There are no rules anymore.
If the last year of topsy-turvy UFC matchmaking has taught us anything, perhaps that’s it. Three full years after the fight company promised us “the year of the superfight” in 2013 and then delivered bupkis…
There are no rules anymore.
If the last year of topsy-turvy UFC matchmaking has taught us anything, perhaps that’s it. Three full years after the fight company promised us “the year of the superfight” in 2013 and then delivered bupkis, it’s finally starting to seem like a couple of division-bending dream matchups might actually happen in 2016.
These days, the featherweight champion is the top lightweight contender, the flyweight champion talks openly about fighting the bantamweight champion, and the light heavyweight champion promises it won’t be long before he moves up to heavyweight.
It’s a whole new world, where anything is possible. As a happy accident, it’s also actually starting to feel like fun and, yeah, money rule the day.
In the spirit of these crazy good times, here are my picks for the best off-the-wall, multi-divisional dream fights the UFC could make right now. The only rule is this: Two people from two different UFC weight classes have to fight each other for fun and profit (within reason).
Remember, these are for entertainment purposes only (unless UFC matchmakers Joe Silva and Sean Shelby are reading this, in which case, book these fights, dudes).
Mixed martial arts (MMA) is the most unpredictable sport in the world. Not only when it comes to the elite combat stars that participate inside the Octagon, but also the three knuckleheads that score the action. That’s why UFC President Dana White has repeatedly hammered home the notion that a fighter should never leave it
Mixed martial arts (MMA) is the most unpredictable sport in the world.
Not only when it comes to the elite combat stars that participate inside the Octagon, but also the three knuckleheads that score the action. That’s why UFC President Dana White has repeatedly hammered home the notion that a fighter should never leave it in the hands of the judges.
Yet despite the aforementioned warning, many fights do not end before the clock does. Even in some of the more notable title clashes in promotional history, judges play a more important role than the championship caliber athletes themselves.
It’s a harsh reality when the scoring goes awry, but the sport has not evolved to the point of actually fixing the system across the board.
In accordance with the decisions that just didn’t go the way they were supposed to, here are the four most egregious split-decision calls in UFC championship history.
First things first. Demetrious Johnson is a titan of fighting.
A five-foot-four giant. Versatility, fight IQ, adaptability, speed, technique. It’s all there in a package so finely crafted that few can even appreciate the blur they’re seeing. Thi…
A five-foot-four giant. Versatility, fight IQ, adaptability, speed, technique. It’s all there in a package so finely crafted that few can even appreciate the blur they’re seeing. This isn’t about that. This is about everything else. The stuff that causes debates and hand-wringing and usually ends with the UFC flyweight champion flailing at questions regarding his marketability or lashing out at fans for their criticism.
It all feels like a torturous cycle, doesn’t it? Last week was especially trying. The questions, the boos, the fans leaving mid-performance. And that was just fight night.
Last Friday, the UFC hosted a Las Vegas press conference to trumpet future events. It was entitled “Go Big,” a curious suggestion/declaration coming 24 hours before asking fans to shell out 60 bucks to watch the tiniest champion on the roster attempt to defend his belt. In reality, they were taking advantage of a captive audience, even though it kind of felt as if they were apologizing for UFC 191 with a preemptive starpower strike.
You could almost imagine a dispirited Johnson reading the tagline. “Go big? Really, guys? I’m standing right here.”
Because really, who can concentrate on anything else in the room – maybe even the area code – in the presence of Conor McGregor? The man demands spotlight as if it”s replaced oxygen in his chemical composition. (In this analogy, conflict is carbon, and controversy would be hydrogen.)
The irony is that McGregor goes big, even if he actually isn’t. At five-foot-nine and 165 pounds between fights, he is exactly average in height and lighter than your everyday Joe. Still, the man manages to exude a presence that portrays him as a giant. In the shadow of McGregor, it seems unfair, almost dishonorable to compare Johnson. Yet compare them we must.
Over three years into the flyweight experiment, the division continues to sputter at the box office. While preliminary UFC 191 pay-per-view buyrate estimates won’t be available for at least a few days, the event drew a gate of $1,362,700, which according to MMA Junkie stathead Mike Bohn, is the lowest drawing Las Vegas-based pay-per-view card the promotion has produced since UFC 49 just missed the $1.3 million mark back in 2004.
