UFC on FOX 5 is beginning to look very much like one of the strongest fight cards of the 2012 calendar year.
Set for December 8, the event will feature a lightweight title showdown between champion Ben Henderson and challenger Nate Diaz, supplemented by intriguing bouts between Mauricio Rua and Alexander Gustafsson and Rory MacDonald and B.J. Penn.
Also on the card is a heavyweight showdown between power punchers Brendan Schaub and Lavar Johnson.
Both sluggers have found success in the UFC, but each one approaches a career crossroads as the fight nears. Losses are always hard to swallow in the UFC, but at UFC on FOX 5, both Schaub and Johnson will be truly in need of a victory.
Who needs a win more? Let’s take a look.
The case for Schaub
After suffering a knockout loss to Roy Nelson in his UFC debut, Schaub reeled off an impressive four-fight win streak that put him within a stone’s throw of a title shot.
At that point, it appeared that the sky was the limit for the Hybrid. Unfortunately, things suddenly went awry.
Schaub suffered a startling first-round knockout loss to light-fisted Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in August 2011 then replicated his performance in April 2012, losing in similar fashion to Ben Rothwell.
At 29 years of age, Schaub has just 11 professional bouts under his belt, so he can be forgiven for dropping a contest here or there or even two back-to-back. But what is troubling is the manner in which Schaub has lost—three times in the UFC, three first-round knockouts.
Schaub now wears the “no chin” label quite gaudily, and that trait is something that few heavyweights are able to overcome. And unfortunately for Schaub, a person’s ability to absorb a strike to the head isn’t something that improves with experience; it is rather quite the opposite.
So quite simply, Schaub cannot afford a loss at UFC on FOX 5. First, because that would be three in a row and second, because losing to Johnson is synonymous with suffering a brutal knockout, and one more of those might signify his release from the UFC, if not the end of his career.
The case for Johnson
Johnson debuted in the UFC by doing the seemingly impossible—he actually knocked out Joey Beltran. Johnson’s display of awe-inspiring raw power in that match earned him a fight with technical striking sensation Pat Barry, who “Big” dismissed with a savage beating that led to a first round TKO.
In his next bout, Johnson faced submission specialist Stefan Struve, who promptly took the fight to the canvass and made Johnson tap. The result not only halted the considerable momentum that Johnson had amassed during his UFC tenure, it also reminded fans of what he was—a ridiculous, powerful but one-dimensional mixed martial artist.
Now, Johnson probably won’t be cut from the UFC if he loses to Schaub, but it would put him in the hot seat. Though 2-1 in the UFC, Johnson is 2-3 over his past five bouts. Throw in that he is 35 years old and we’ve most certainly approached a pivotal career moment.
If Johnson is able to brutalize Schaub the way that he does all his victims, some of the luster will return to his name, and he may be able to land some big fights for awhile to come. But, if he loses, he becomes a mid-thirties, bottom-of-the-heap fighter with a glaring weakness that is exposed too often for people to overlook.
These are two possible outcomes leading Johnson down two very different paths.
The verdict
I’ll go with Schaub. The stakes are high for both fighters, but a loss for Schaub almost certainly means being knocked out again, and that just isn’t something he can weather as a pro fighter.
A loss puts Schaub’s head on the UFC chopping block, and it likely signifies the death of anyone’s belief that he can take enough damage to ever be a successful heavyweight. UFC on FOX 5 marks a night when the Hybrid absolutely cannot lose.
While a loss would be devastating for Johnson, he has a low-level gatekeeper position to fall back on. He also has brutal knockout power—something fans just love—which could keep him in the spotlight, even if he drops the bout to Schaub.
Schaub has the much smaller safety net of the two, and if Johnson drops him with an angry haymaker, it’s unlikely that it will be able to catch his plummeting career.
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