Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu master Cesar Gracie must be secretly grateful that his ward Nick Diaz would rather watch beauty pageants than join one. Otherwise, it would spell a second straight loss in a UFC main event for his MMA team in six weeks, after the other Jake (Ellenberger) TKO’d his Jake (Shields) last night in UFC Fight Night 25.
Unless you’re in the soap opera business, you know that sympathy doesn’t win you new clients. And a string of losses—even just two in a row—can discourage discerning (and touchy) prospective customers and sponsors from patronizing whatever it is you’re running.
After consoling Shields over his, and their, second straight loss, this time in the hands (and knees) of Ellenberger, the senior Gracie must have thanked Diaz for a successfully-executed stunt. He stood up Dana White and Georges St-Pierre, thereby demoting himself to a fight versus lighter and lesser competition in B.J. Penn.
After all, what most fans and experts expected was an exciting title fight between St-Pierre and Diaz, not a post-fight announcement of a “new UFC welterweight champion” come UFC 137.
A major UFC win is what Team Cesar Gracie needs ASAP, and that is made more probable now for Diaz against Penn. Not bad that it’s still a co-main event.
Good for Gracie that White insisted that Diaz parade in a bikini in every UFC 137 press conference, which made the latter avoid the first two “beauty pageants” like the plague. (Who knows the real story?)
Alright, now time for some “MMA math.”
Ellenberger stopped Shields, which St-Pierre failed to do. Therefore, Ellenberger is better than…oh take a walk!
Just talking to myself.
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