what comes next, that’s not even close to the case. It’s bad enough that Cyborg has to address her problems with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to get eligible again, and that she could be facing a suspension; now, suddenly, De Randamie is ready to disappear for a while. And Holm? She’s not completely out of the mix, but she’s fading fast.

It’s rare that something so new is so problematic, but for the UFC, the start of the featherweight division was a nightmare kind of night.

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At UFC 208, Anderson Silva’s Fighting Future Hinges on Outcome

There was a time when Anderson Silva would have eaten his UFC 208 opponent, Derek Brunson, alive.
That’s no knock on Brunson, who is slotted at No. 8 in the UFC rankings. It’s just that, well, this is Anderson Silva we are talking about. The man …

There was a time when Anderson Silva would have eaten his UFC 208 opponent, Derek Brunson, alive.

That’s no knock on Brunson, who is slotted at No. 8 in the UFC rankings. It’s just that, well, this is Anderson Silva we are talking about. The man who lived in the matrix, who re-engineered supposedly useless techniques into knockout shots, who could spot his opponent 23 minutes and a few hundred punches and still find a way to win.

That Anderson Silva would have seen Brunson’s takedown coming from a mile away, stuffed it with extreme prejudice and landed a laser pointer of a right cross to the jaw. And that would have been that. He was that kind of automatic.

These days, however, Silva’s performances are anything but certain. He hasn’t officially won a fight since October 2012, and in his last match, Daniel Cormier dominated him in a lopsided unanimous decision.

Most of his recent history—including a failed drug test in 2015—is a study in late-career struggle, which should not come as a major surprise for anyone who has watched final acts. On Saturday, Silva (33-8, one no-contest) will be two months shy of his 42nd birthday, an age by which nearly every great has already retired or long passed an expiration date.

But Silva has always been something of a riddle, and that has been mirrored by the twilight of his career, with results that can be interpreted in ways that sprout optimism.

Sure, his knockout loss to Chris Weidman back in 2013 was decisive, but everything since then has come with an asterisk. The rematch ended with a Silva injury. After that, he beat Nick Diaz on points, only to have his win wiped out by the Nevada Athletic Commission after failing a post-fight drug test.

From there, he lost to Michael Bisping in a mildly disputed decision, during which he nearly knocked out the champ. Most recently, he was shut out by Cormier, but that bout was contested at light heavyweight, a division above Silva’s natural home—and against its reigning champion to boot.

To supporters, these are results that can easily be spun. To them, the winless streak doesn’t explain the whole truth of what has happened or of the circumstances that directly affected it.

Controversy or not, that’s a growing collection of fights that did not end as they might have in years gone by.

Against Brunson, barring something completely preposterous, Silva will no longer find that benefit of the doubt. He won’t have it because Brunson isn’t Bisping or Diaz or Cormier. He’s never reached the greatness of most of Silva’s recent opponents. For him, Chris Leben and Lorenz Larkin are his best career wins; Silva would be his first major scalp.

The disparity in reputations between Silva and Brunson is huge, about as wide as any you could possibly find in the modern-day UFC. That dynamic has led many to question the purpose of the matchup. Does the UFC see Silva as a stepping stone for Brunson? Is it hoping to get Silva back in the win column? Did it just throw together whatever it could for him to add some star power to UFC 208? The last of those is probably the most accurate.

Still, it seems a major departure for a man who hasn’t faced an opponent with a similarly low profile since he defended the belt against Yushin Okami in 2011.

“I just want to have fun and do what I love now,” Silva said during a recent scrum interview in Brazil. “I have no pressure. I think I’ve been through all the phases of the sport. I won, I lost, I got injured. Now I get to do what I love, with my truth, without worrying about what people will say or things like that.”

The pressure might be lessened, but it can’t be gone completely. Nearing 42, he has to know that the end is near, that he has only a handful of walks to the Octagon left. Maybe less.

But the thing is, in this new-era UFC, a win could change things significantly.

Silva is still an important name in Brazil and a known one in world MMA circles. He can still sell tickets and pay-per-views. That kind of power matters now perhaps more than ever.

So if he beats Brunson and reminds the world that he essentially knocked out the current champ—Bisping was saved by the bell after a third-round knockdown—he can reset that retirement clock, and that’s no small thing.

A loss? There may be no coming back from it in any meaningful sense. He may continue to get fights, but it will serve as the final, indisputable sign that his time as an elite is done.

