UFC 187 on Saturday was a huge event in a variety of ways. Objectively looking over the card, the night just plain couldn’t have gotten much better with two title fights, title eliminators in the heavyweight and lightweight divisions and, functionally, a jump ball for the next crack at the flyweight belt.
It’s an event that, theoretically, should sell itself on quality of competition alone.
But that wasn’t the case, of course.
UFC 187 was the culmination of several ongoing storylines that all came to a head on fight night.
Chris Weidman delivered sweet, sweet comeuppance to controversial former TRT user Vitor Belfort. Andrei Arlovski continued one of the greatest career comebacks in MMA history by beating friend and former training partner, Travis Browne.
Above all else, though, Daniel Cormier wrote a new chapter in his rivalry with Jon Jones, while kicking off a filler arc with his new mortal enemy, Ryan Bader. That, right there, is the long overdue approach the UFC has needed to take with its biggest fights.
Many words have been said about the UFC’s promotion-first approach, when the organization tries to draw customers on its own name, rather than those of its individual fighters. It’s a logical-yet-not strategy for a company that went through bitter divorces with the crossover stars—like Tito Ortiz, Ken Shamrock and Randy Couture—who laid the sport’s foundation.
Still, it also is one that has cost the UFC recently, as old favorites like B.J. Penn and Georges St-Pierre have exited the competition end of the sport and taken their fans with them.
The UFC’s faux “pure sport” approach, billing itself as the Super Bowl of MMA, gave the UFC a degree of legitimacy among hardcore fans, but it came at the expense of building a full combat sports package.
While legendary rivalries like Ortiz vs. Shamrock and Couture vs. Chuck Liddell built things up for the eventual mainstream push, the UFC was long content in letting the majority of events be 11 Fighter A vs. Fighter B affairs, devoid of the instant accessibility of a battle between former friends or a revenge story for an injured teammate.
Yes, there were the occasional departures from the norm. Rashad Evans and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson had a tense competition on The Ultimate Fighter season 10. Chael Sonnen was one of the biggest names in MMA for a solid three years, entirely based off his gift of gab.
For a long time, those were outliers, but UFC 187 may very well go down as the point where bitter grudge matches become the standard for UFC main events.
As stated, Cormier hedged his bets at UFC 187, calling out Jones immediately after defeating Anthony “Rumble” Johnson and getting into a heated back-and-forth with Bader at the post-fight presser.
Cormier is quickly becoming one of the hottest names in MMA, and he isn’t close to being the only champion to heat things up with his prospective opponents lately, either.
Jose Aldo vs. Conor McGregor at UFC 189 in July is at the center of an unprecedented media push defined by barbs, line-stepping and smack talk. UFC 190’s Ronda Rousey vs. Bethe Correia in August has a built-in storyline from Correia defeating two of the “Four Horsewomen.” Even Demetrious Johnson and John Dodson are starting to get into it.
Is this just a perfect storm of grumpiness with the UFC’s current crop of champions? Perhaps.
Either way, beef is being served with essentially every pay-per-view these days…and it’s delicious.
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