When it comes to the greatness of a professional prizefighter – and Johnson is indisputably great – these kinds of numbers shouldn’t matter. Yet they do. Absent the swarm of stats that other sports can point to in quantifying success, MMA mostly boils down to to wins, losses and drawing power.
Johnson is only left wanting in one of those categories, even if he doesn’t seem to care.
To the rest of the world, it’s a way of keeping score (just notice McGregor’s continual proclamations of escalating salary claims). To Johnson, it’s extraneous information that clouds focus.
“I don’t think about it,” he said during a pre-UFC 191 interview with the media. “People keep asking me that. I’m over the legacy talk. Either I leave one or I don’t, you know? For me, I’m just thinking about having a successful career, that way when I’m done fighting, I’m not broke.”
Johnson is a smart man, but it seems that the connection between audience engagement and post-career finances is frayed. Somewhere along the way, he dissociated himself from actively cultivating the very thing that pumps cash into his pocket.
“Why does it always come down to blaming the athlete for not selling the product?” he once asked. And the answer is, because you are the product.
MMA is no longer new, or a novelty. Shows are televised regularly, and often on free TV. Scarcity used to make it special. Now, the notability of an event is almost directly proportional to its star, as McGregor proved last time out by drawing over 800,000 buys despite facing a late replacement (Chad Mendes) who has never been a star gate attraction.
At this point, we can no longer blame the unfamiliarity of the audience for Johnson’s box office struggles. He has fought 12 times under the UFC banner, including three times on Fox broadcast television as a main event. He’s fought under Jon Jones. He’s fought twice near his home market in Washington. He’s fought rematches with rivals. Nothing has seemed to click.
Johnson hears this kind of talk all the time. It often supersedes conversation about his success or future challengers or his place in the pantheon. By now, it’s probably white noise, so much so that despite all of the times he’s had to address it, he still struggles.
“I don’t see myself as a prizefighter,” he told the media last week. “Yes, I fight for money, but I don’t see it as my prize. I see it as my income. It’s a hard question to answer.”
It’s apparently an even harder question to face, because in the end, if we’re going to be blunt, it’s going to cost him a lot of money.
Particularly when you’re a champion, your pay is directly tied to your notoriety. That’s something McGregor is routinely reinforcing, even if his fellow fighters are not always paying attention. At that level, being able to perform is fantastic, but it’s also kind of a given. People hear the word “champion” and automatically assume them to be the best.
It’s the intangibles that make a fighter magnetic and a show transcendent. Talking trash. Dressing to the nines. Engaging your opponent. Cage showmanship. All of it matters because the show never stops. All of it matters because it makes you feel something. It heightens your emotions. It changes your investment in the outcome.
When McGregor was up on stage praising himself and torching the rest of the roster, he was putting money in the bank, because while some part of the audience thought it was hilarious, the remainder were storing their anger in a mental file cabinet to be redirected toward him at the proper time of comeuppance.
This kind of approach isn’t for everyone, but it’s also not the only kind of approach. Be funny, be aggressive, be confrontational, be something past our expectations. Because while there might be a price to pay for increasing your own price, there is definitely a price to pay for refusing to address it. For Demetrious Johnson, it’s a cost that will never be recovered.
First things first. Demetrious Johnson is a titan of fighting.
A five-foot-four giant. Versatility, fight IQ, adaptability, speed, technique. It’s all there in a package so finely crafted that few can even appreciate the blur they’re seeing. Thi…
A five-foot-four giant. Versatility, fight IQ, adaptability, speed, technique. It’s all there in a package so finely crafted that few can even appreciate the blur they’re seeing. This isn’t about that. This is about everything else. The stuff that causes debates and hand-wringing and usually ends with the UFC flyweight champion flailing at questions regarding his marketability or lashing out at fans for their criticism.
It all feels like a torturous cycle, doesn’t it? Last week was especially trying. The questions, the boos, the fans leaving mid-performance. And that was just fight night.
