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UFC 170 Predictions: How Each Main Card Fight Will End

UFC 170 hits pay-per-view on Saturday night with a five-fight main card. Ronda Rousey defends her title against fellow Olympian Sara McMann while Daniel Cormier takes on his newfound nemesis Pat Cummins in the co-main event.
The rest of the main card i…

The rest of the main card is rounded out with a series of welterweight bouts, including a competitive scrap between Rory MacDonald and Demian Maia.

Here are some predictions on how these fights, and the rest, will end.

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Seth vs. Jared: UFC 170 Edition

(And the Lord sayeth, “You can not defeat me, Lucifer, for I am willing to die in here.”)

Tonight’s UFC 170 card poses a lot of intriguing questions: Is Ronda Rousey‘s striking *really* “the best in the game?” Can a last second injury in your co-main event be used as a legal justification for homicide? What is a Yosdenis Cedeno, exactly?

Here to “intelligently” “debate” at least one of those questions are CagePotato staff writers Jared Jones and Seth Falvo, so join them after the jump to get the inside scoop on all things UFC 170-related.

So what happens if Sara McMann actually wins on Saturday night?

JJ: Simple: Dana White dissolves the women’s bantamweight division, cancels TUF 20, and bans any MMA outlet that dares question his decision. MWAHAHAHAHA!!

Seriously though, there is no scenario in which a Rousey loss doesn’t equal an immediate rematch. I don’t care if McMann takes Rousey down in the first 5 seconds, annihilates her with ground-n-pound and then armbars her, we are getting an immediate rematch. This whole “WMMA in the UFC” thing all hinges on Rousey being the champ, right? Because I’m pretty sure that Dana White has been completely transparent about that fact since Day 1.

(And the Lord sayeth, “You can not defeat me, Lucifer, for I am willing to die in here.”)

So what happens if Sara McMann actually wins on Saturday night?

JJ: Simple: Dana White dissolves the women’s bantamweight division, cancels TUF 20, and bans any MMA outlet that dares question his decision. MWAHAHAHAHA!!

SF: If McMann wins, we’re getting three things: A rematch, an extremely exaggerated (if not completely fabricated) story about the personal demons that Ronda Rousey was fighting before UFC 170, and we’re all getting blamed for them in some way, shape or form. The rematch will serve as the co-main event of UFC 173: Weidman vs. Belfort, which will get moved to Brazil for some reason. Hey, it’ll be a strange UFC if McMann wins, I says.

Be honest: As Random as Cormier vs. Cummins is, isn’t it still the best we could ask for on such short notice?

SF: You know what, I’m going to take the extremely unpopular stance and say that yes, it is. On paper, it’s a squash match between the number one contender and some random guy from Twitter, yes, but aren’t those fights usually fun? Of course they are. Besides, no matter who wins this fight, the UFC can still continue their whole “XX is the future of the division!” campaign, right? That’s a lot more than we would have been able to say if Cormier vs. Sonnen was booked…

JJ: I’ll give you that Cormier vs. Cummins is a better fight than Cormier vs. Sonnen, but the best we could ask for? Nah, son.

Call me crazy, but I stand firmly in the Chael Sonnen, “Any unbooked LHW who didn’t jump at this opportunity is a coward” camp. The only thing any UFC fighter had to lose by accepting a short notice bout with Cormier was a few brain cells, and if they’re afraid of that, then brother, they’re in the wrong business (but I DO SO RESPECT THESE BRAVE WARRIOR FIGHTERS YOU GUYZ!!).

While I loved the idea of giving Cummins a shot at his “Rocky” moment when the fight was first announced – the unpredictability of MMA, after all, is one of the most intriguing aspects of the sport – I also fell back on the idea that there were plenty of unbooked, proven UFC fighters who had a lot more to offer Cormier than a story about that time they made him cry in training camp. In short, I agreed with Ben Askren’s take on the situation and felt weird inside because of it.

Upon looking over the UFC’s current list of light heavyweight fighters, however, I found that nearly everyone in the division either has a fight booked already, are coming off a loss (or multiple losses), are injured or retired, or just signed with the promotion. In fact, there is literally one guy who doesn’t fit into any of the above categories: Rafael Cavalcante. The former Strikeforce champion just steamrolled Igor Pokrajac at Fight Night 32, isn’t injured, and would make for a much more compelling reason to drop $50 on a PPV than some fabricated grudge match between an Olympian and a barista.

I give all the respect in the world to Cummins for accepting the fight, but have you even *seen* any of his fights? Dude is going to be ground into dog food inside of 3 minutes.

