Demetrious Johnson takes another one for the team Saturday night.
Since becoming the UFC’s inaugural flyweight champion two years ago, Johnson has been nothing short of a workhorse for the world’s largest MMA company. His main event bout against Chris Cariaso at UFC 178 this weekend will mark his fifth defense of the 125-pound title and his third fight in roughly nine months.
For obvious reasons, it also shapes up as something of a no-win situation for the 28-year-old AMC Pankration fighter.
This meeting with Cariaso felt so random as to be plucked from a hat when the fight company announced it in July. Word of it came less than a week after expected challenger John Dodson revealed he needed knee surgery and just a few days before Ian McCall and John Lineker had the chance to emerge as more fitting replacements.
The booking felt strangely rushed, as first Johnson-Cariaso was meant to make up one half of a championship twin bill with T.J. Dillashaw’s bantamweight rematch against Renan Barao at UFC 177. But when Jon Jones’ injured leg forced him to drop out of his hotly anticipated matchup with Daniel Cormier, UFC 178 needed a headliner, and Johnson-Cariaso was the only thing available that fit the bill.
As it stands, the bout isn’t expected to do much to pop the event’s pay-per-view buyrate, and during the lead-up, UFC 178’s stacked supporting cast has summarily overshadowed it. Though it flies in the face of conventional thinking about how PPV fight cards are sold, it’s believed most of the people who shell out for this broadcast will do so to see the likes of Donald Cerrone, Eddie Alvarez and Conor McGregor.
Hence, the lose-lose for Johnson.
If UFC 178 underperforms at the box office, it will no doubt be at least partially blamed on him. We’ll say the event lost a lot of its steam when Jones-Cormier was postponed. We’ll say this card was forced to move forward without a “true” main event. We’ll use it as yet more evidence that flyweights don’t draw.
That was certainly the case after June’s UFC 174, when Johnson trounced Ali Bagautinov as fans reportedly streamed out of Rogers Arena in Vancouver, Canada. That PPV was briefly rumored to have garnered fewer than 100,000 buys, though more current estimates put it at around 115,000. Either number makes it the worst selling UFC pay-per-view since the advent of The Ultimate Fighter, and in its wake, the public laid the blame squarely on the 125-pound division.
Meanwhile, if UFC 178 does well, the success will no doubt be credited to its stellar undercard. It will be used as validation of McGregor’s star power. It’ll be seen as a feel-good moment for Alvarez, who waited so long just to get into the Octagon and share the PPV wealth. It will prove that Cerrone’s anywhere, any time attitude has won him scores of hardcore fans.
Those points will all be perfectly valid but will still feel like a bummer for Johnson.
All he’s done is win, after all, since the UFC created the flyweight class back in the spring of 2012. He’s headlined three of the organization’s broadcasts on the Fox Network dating back to last January and now two of its PPVs during the last fourth months—all with a shocking lack of fanfare for such a dominant champion.
Much like his overall positioning as the de facto headliner of this event, Cariaso himself doesn’t provide much upside for Johnson. The best-case scenario here is that the champ cruises past the seven-to-one underdog—just as he’s done to all his flyweight opponents. Still, that would no doubt only prompt more cries that Cariaso didn’t deserve to be there in the first place.
Any other outcome would only further undermine Johnson’s tenuous position in the overall UFC landscape. If he struggles against Cariaso, people will just continue to question his spot at No. 4 on the UFC’s official pound-for-pound rankings and lob more attacks at his fitness as a marquee player.
Heaven forbid Johnson should somehow lose, necessitating a rematch of a fight very few people wanted to see the first time. Heaven forbid he gets injured or a judge fumbles the decision or some other unforeseen calamity renders the outcome somehow in doubt.
Even if things go perfectly, the ceiling here doesn’t seem particularly high for Johnson. It’s difficult to imagine a scenario where he doesn’t take most of the blame and receive little of the credit.
That’s a shame for a guy whose only crimes seem to be being 125 pounds, being a dominant champion and being a consummate team player.
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