Last Friday, the UFC hosted a Las Vegas press conference to trumpet future events. It was entitled “Go Big,” a curious suggestion/declaration coming 24 hours before asking fans to shell out 60 bucks to watch the tiniest champion on the roster attempt to defend his belt. In reality, they were taking advantage of a captive audience, even though it kind of felt as if they were apologizing for UFC 191 with a preemptive starpower strike.
You could almost imagine a dispirited Johnson reading the tagline. “Go big? Really, guys? I’m standing right here.”
Because really, who can concentrate on anything else in the room – maybe even the area code – in the presence of Conor McGregor? The man demands spotlight as if it”s replaced oxygen in his chemical composition. (In this analogy, conflict is carbon, and controversy would be hydrogen.)
The irony is that McGregor goes big, even if he actually isn’t. At five-foot-nine and 165 pounds between fights, he is exactly average in height and lighter than your everyday Joe. Still, the man manages to exude a presence that portrays him as a giant. In the shadow of McGregor, it seems unfair, almost dishonorable to compare Johnson. Yet compare them we must.
Over three years into the flyweight experiment, the division continues to sputter at the box office. While preliminary UFC 191 pay-per-view buyrate estimates won’t be available for at least a few days, the event drew a gate of $1,362,700, which according to MMA Junkie stathead Mike Bohn, is the lowest drawing Las Vegas-based pay-per-view card the promotion has produced since UFC 49 just missed the $1.3 million mark back in 2004.
When it comes to the greatness of a professional prizefighter – and Johnson is indisputably great – these kinds of numbers shouldn’t matter. Yet they do. Absent the swarm of stats that other sports can point to in quantifying success, MMA mostly boils down to to wins, losses and drawing power.
Johnson is only left wanting in one of those categories, even if he doesn’t seem to care.
To the rest of the world, it’s a way of keeping score (just notice McGregor’s continual proclamations of escalating salary claims). To Johnson, it’s extraneous information that clouds focus.
“I don’t think about it,” he said during a pre-UFC 191 interview with the media. “People keep asking me that. I’m over the legacy talk. Either I leave one or I don’t, you know? For me, I’m just thinking about having a successful career, that way when I’m done fighting, I’m not broke.”
Johnson is a smart man, but it seems that the connection between audience engagement and post-career finances is frayed. Somewhere along the way, he dissociated himself from actively cultivating the very thing that pumps cash into his pocket.
“Why does it always come down to blaming the athlete for not selling the product?” he once asked. And the answer is, because you are the product.
MMA is no longer new, or a novelty. Shows are televised regularly, and often on free TV. Scarcity used to make it special. Now, the notability of an event is almost directly proportional to its star, as McGregor proved last time out by drawing over 800,000 buys despite facing a late replacement (Chad Mendes) who has never been a star gate attraction.
At this point, we can no longer blame the unfamiliarity of the audience for Johnson’s box office struggles. He has fought 12 times under the UFC banner, including three times on Fox broadcast television as a main event. He’s fought under Jon Jones. He’s fought twice near his home market in Washington. He’s fought rematches with rivals. Nothing has seemed to click.
Johnson hears this kind of talk all the time. It often supersedes conversation about his success or future challengers or his place in the pantheon. By now, it’s probably white noise, so much so that despite all of the times he’s had to address it, he still struggles.
“I don’t see myself as a prizefighter,” he told the media last week. “Yes, I fight for money, but I don’t see it as my prize. I see it as my income. It’s a hard question to answer.”
It’s apparently an even harder question to face, because in the end, if we’re going to be blunt, it’s going to cost him a lot of money.
Particularly when you’re a champion, your pay is directly tied to your notoriety. That’s something McGregor is routinely reinforcing, even if his fellow fighters are not always paying attention. At that level, being able to perform is fantastic, but it’s also kind of a given. People hear the word “champion” and automatically assume them to be the best.
It’s the intangibles that make a fighter magnetic and a show transcendent. Talking trash. Dressing to the nines. Engaging your opponent. Cage showmanship. All of it matters because the show never stops. All of it matters because it makes you feel something. It heightens your emotions. It changes your investment in the outcome.
When McGregor was up on stage praising himself and torching the rest of the roster, he was putting money in the bank, because while some part of the audience thought it was hilarious, the remainder were storing their anger in a mental file cabinet to be redirected toward him at the proper time of comeuppance.