You have $20, and you need some horrific gambling advice. Go!

JJ: As one of our readers pointed out in the Gambling Enabler, a ten dollar bet on a McMann – Cummins – Maia parlay nets you over $1000 ($1,639 to be exact). I’ll double down on that bet and make a cool…uh…$4000.

SF: Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I prefer my terrible gambling advice to come from a real hack journalist, and not just some random guy from the comments section. Now then, if you’re looking for some horrific advice, then I’d suggest a Rousey/Cormier parlay. You’ll start sweating bullets if either fight makes it past the first minute, and your twenty dollars will only return a whopping $5.71 in profit from BetUS.com. Talk about not being worth the (almost non-existent) risk.

Now, if your idea of horrific gambling advice involved asking me for genuine advice as a way to mock me, then know that I decided to parlay my grad school alma mater UL-Lafayette’s men’s basketball team covering the spread against Troy (which they did) with Rory MacDonald defeating Demian Maia. I will use my winnings to put a picture of me holding my thumbs up on the trunks of a Hip Show competitor, “Ravishing” Rick Rude style.

Take your best guess as to what the PPV numbers for UFC 170 will look like.

JJ: Without launching into the same discussion about oversaturation, quantity over quality and “garbage-asses” that we’ve all had a thousand times, I will say that UFC 170 is a “tough sell” to both casual and hardcore MMA fans. While the UFC of days past would have taken the best matchups from Fight Night 36 (mainly, Machida vs. Mousasi) and UFC 170 and combined them into one stacked card actually worthy of my purchase, we are living in the era of “World Fucking Domination,” which this weekend will equate to less than 300,000 PPV buys. Ronda Rousey may be the quote unquote “ biggest star the UFC has ever had,” but UFC 170 will offer evidence to the contrary.

Seriously though, how great would it be if UFC 170 had Lyoto Machida, Gegard Mousasi, and Jacare Souza to support it? Maybe then the UFC wouldn’t have to shop for fighters at the Starbucks drive-thru to justify charging us $50 for a garbage-ass (sorry, I had to) pay-per-view. One can only dream…(*gazes out window and tosses back whiskey*)

SF: So, remember when “I predict a card with a title fight and three Olympians will draw less than 500k buys” would have actually sounded stupid? And not in a “Well no shit, dumbass” sort of way, but in a “You must be high out of your damn mind” way? Oh man, those were the days when…hang on… (*swings open front door and yells at hoodlums skateboarding on MY sidewalk*)

If only to keep this column from being us agreeing with each other while occasionally hi-fiving, I’ll say that this card draws more than 300k buys. But not more than 350k buys, because what sort of contrarian asshole do you think I am?

Demian Maia and Rory MacDonald are both coming off “disappointing” performances against Jake Shields and Robbie Lawler, respectively. Who gets back in the win column on Saturday?

SF: Maia had this locked up the second I bet money on MacDonald, because I am not allowed to have nice things.

JJ: Although Maia has looked outstanding at welterweight, save his most recent fight with Shields, I gotta go with the “future of the welterweight division” in this one. We (the “MMA media”) have been riding MacDonald’s jock ever since he entered the UFC, and the pressure on “Ares” to finally achieve his potential is more intense than ever. Against a high-profile fighter and former middleweight title challenger like Maia, methinks MacDonald is going to show the flashes of brilliance he did against Condit and Penn and remind us all why he’s still an elite member of the division with plenty of years ahead of him. Rory might not send Maia into a full-on tailspin in the opening frame like Nate Marquardt did, but he’ll get the job done.

Make one wild prediction for the UFC 170 undercard.

JJ: All 6 fights go to decision, and all but 2 of them are completely forgotten about as soon as the judges scores are announced. I know, it’s not exactly a “wild” prediction given the past couple events, but when more people on the undercard *don’t* have a Wikipedia page than those who do, you can probably expect more of the same sloppy sparring matches we’ve been treated to in recent weeks.

SF: We’re talking about the undercard now? Take it away, Green Bastard…

My wild prediction is that someone might actually disagree with me. Someone who isn’t related to either fighter. Wild, huh?

UFC 170: Cormier vs. Cummins Round-by-Round Recap and Analysis

UFC 170 features one of the most highly anticipated squash matches in UFC history, as accomplished former heavyweight Daniel Cormier faces off with former coffee shop worker and (according to Wikipedia) Australian cricketer Patrick Cummins.
While…

While the “highly anticipated” part may sound sarcastic, Cummins has done wonderful work in terms of generating hype for this fight.