At his age, he may no longer harbor championship desires, something he acknowledged during his aforementioned interview. But winning never gets old. And when you are the greatest winner MMA has ever known, if you can’t do that anymore, what do you have left? We all know the answer to that.

No one wants to see yet another all-time great quietly and sadly be pushed off toward retirement. On Saturday night, Silva either shoves back or continues a decline that will then be clearly and definitively irreversible.

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Living Up to ‘Korean Zombie’ Nickname, Chan Sung Jung Bucks Odds to Rise Again

Three-and-a-half years isn’t an eternity, but in the land of combat sports, it can be something close. In this cruel world, fighters can age out in months. When you’re talking years, you’re talking eras.
Witness, for instance, the story of Chan S…

Witness, for instance, the story of Chan Sung Jung, who last competed in August 2013 before missing time to an injury and mandatory military service in his native South Korea.

Since then, so much has changed. The UFC was sold, year-round drug testing was implemented, the Ronda Rousey phenomenon came and went. Upon arriving at the arena, he might have been surprised to learn his awesome Korean Zombie t-shirt is no longer welcome at the arena, banned because of the UFC’s uniform deal with Reebok.

The game moves fast and leaves stragglers behind.

So 1,282 days later, at UFC Fight Night in Houston, Jung returned as a mystery. Such lengthy breaks during a fighter’s prime are nearly unprecedented in major MMA. Yet there he was on Saturday, still just 29 years old and, for onlookers, frozen in time and reputation.

Would he return rusty? As if he hadn’t skipped a beat? Improved?

Anything was possible.

The answer was a combination of it all. But in the end, the Zombie did what the Zombie does, overcoming stacked odds, surviving danger, then eating his opponent’s soul.

It was all so perfectly in character.

For a fight that lasted just two minutes and 49 seconds, Jung had his moments of danger, as opponent and betting favorite Dennis Bermudez rocked him twice with overhand rights, the second of them putting Jung on wobbly legs.

The trouble lasted all of 30 seconds. In keeping with his voluminous style, Bermudez reached out to continue peppering Jung. But his jab was long and lazy, and Jung slipped it and countered with a crushing right uppercut that basically put Bermudez’s lights out.

Off long layoffs, most fighters will tell you they don’t believe in ring rust. They’ll tell themselves that too. But afterward, they will acknowledge the truth.

“I definitely felt that way,” Jung told FS1’s Megan Olivi in the post-fight show. “When the fight started, I was thinking, ‘I’m not moving the way I remember or expected.’ After I loosened up, things went OK.”

I’ll say.

Jung just seems to have a knack for generating these kinds of special moments. He is the same man who authored the first and only Twister submission in UFC history, who once scored a seven-second knockout, who won Fight of the Year awards from various publications in both 2010 and 2012.

He is a one-man highlight reel.

The comeback fight against Bermudez was no gimme. In the time Jung had been away, Bermudez had gone 5-2 and clawed his way up to ninth in the UFC rankings.

Jung had beaten higher-ranked fighters before, namely Dustin Poirier, but off such a lengthy layoff, timing becomes an issue that few are able to deftly navigate. Fight speed is always a few ticks faster than sparring and practice, and those milliseconds can mean the difference between connecting and swinging at air, of slipping punches and taking them square.

Against Bermudez, there is precious little time in which to work your way into the speed of the fight. His pace (4.27 strikes landed per minute, according to FightMetric) is unrelenting, and he complements it with a grinding wrestling game.

Bermudez brought that kind of approach to Houston too, and while he struggled in takedowns by missing all three attempts, he hammered Jung from the outside hard enough that in the post-fight interview, Jung said he couldn’t remember the immediate aftermath.

That’s about as Zombie as it gets.

But he’s also mortal, which is to say vulnerable. Both physically and emotionally.

“I’m human too, so there were times I thought, ‘Can I keep up with the game? Can I keep developing my techniques?'” Jung admitted in the post-fight press conference. “That’s what I thought. And now I feel like I’m about to cry.”

Part of that reaction is personal, based off his own difficult journey; part of it is for his homeland. Not only did Jung spend two years in the South Korean military, but he did so during a time of unrest in the country during the Candlelight Revolution, an ongoing, peaceful revolt against the government.

He admitted that because of these extraordinary circumstances, he carried dual burdens with him into the cage, but neither weighed him down enough to escape from.

And as a result, he’s back in the game as a legitimate contender. When Monday’s rankings come out, he should easily shoot into the top 10 and restake a claim near the top.