This kind of approach isn’t for everyone, but it’s also not the only kind of approach. Be funny, be aggressive, be confrontational, be something past our expectations. Because while there might be a price to pay for increasing your own price, there is definitely a price to pay for refusing to address it. For Demetrious Johnson, it’s a cost that will never be recovered.
At this point, it seems that flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson is forever destined to be one of the most dominant, yet simultaneously unbankable fighters in the history of the sport. Last Saturday was no exception, as the man they call “Mighty Mouse” turned in one of his best performances to date against rival John Dodson while headlining the lowest live gate for a UFC pay-per-view in 11 years. No respect, no respect, I tells ya.
Either the UFC has absolutely no idea how to market him, or casual fans are simply refusing to warm up to “little flyweights” (Ed note: My God, maybe Michael Bisping was right). Regardless, the UFC might want to start relegating Johnson to the FOX/FS1 cards, or at the very minimum, placing him in the co-main spot on a pay-per-views, because something just isn’t clicking with the UFC’s “f*cking idiot” fanbase.
Of course, Johnson wasn’t given much support in the form of a noteworthy undercard, which, save for a few noteworthy moments, didn’t really do much to entice those seated at the MGM Grand.
At this point, it seems that flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson is forever destined to be one of the most dominant, yet simultaneously unbankable fighters in the history of the sport. Last Saturday was no exception, as the man they call “Mighty Mouse” turned in one of his best performances to date against rival John Dodson while headlining the lowest live gate for a UFC pay-per-view in 11 years. No respect, no respect, I tells ya.
Either the UFC has absolutely no idea how to market him, or casual fans are simply refusing to warm up to “little flyweights” (Ed note: My God, maybe Michael Bisping was right). Regardless, the UFC might want to start relegating Johnson to the FOX/FS1 cards, or at the very minimum, placing him in the co-main spot on a pay-per-views, because something just isn’t clicking with the UFC’s “f*cking idiot” fanbase.
Of course, Johnson wasn’t given much support in the form of a noteworthy undercard, which, save for a few noteworthy moments, didn’t really do much to entice those seated at the MGM Grand.
Highlights after the jump.
Three round heavyweight fights, amiright Nation? Seeing one that entertains from the opening bell to the judges’ decision is kind of like seeing a double rainbow, on Mars, at night, and UFC 191′s co-main event was no exception. Both Andrei Arlovski and Frank Mir were riding a pair of emphatic first round knockouts heading into their UFC 191 clash, leading both fans and pundits alike to all but slap a #1 contender label on the bout. As it turns out, that “first round” qualifier might have been the key to both men’s feelgood comeback stories.
To say the fight underwhelmed would be an understatement, so I’ll just leave it to the UFC studio analysts to explain. Arlovski did manage to come out with the decision win, however, improving his UFC win streak to four in a row.
While Arlovski vs. Mir might not have lived up to expectations, Anthony Johnson vs. Jimi Manuwa sure as hell did. “Rumble” started off strong early, landing some heavy leg kicks and surprisingly taking Manuwa down on a couple occasions, then flattened the Brit like he had been doing yoga in the weight room early in the second. Say what you want about Johnson, but he is possibly the hardest hitting fighter in the entire UFC and a goddamn nightmare matchup for anyone in the light heavyweight division.
Elsewhere on the main card, Paige VanZant once again proved that a limitless gas tank and endless aggression often lead to victory. VanZant was all over opponent Alex Chambers from the opening bell until the effortless armbar finish she secured in the third round. While her striking still has a way to go if she is ever to stand a chance against Joanna Champion, there’s no denying that VanZant is a prospect to watch in the strawweight division.
Of course, the UFC has neglected to upload any highlights from UFC 191′s most entertaining fight: Francisco Rivera vs. John Lineker, but I believe this gif best sums up how we all reacted to what was 2 minutes of absolute, unbridled insanity.
The full results for UFC 191 are below.