In reality, what we have here is a hastily made grudge match that, despite the comical betting line of minus-1300 versus plus-1050, is fairly interesting.

So how will things pan out between Cormier and Cummins? Will Cummins pull off one of the most shocking upsets in UFC history? Will Cormier finally look like a world-beater again?

Let’s find out!

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UFC 170: Rousey vs. McMann Analysis (feat. Roni Taylor)

MMA history will be made on Saturday night as, for the first time ever, two undefeated Olympians will clash inside the Octagon for a UFC championship.
UFC Women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey will put her title on the line against silver-me…

MMA history will be made on Saturday night as, for the first time ever, two undefeated Olympians will clash inside the Octagon for a UFC championship.

UFC Women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey will put her title on the line against silver-medal wrestler Sara McMann in the main event of UFC 170.

In 2008, Rousey became the first American woman to medal in the Olympics, winning a bronze medal at the Summer Olympics in Beijing. Since transitioning into MMA, Rousey has thoroughly dominated every competitor thrown her way with eight consecutive armbar victories.

But she’s never fought anyone like McMann. In 2004, McMann became the first American woman to win a silver medal in freestyle wrestling at the Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Like Rousey, she has gone undefeated since making the move to MMA, and she’s hungry to pull off the upset.

RedHotVegas.com’s Roni Taylor is back to help me break down this card. This time, Ms. Taylor and I are going head-to-head with our predictions. Let’s see who comes out on top!

UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship: Ronda Rousey vs. Sara McMann

Ciccarelli: UFC President Dana White has been very vocal in his claims that Ronda Rousey is the “biggest PPV draw in the history of the UFC.” As popular as Ronda is, that is an absurd statement to make without the numbers to back it up.

The UFC is also claiming in pre-fight video packages that Rousey is the “first woman to medal in the Olympics for Judo.” That is not true either. She was the first American to medal but far from being the first woman overall.

Do you feel like the UFC is going way over the top in its promotion of the UFC women’s bantamweight champion?

Taylor: Let’s not forget what Dana White’s primary job is for the UFC: fight promotion. He is the P.T. Barnum of the 21st century, and while we may not agree with all that he says, he certainly is good at what he does. I, for one, happen to enjoy the hype that Dana whips into his media scrums and interviews.

I tend to only believe about 70 percent of what flies out of Dana’s mouth, so that way my head doesn’t explode when he spouts off something ridiculous. As far as the UFC promoting this upcoming fight, I am super happy that the women are getting the attention they deserve.

As a martial arts practitioner (a lowly white belt in BJJ), it brings me great pride to see female MMA fighters not only performing on the biggest stage in the world, but also getting top billing.

Ciccarelli: I wrote in the beginning of the year that McMann is Rousey‘s worst nightmare, and I’m sticking to that. As talented as Rousey is, I think she’s going to be walking right into her kryptonite here with McMann. Maybe you feel differently, though: What’s your take on the main event?

Taylor: While it is a true battle of the Olympians, I honestly don’t think this is going to be a fair fight. Wrestling and judo may both be grappling arts, but their differences outweigh their similarities. I don’t know if you noticed what happened when Miesha Tate tried to use her wrestling to take down Rousey in her last fight. It wasn’t pretty.

For the advanced MMA fan it was quite a display of judo beauty with a whole slew of throws like the harai goshi and uchi mata. I even think I saw a “Judo Chop!” (said in my best Austin Powers voice) in there somewhere. I see this fight going down very much like the Tate fight, with Ronda getting the better of the takedown battle, time and time again.

Rousey’s striking has continued to improve, and that added weapon really allows her to pick and choose her openings. I think McMann is going to get frustrated and try to rush in on Ronda. The end result will be an inside leg throw with Ronda landing on top in side control and of course….drum roll please…finishing with her trademarked armbar.

Taylor’s pick: Rousey by second-round submission (armbar)

Ciccarelli’s pick: McMann by unanimous decision

Daniel Cormier vs. Pat Cummins

Ciccarelli: In the co-main event, we have a bit of a Rocky story brewing here between another former Olympian in Daniel Cormier and UFC newcomer Pat Cummins. Cormier was originally slated to take on Rashad Evans in his debut at 205 pounds, but when Evans pulled out with an injury, the UFC called Cummins up from a coffee shop in Orange County. Literally.