The timing of it all is ideal. After years of dominant rule under Jose Aldo, the featherweight division is suddenly wide open, with a compromised Aldo tenuously holding his spot at the top, an interim champion rising (Max Holloway) and a fun blend of old war horses (Ricardo Lamas, Cub Swanson) and young blood (Yair Rodriguez, Dooho Choi). Jung can be slotted into the mix just about anywhere with the promise of action and mayhem to follow.

And just like that, he’s gone from invisible to contender. From oblivion to atop the world. As if this were a second life. As if he were a Zombie.

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In (Possibly) Retiring Young, Ronda Rousey Has Nothing to Answer for

Ronda Rousey’s transcendence as a mixed martial arts superstar survived the loss of her aura. That’s evidenced by the public reaction generated by UFC president Dana White when he revealed what many of us who follow the sport closely had as…

The pronouncement was picked up by major outlets like TMZ, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. You could read about it whether you were in Italy, Australia or Kazakhstan.

“She’s going to ride off into the sunset and start living her life outside of fighting,” White said.

In a surprise, most of the reaction has been muted. At least so far. There have been a few belittlers. ESPN’s Bomani Jones, for instance, tweeted, “I wouldn’t blame Rousey for quitting, but I’ll probably clown her mercilessly if she does. Well-earned, too.”

Even this was a kind of layered criticism, likely rooted in Rousey’s often unsportsmanlike behavior. Refusing to shake hands with vanquished opponents, creating fictional feuds, bullying ring card girls, shunning media obligations—Rousey has given critics plenty of ammunition to fire back at her.

Every great fighter has a specific way of pushing themselves to the limit; for Rousey, she had to constantly put herself on the edge, even if it meant any little stumble would sent her crashing to the jagged rocks below.

There was no safety net for her, which makes her precisely the kind of daredevil we usually cheer in MMA. Still, that wasn’t always the case. Rousey’s defeats were mostly met with laughter and mocking, as was her public admission that her first loss was so difficult, the thought of suicide flashed through her mind, however briefly.

Rousey’s legacy has been discussed and debated ad infinitum, with most acknowledging her important role in lifting women’s MMA along with her. Her competitive spirit, however, has been another story.

Ever since she lost the first time in a crushing knockout to Holly Holm, Rousey has been viewed in a different prism. She was not only memed for the loss but also ridiculed for her reaction to it, which was something close to a disappearing act.

This kind of ongoing backlash suggests that she owes something more than what she offered in the cage, which is entirely wrong.

She didn’t owe anyone an explanation after losing to Holm or Amanda Nunes, and she doesn’t even owe us a goodbye if she’s done. She’s given enough.

It’s easy to forget that, behind the attitude, there’s a real person in there that has been through some stuff.

Rousey nearly died at birth. She could hardly speak for the first six years of her life. Her father committed suicide when she was eight years old. She suffered through an eating disorder and struggled with substance abuse. She was homeless for a time.

She’s been been through some stuff. Heavy and deep.

Losing a fight or two doesn’t seem as though it should be nearly as weighty as all the troubles that came before, but her reaction only serves to show how much she truly and deeply cared about winning and about being the best.

Failing seemed to devastate her in a way it’s hard to imagine. She went from one of the most quoted athletes on the planet to nearly invisible. She spoke of being betrayed by fans and media in a way that made it seem as if the insecurities that often drive championship work ethics had never really gone away.

And perhaps they may have remained behind, hidden in the dark spaces of her mind during good times only to leak out when everything went so terribly, publicly wrong.

The reaction against her also suggests her feelings are somehow invalid.

Rousey’s experience is about as singular as it gets. Her life arc has been filed with episodes that most ordinary people couldn’t begin to understand, from running away from home for two years to becoming the most famous female combat sports athlete the world has ever seen.

The money she has earned—and make no mistake, she’s earned every cent of it—might salve some wounds, but a bank balance can never make a person whole.

There’s a reason Rousey has talked about running off to some remote location and never being seen again, and it’s that she’s tired of living a life of public judgment. Of course, the debates about her legacy and history will go on but without her as a willing participant.

She came, she saw, she conquered and then she watched her empire crumble before her eyes. That’s no easy story to swallow for a main character, yet there are those who’ve publicly defined her as a coward for declining to see if she can write a better ending.

In time, those detractors will look back on her with more tempered thoughts. In time, her raw feelings will be smoothed. Given all she has overcome in life, she’s already proven the naysayers wrong anyway. And silently slipping away without hearing the condemnation? That’s one last slip of the middle finger on her way out the back door, which is frankly, more than she owed anybody.