Main card
Demetrious Johnson def. John Dodson via unanimous decision
Andrei Arlovski def. Frank Mir via unanimous decision
Anthony Johnson def. Jimi Manuwa via second-round KO
Corey Anderson def. Jan Blachowicz by unanimous decision
Paige VanZant def. Alex Chambers via submission (armbar)
Undercard
Ross Pearson def. Paul Felder via split decision
John Lineker def. Francisco Rivera via submission (guillotine)
Raquel Pennington def. Jessica Andrade via submission (rear-naked choke)
Tiago Trator def. Clay Collard via split decision
Joe Riggs def. Ron Stallings via DQ (illegal upkick)
Joaquim Silva def. Nazareno Malegarie via split decision
Flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson defeated John Dodson by unanimous decision for the second time at UFC 191, successfully defending his title for the seventh time. Once again, Mighty Mouse dominated Johnson with timely kicks and takedowns, making i…
Flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson defeated John Dodson by unanimous decision for the second time at UFC 191, successfully defending his title for the seventh time. Once again, Mighty Mouse dominated Johnson with timely kicks and takedowns, making it look easy on Saturday.
The UFC’s official Twitter account confirmed who the unquestioned king of the division is:
Per ESPN.com’s Bret Okamoto, the judges scored the fight 50-45, 49-46 and 49-46, which shows just how comfortable the win was. Compared to their first meeting, there was little drama, with Johnson controlling the distance and landing far more punches than his opponent. According to FightMetric, Johnson landed 163 total strikes compared to Dodson’s 108.
He had some choice words for Dodson after the fight, per Okamoto: “John Dodson was saying I was garbage, but look at my face,” Johnson said. “I look as pretty as a motherf—-r. That’s what technique gets you right there.”
Fans hoping for a good, old-fashioned slugfest knew Saturday’s title fight would not be their kind of bout. Johnson showed plenty of patience while looking for the takedown, converting just four of 16, and Dodson focused more on defending the takedown than actually throwing punches.
In the clinch, DJ showed his supreme technique, and the only time he ever took some shots in the clinch came in the second round, when Dodson managed to throw him and force him into the fence.
Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Snowden was impressed with his performance:
Dodson was almost rocked by a clean punch in the fourth round but managed to keep his legs under him, but while he avoided taking major damage, he never looked likely to upset the champ. The only time Johnson actually appeared troubled was when he took an accidental kick to the groin in the first round.
While some fans jeered the two after the fight because there were few big shots and little explosive action, Yahoo’s Kevin Iole thinks it’s only natural Johnson doesn’t fight that way:
He’s the fastest fighter in the sport and among the two or three most technical. He does things other fighters can’t dream of doing.
He was brilliantly switching from an orthodox stance to southpaw and back on Saturday, befuddling Dodson and allowing him to land clean, hard shots without taking anything back.
Those days of giving one to take one don’t make sense when a guy can do that.
As reported by Sherdog’s Tristen Critchfield, UFC boss Dana White called those fans “drunk dummies” before calling Johnson “probably” the best pound-for-pound fighter in MMA in a post-fight interview with Fox Sports 2.
“This was the fight to make in this weight class and Dodson had the power, the speed, the experience and got destroyed; literally, he got shut down,” White said, per MMAJunkie’s Mike Bohn. “Mighty Mouse is probably the pound-for-pound greatest fighter in the sport. He looked fantastic.”
Bohn’s colleague Ben Fowlkes wonders whether it’s time for the 29-year-old to move up a weight class:
Johnson previously fought at bantamweight before moving down to flyweight after a loss against Dominick Cruz in 2011, and he’s been undefeated ever since. He’s cleaned out the division, and with the exception of Henry Cejudo, there simply is no one left for him to fight.
As shared by MMA History Today, he’s fought the top contenders twice already:
Cejudo will fight Jussier Da Silva in November, and like Johnson, the Olympic gold medal wrestler is a former bantamweight with impressive power. His work in the clinch stands out, and at this point, the 28-year-old is just about the only promising fighter left in the division whom Johnson hasn’t picked apart.
A win over Cejudo would close the book on the flyweight division for Mighty Mouse, at which point he could consider a superfight with someone like T.J. Dillashaw, the current bantamweight champion. Such a fight would be a huge draw for the UFC, and if Johnson is ready for a new―and actual―challenge, that’s where he should look next.