Apparently, Cummins used to train with Cormier back in the day when “D.C.” was training for the Olympics. He’s been going around telling people that he used to make Cormier “cry” on the mats, and that isn’t sitting well with Cormier at all.

Cummins is 4-0 in his MMA career, all finishes thus far but do you really think he’s as good as he claims to be or will Cormier cut through him like a knife through butter?

Taylor: I only recently watched a couple of Pat Cummins’ fights, and honestly, I was underwhelmed with his wrestling. I know he has a NCAA Division I pedigree to die for, but I truly think he will be outwrestled by Daniel Cormier and most certainly outstruck by him as well.

Cormier has already battled a who’s who of top names in the MMA world, and I think Cummins will crumble under DC’s fast, aggressive pressure. This fight will be a first-round TKO domination by the former Strikeforce Grand-Prix champ.

Taylor’s pick: Cormier by first-round TKO

Ciccarelli’s pick: Cormier by second-round TKO

Rory MacDonald vs. Demian Maia

Ciccarelli: Up next, in the welterweight division, we have Tristar phenom Rory MacDonald going up against jiu-jitsu ace Demian Maia. MacDonald dropped a decision to Robbie Lawler back at UFC 167, but he’s still considered a future champion by many of the sport’s top analysts.

Maia’s run toward a welterweight title shot was temporarily halted in his last fight with Jake Shields, but a win over MacDonald could bump the Brazilian right back where he was. How do you see this one playing out?

Taylor: This is a tough one for me. I really like the poise and well-rounded game that Rory brings to the Octagon, but Demian Maia has been on a tear at welterweight. Both men are coming off of split-decision losses and will be hungry to get back in the win column.

While his striking has improved markedly over the past few years, I don’t think Demian will be able to use it well enough to stifle Rory’s outside striking capabilities. I think Rory will use his crisp kick boxing to pick apart the jiu-jitsu specialist long enough to earn a decision victory.

Sadly, this one will probably end up being a boring battle of two guys trying to not lose two in a row.

Taylor’s pick: MacDonald by unanimous decision

Ciccarelli’s pick: MacDonald by unanimous decision

Mike Pyle vs. TJ Waldburger

Ciccarelli: Speaking of welterweights, we have two more 170-pounders squaring off here who are coming off losses. Mike Pyle was riding an impressive four-fight win streak before Matt Brown made quick work of him at UFC Fight Night 26.

Pyle will be looking to get back in the win column against TJ Waldburger on the live pay-per-view portion of the card. Do you see “Quicksand” getting back on track or will Waldburger surprise us?

Taylor: I’m excited to watch my fellow Las Vegas resident, Mike Pyle, smash out another W on his record. Mike has only lost two of his last nine fights. I know he has been diligently working on his stand-up game to go along with his amazing grappling.

While TJ is no slouch in the grappling department, I give the edge to Pyle if it hits the ground. I don’t think it will make it that far, though. I see Mike Pyle pushing himself into the UFC’s top 10 welterweights with a first-round TKO.

Taylor’s pick: Pyle by first-round TKO

Ciccarelli’s pick: Pyle by first-round submission (guillotine choke)

Stephen Thompson vs. Robert Whittaker

Ciccarelli: South Carolina native Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson will be making his PPV debut against TUF: The Smashes winner, Robert Whittaker. “Wonderboy” is riding a two-fight win streak and has a lot of hype surrounding him. What’s your prediction here?

Taylor: Ever since I first heard about “Wonderboy,” I have been excited to see him live up to the accolades he was paid by a lot of the top guys in the MMA world. There is no doubt he is an elite striker, but when it comes to grappling, Matt Brown found him out real quickly back at UFC 145.

Whittaker doesn’t bring anything special as far as striking is concerned into this fight, so as long as Wonderboy has continued to hone his takedown defense, it’s going to be a rough night for Whittaker.

I’d love to see Thompson open up with some of his flashy kicking and give us all something to cheer about with a huge KO in the first round.

Taylor’s pick: Thompson by first-round TKO

Ciccarelli’s pick: Thompson by unanimous decision

Alexis Davis vs. Jessica Eye

Ciccarelli: While not technically on the PPV main card, I still wanted to talk about the other women’s matchup on the card. Alexis Davis has been on fire, long before she made her debut in the UFC. The Cesar Gracie product is riding a four-fight win streak, including submission wins over Hitomi Akano and Shayna Baszler.

Eye has been under a lot of criticism lately, but I’m not here to harp on that. She is an extremely talented fighter despite being one of the smaller women in her division. Her decision victory over former Strikeforce champion Sarah Kaufman at UFC 166 was changed to a no-contest, but a win over Davis will catapult her way up the rankings.