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For Valentina Shevchenko, UFC Bantamweight Championship Seems Inevitable

Little by little, Valentina Shevchenko’s MMA game peels away new layers, exposing a mastery far beyond what reveals itself in any cursory viewing. She can fight in and out, fast and slow. She can box and wrestle. She’s sharp and tactical.
If there is a…

If there is any issue for Shevchenko, it’s her size. She is a natural flyweight, but that’s a division the UFC does not have for women, so she fights on and manages to excel one class above where she should be.

She is so good, in fact, that her ultimate bantamweight destination is to be the division’s champion. After Shevchenko beat Julianna Pena on Saturday at UFC on Fox, the only one standing between her and destiny is champion Amanda Nunes.

Nunes, the same fighter who beat her once before, but who she dominated in the third round of their bout after the Brazilian ran out of gas. The next time they meet, it will be for five rounds. More time for Shevchenko to implement her fight IQ, her complete game, her stamina.

Shevchenko will almost certainly get the opportunity to face Nunes again after submitting Pena with a second-round armbar victory in Denver. She will almost certainly win.

The Question: With Pena-Shevchenko, Is UFC Finally Ready to Move On from Rousey?

For all the soul-searching UFC president Dana White had to do before instituting a women’s bantamweight class, the division has performed quite admirably in its nearly four years of existence. Women’s 135-pounders have headlined eight event…

The truth of the matter, however, is that most of that flourishing has largely been on the strength of Ronda Rousey, who main evented six of those shows and whose massive name helped make bigger stars of those who defeated her.

On Saturday night, the UFC (and FOX) experiment for the first time with a show top-lined by two bantamweights with no real connection to Rousey: Valentina Shevchenko and Julianna Pena.

The fighters came to prominence in quite different ways. Shevchenko’s rise was a slow burn, including an extensive and wildly successful kickboxing career that ran concurrent to her MMA career until she was signed by the UFC.

Pena, meanwhile, took advantage of an invitation to The Ultimate Fighter after just six pro fights and has won four straight since then to vault near the top of the division.

While the bout certainly has stakes for the two combatants, it’s also meaningful for the division. Joining me to discuss it is MMA Lead Writer Chad Dundas.

Mike Chiappetta: To me, this fight does give off the feeling that the UFC is trying to push forward into a (possibly) post-Rousey world.

And I do think that’s to the UFC’s credit. It would have been easy to look at this card and put Donald Cerrone and Jorge Masvidal on the big poster and call it a day. The UFC has spent much more time and money pushing Cerrone than either Shevchenko or Pena. He is without question a bigger star than either of them.

Yet it didn’t do that. And the reason is because there is something to be gained for the UFC regardless of the outcome. The new-look UFC is about identifying and creating stars. This is a setup for that. Shevchenko may not seem the part given her soft-spoken demeanor, but the Kyrgyzstan-born fighter is potentially a key cog for UFC as it attempts to enter the Russian market.

Meanwhile, Pena is a feisty American who has shown a certain fearlessness in lashing out at Rousey and the UFC. That’s a trait that the promotion has to begrudgingly understand may translate into attention when she’s focused on a more positive goal like chasing the belt or, you know, selling tickets.

By and large, this is a positive for both the weight class and for the UFC. If Shevchenko and Pena can go out on Saturday and deliver a strong effort, they won’t necessarily ensure the continued support of the division, but it will guarantee that the promotion has to consider plans for future growth.

Am I being too optimistic here, Chad? Is this nothing more than the UFC filling up a main event slot with whatever was available, or are there real possibilities in the offing?

Chad Dundas: I think there’s certainly some cause for (cautious) optimism here, Mike. As you noted, Shevchenko vs. Pena headlining one of the UFC’s highest-profile events during the first quarter of 2017 is a great sign that the division is ready to move out of Rousey‘s shadow.

Even during the 13 months she spent away after her knockout loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193, all the most visible storylines at 135 pounds during 2016 still revolved around the former champion. Now that her defeat by Amanda Nunes at UFC 205 has made Rousey‘s absence feel more permanent, it’s great to see matchmakers rolling the dice to try to give Shevchenko and Pena a little shine.

It may even be one of our first real clues about how new owners at WME-IMG might use the UFC’s potent public relations machine. It’s possible that future vision might involve leaning a bit less on pay-per-view and a bit more on using the exposure of the UFC’s network TV deal to try to introduce new stars to the widest possible viewing audience.

