There’s something that happens like clockwork right around this time, right when Demetrious Johnson is preparing to defend his UFC championship.
It is Tuesday, which means the hemming and hawing has increased about Johnson, his stature and his lack of ability to draw a big pay-per-view buyrate for the UFC.
It always happens, and it will probably never go away.
It is a strange thing, our hand-wringing about how much money Johnson is able to pull for the UFC. I don’t quite understand why the amount of money someone is able to rake in for a private company has any effect on our potential enjoyment of the fight, just as I don’t understand why being a draw somehow correlates with actual talent.
If Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta participated in a sort of revenue-sharing establishment, where every fan who purchases a pay-per-view event then received a share of the profits, then I can totally see the need to fret about someone who doesn’t resonate with the masses because it would be affecting our bottom line.
But the truth is that it does not affect our wallets, not you and me, anyway. Johnson being the lowest-drawing champion among those who have headlined pay-per-view events literally has no effect on your enjoyment of the fight, or at least it should not. If you’re a fight fan, you’ll enjoy a good fight no matter how much money gets tossed into the UFC’s coffers at the end of the night.
And I’m not saying, “Well, you’re not a real fight fan,” because I don’t know anything about you. You might be the world’s biggest fight fan!
But I am saying that it’s a bit silly that some of us allow the potential financials—or lack thereof—of an event to color our perceptions of the fight itself. If we find ourselves more concerned with the finances of a thing rather than the sporting aspect of it, well, perhaps we are bigger business fans than we thought we were.
Here is the truth: Johnson does things in the Octagon that no man or woman on Earth can do. And the amount of people who do or do not tune in to see him do those things that nobody else can do have absolutely no bearing on whether or not he will continue to do those things. He’ll keep right on being one of the most well-rounded fighters in the sport regardless.
There’s another weird aspect that always springs up when Johnson is scheduled for a title defense: the notion that watching men who weigh 125 pounds is somehow less fulfilling than watching larger fighters do the same.
This is a false assumption. It is laughable. And did I mention that it’s a little bit weird? Because it is a little bit weird.
A bigger fighter does not equal a fighter who is more manly, or more skilled, or whatever. We’ve all seen heavyweight bouts with two fatties bent at the waist, gasping for every breath, and you’re going to sit there and tell me that you are more entertained by that than what Johnson does in the Octagon?
Please.
This idea needs to be put to bed. If you have a problem with watching smaller men—who are also highly skilled, incredible athletes doing amazing things at breakneck speeds—fighting in the Octagon, then, to bust out an old favorite phrase of mine, it sounds like a personal issue. Perhaps you have a hang-up, or you mistakenly believe that a smaller man is less of a man.
Me? I’ll just enjoy the things Johnson is able to do on Saturday night when he faces John Dodson, without any personal hang-ups about the size of the man or how much money he can draw or how interested he is when he’s not plying his trade in the Octagon getting in the way. I suggest you do the same because you’re missing out on a great fighter and great champion.
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