How do you see this fight playing out?

Taylor: This is another great women’s fight that will be a classic matchup. Eye likes to throw the jab out there and asserts herself with her striking skills, while Davis likes to bully people around in the clinch game.

Unless the fighter is a world-class striker, I tend to go with the better grappler, and in this matchup, I’m picking Davis to win by TKO in the third. I think she is going to close the distance, push Eye up against the cage and wear her down, finally getting the ref to stop the fight with some nasty ground-and-pound.

Taylor’s pick: Davis by third-round TKO

Ciccarelli’s pick: Davis by unanimous decision

For more of Roni Taylor’s MMA insight, follow her on Twitter @RoniTaylor and @RedHotVegas1.

Mitch Ciccarelli is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report and co-host of Alchemist Radio. He is also a United States Airman. Follow him on Twitter @MitchCiccarelli.

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UFC 170: Who Stands to Lose the Most

There’s more on the line in UFC 170 than just titles.
One of the most pervasive narratives in the UFC is “athleticism.” Fans and promotion both value Ronda Rousey, Rory MacDonald and Daniel Cormier for their pure athleticism; and…

There’s more on the line in UFC 170 than just titles.

One of the most pervasive narratives in the UFC is “athleticism.” Fans and promotion both value Ronda Rousey, Rory MacDonald and Daniel Cormier for their pure athleticism; and all three could damage the basis of those reputations if they lose at UFC 170.

Ronda is the “it” thing for 2014 without GSP and Anderson Silva—who are still on the edges of the action but not in it. Her fame rests on total control of the class and the license she gets to act out as a result. As the UFC refuses to let us forget, she has Olympic pedigree.

She’s the new shining star; a volatile, immensely talented brand of her own. The UFC invests so much time and energy inflating and praising her status that her first loss could be tougher than necessary. If she loses to fellow Olympian Sara McMann, she’ll be exposed as less of a champ and more of a supreme athlete controlling a thin division.

We all remember Rousey’s barb against Meisha Tate’s high school wrestling. That both confirmed Rousey’s own supremacy and undermined it. Ronda glorifies her own advanced success while admitting its relationship to her advanced training.

Rousey is the queen of a division that hasn’t established itself at the same rate as its male counterpart. While thousands of UFC fighting men came up through the professional ranks over the last 20 years, the women’s division is only now getting the attention it deserves; and the resulting training necessities.

If Rousey loses, she destroys the narrative the UFC has built around her. She loses her right to continue her persona with impunity and she loses her status as a lone elite among lesser athletes.

Similar to Rousey is Rory MacDonald. MacDonald has lots to prove after being hailed the next big thing in mixed martial arts—the inheritor to mentor Georges St-Pierre’s athleticism and ambassadorship.

After MacDonald’s uncharacteristically lackluster loss to Robbie Lawler, the hype died as Lawler got the shot for the vacant welterweight title against Johny Hendricks. If the Canadian loses now, he could deal a deathblow to the credibility he partially damaged losing to Lawler. He needs a win now to reestablish himself as the potential great we thought he was, which is no easy task against Demian Maia’s jiu-jitsu.

Daniel Cormier faces a challenge of not only credibility, but character. Patrick Cummins’ bean-spilling about Cormier’s in-gym tears created an ugly hatred between the two. Cormier’s inaugural light heavyweight match, originally set against now-injured Rashad Evans, took a nosedive.

Plenty of press built up Daniel Cormier as an especially athletic figure in a non-athletic weight class. As the only other heavyweight with the same kind of sportsmanship, he denied a chance to test his mettle. He protected champion Cain Velasquez, refusing to fight his friend and leaving doubts about his ability. If Cormier loses, we can begin to believe the murmurs of him being a fight dodger or, at the very least, a lesser fighter than we’d hoped he was going to be.

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UFC 170: Why Cormier vs. Cummins Could Be the Worst Thing for MMA

Imagine this unlikely scenario—a week before the Super Bowl the entire roster of the Seattle Seahawks comes down with Legionnaires’ disease. The NFC champions, without a doubt, will be medically unable to perform. In short, it’s a …

What would NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell do? Would he ask the San Francisco 49ers to step into the breach, replacing their archrivals in the most important game of the season?

Would he delay the game several months, waiting for the Seahawks to regain their bearings?