It’s also a good sign that this bout will assumedly be to determine the next challenger for Nunes‘ title. That way, you’re effectively promoting Shevchenko, Pena and that champion all at once.

However, the elephant in the room and the possible downside here is pretty obvious: Will anybody tune in to watch this event?

It’s great that the UFC is giving these women the chance to catch on with the public, but to date the public has largely only been interested in Rousey. If this event fails to score a decent TV rating and the resulting bout with Nunes doesn‘t move the PPV needle, it’s possible women’s MMA is closer to a star-power crisis than we’re willing to admit.

You see what I did there, Mike? I subtly shifted this conversation away from your sunny, coastal optimism to my own dreary, Pacific Northwest pessimism. So I’ll flip the question on you. Now, am I being too negative? Or will a women’s bantamweight division without Ronda Rousey find itself in deep water sooner rather than later?

MC: The female bantamweights—and the female UFC divisions in general—aren’t facing any problem that the rest of the UFC roster doesn’t have.

Take Conor McGregor away from the lightweights (and featherweights), and who exactly is your big-money drawing card? Remove Nick and Nate Diaz from the talent pool, and who is replacing their lightning-bolt ability?

Does women’s MMA have a star-power crisis in its future? Or does MMA have a star-power crisis in its future?

The long and short of it is that no one knows. Rousey burst on the scene nearly fully formed. McGregor came in with a wave of energy and a country afire with pride. There isn’t anyone in particular we can point to who is generating such momentum, but the fact is that we may not be able to recognize it until we’re already in the midst of it.

The other possibility is that maybe we are set for a down cycle. White is fond of noting that people offered the same kinds of gloomy outlooks when Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture were on the way out, and the UFC survived just fine.

That may be true, but as anyone who plays the stock market has heard a million times, “past performance is not indicative of future results.”

Past stars don’t guarantee future ones.

Which brings us back to Saturday night. What I like about this matchup is that the UFC is proactively marketing a division it’s had success with, offering an opportunity when it could have easily gone in different directions.

Cerrone, for instance, as great as he is, has probably reached his ceiling. He’s fun to watch, he’s reliable, he’ll say some stuff that will cause some controversy, but he’s never quite broken through to that next level of stars. On a card, he’s a great supporting talent, but even after 23 UFC fights, he hasn’t made it as a leading man.

Pena and Shevchenko at least offer fresh faces and may draw a different demographic. It’s no secret that the UFC will begin shopping its television deal at the end of the year; featuring women fighters on the card is a great way to show a diversity of both product and audience.

In the end though, we tend to care most about the quality of the fights. Will we leave entertained or not? Will we leave feeling that we saw a potential champion emerge? That matters, too.

Chad, will it be enough for the UFC to have that kind of outcome? Does it need to pop a monster rating on an otherwise light night of sports programming to consider this a home run, or should the UFC consider it a win if it can come out with a clear challenger for Nunes and make everyone forget about Rousey?

CD: I think either one will work just fine.

It would be nice to score a monster number during the dead week between the NFL’s conference championship games and the Super Bowl. It would also be nice to roll out of this feeling like Shevchenko/Pena vs. Nunes will be a surefire Fight of the Year contender.

But I’m not sure I’m expecting either, and I also think that’s OK. It’s enough to me that the UFC is putting two women’s bantamweights not named Ronda Rousey in this spot. I find that to be a comforting sign for the future.

I also think this is one of those perfect matchmaking situations where it doesn‘t really matter who wins.

You make a good point that Shevchenko could potentially be important to the UFC’s desire to push into the Russian market, but I would’ve thought it was Pena the organization had its eye on here.

Since winning Season 18 of TUF in 2013 she’s flashed what one might describe as a Rousey-style attitude toward the competition and her bosses. She’s also gone 4-0, including wins over recognizable bantamweights like Jessica Eye and Cat Zingano.

So far, she’s only been slowed by injury and trouble of her own making outside the cage. She’s still just 27 years old, so if she can stay healthy and keep from disqualifying herself from competition, it seems likely she’ll fashion herself into a name to know in this division.

Nobody’s going to make observers forget about Rousey, though. Despite the outpouring of negative feelings about her after her two losses, Shevchenko and Pena wouldn’t be fighting in a main event on Fox if not for her.

I think her memory will continue to loom large, even as the company she left behind endeavors to find its way forward without her.

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