Or, in a brilliant fit of inspiration, would he ask the Seahawks franchise to bring in a random collection of Arena League players, misfits and Vince Young to take it to the AFC champion Denver Broncos?

What if, in a series of movie montage brilliance, the guys off the street gave the professionals, led by Peyton Manning, a run for their money? What if they won?

It would be the biggest sports story ever. Rocky, Rudy and Buster Douglas would all immediately take a backseat to this game, the biggest upset in the history of modern athletics. But would it be good for business?

Maybe at first, caught up in the feel-good moment. But what then? Eventually an insidious and nagging doubt would set in. Why bother watching the regular season, some fans might ask? After all, if literally anyone can win, what makes even the best teams and players exceptional?

Professional athletics works because we buy into the notion that the athletes are special, a different breed than you or I. An upset of the kind I just described would throw all of that into doubt. In time, the feel-good moment of the year would have an immeasurable effect on the entire sport—most of it negative.

It’s a scenario that can almost immediately be dismissed. It’s unthinkable. A guy off the street, even a very good college player who didn’t make it in the league, couldn’t possibly come in and beat the best in the world. Everything we know about sports tells us that loudly and very clearly.

Only, no one remembered to tell UFC President Dana White. When “Suga” Rashad Evans went down with a knee injury just six days before his fight, White wasn’t able to postpone the fight or find a suitable last-minute replacement to take on the very tough Daniel Cormier, ranked fourth at heavyweight.

After all, no competent and sane UFC heavyweight or light heavyweight would want to take on Cormier with less than a month’s notice. He’s one of the most skilled fighters in the world, combining disciplined and multi-faceted striking with the kind of wrestling that twice put him on the U.S. Olympic team.

That’s not a package you want to open on Christmas morning without a lot of time to think about it and get ready. So there were no reasonable UFC takers.

That’s when the calls went out. Eventually one found its way to a coffee shop in Dana Point, California. It was there that Dana White found Pat Cummins, Cormier’s next opponent. Cummins, mind you, wasn’t sitting down to enjoy a hot beverage. He was serving them.

A fighter on the cusp of the pound-for-pound rankings, a fighter who is not competing for the heavyweight title simply because his teammate owns it, a fighter who has beaten Josh Barnett, Frank Mir and Roy Nelson in recent memory is fighting a coffee shop barista.

Yes, Cummins was a good amateur. Yes, he has impressed training partners as he’s tried to make his way in the sport. Yes, he has a bit of fighting experience. He’s 4-0, his wins stockpiled on the backs of opponents with a combined career record of 10-20-1.

No, he doesn’t have a chance. Or shouldn’t.

BestFightOdds.com shows Cormier as an overwhelming favorite. At -1300, it’s thought he is an almost certain lock.

It’s a word that nags.

Almost.

That’s not the same as certainty. That’s not a lock. Anything can happen. And what if it does?

What if Pat Cummins, walking from the coffee shop to the cage, a twisted analogue to “Tank” Abbott, the old-school legend who made a similar walk from the bar, manages to upset Daniel Cormier, a man seemingly destined to fight Jon Jones for the light heavyweight title?

It’s hard to take the idea of an Arena League team competing with an NFL franchise seriously. No one would pay to watch Serena Williams play someone off the street. The very idea of either outsider competing with the best in the world is preposterous.

What does it say about mixed martial arts as a sport that White and the UFC are selling the MMA equivalent? For years we’ve justified the existence of what was once called “human cockfighting” by emphasizing its sporting nature. The UFC is just another professional sports league, the argument goes, the athletes as impressive and skilled as their counterparts in traditional stick-and-ball sports.

If it’s true, if Cummins can beat Cormier, what then? Cormier’s one of the UFC’s 20 best fighters. A man off the street as good as one of MMA’s best? The years of hard work and sacrifice all gone, victim to the vagaries of chance and MMA’s “anything can happen” creed?

And then there are the unintended consequences. The UFC has spent two decades establishing itself as MMA’s premium brand. It’s a given that their fighters are superior to the competition’s. But, if Cummins can upend Cormier, doesn’t that position become a bit muddled? The moment an obscure fighter with no UFC pedigree beats a top star is the exact moment Bellator has a legitimate opening to claim one of their fighters is the best in the world. The slope here, it is slippery.

It’s an upset that would strike right at the heart of this enterprise. If Pat Cummins beats Daniel Cormier, is this a sport or at all? Or were the critics right all along—and MMA is nothing but a spectacle, an unpredictable buffet of violence, an orgy of the unspeakable, a street fight hiding in plain view?

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