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UFC 178: Now Would Be a Good Time for Mighty Mouse to Steal the Show

Boy, what a time everyone’s going to have on Saturday.
The UFC is back with a pay-per-view presence befitting its price tag, serving up fight after fight built on big names and big excitement.
Dominick Cruz.
Tim Kennedy.
Cat Zingano.
Donald Cerrone.
Ed…

Boy, what a time everyone’s going to have on Saturday.

The UFC is back with a pay-per-view presence befitting its price tag, serving up fight after fight built on big names and big excitement.

Dominick Cruz.

Tim Kennedy.

Cat Zingano.

Donald Cerrone.

Eddie Alvarez.

Dustin Poirier.

Conor McGregor.

It reads like a who’s who of the sport, a collection of names who are far more likely to be placed atop a Fight Pass card or a Fox Sports 1 show instead of being used to fill slots so far down as the pay-per-view prelims. It’s the deepest card of the year, perhaps longer, and it’s worth every penny.

Oh, and it’s headlined by Demetrious Johnson pursuing his fifth straight title defense. But you already knew that. You were just excited about something else on the card.

Maybe everything else.

That’s the nature of life for Johnson as a world champion. He sits atop a thin division at a time where he’s demonstrably better than everyone else and demonstrably less interesting as a guy than everyone else. He just goes out and beats people with bewildering ease, then makes blase, complementary statements while they nurse their (never-gruesome-enough-to-satisfy-fans) injuries.

Nobody wants that.

They want pomp. They want circumstance. They want to feel like this matters.

Johnson doesn’t provide that. He provides death by a thousand paper cuts to guys who probably shouldn’t be fighting him to begin with on merit, and that’s a tough sell to keep people coming back. Actually, it’s been a tough sell to keep them when they’re already there.

Which is why UFC 178 is the best imaginable time for Johnson to do something outrageous or unpredictable. Something to steal the show. Something to get people talking.

It’s clear that won’t come by way of simply racking up another win. It may even be clear that spectacular finishes won’t do the trick, considering he’s been good enough to provide a few and people still didn’t care.

Perhaps it’s an unexpected war, one with a challenger no one saw coming in Chris Cariaso. Maybe Johnson took his foot off the pedal a little this camp and Cariaso trained for the fight of his life, and all of a sudden, the champion has to dig down deep and fight like a dog to keep his belt.

Maybe it’s a post-fight callout of John Dodson, the only man alive to whom Johnson has ever shown even an inkling of not liking. Get on the mic, talk a little trash, get people interested.

How about a shocking announcement of a move back to bantamweight in hopes of becoming a two-division champion? Call out T.J. Dillashaw, who doesn’t really have a clear contender in his wake and is the type of stylistic matchup that Johnson might actually do well in.

Sure, sure. None of those are realistic. Well, they’re not unrealistic, but they’re not things that have made Johnson the man he is.

He almost surely put together a perfect camp and executed it with a champion’s drive.

He won’t call out Dodson because he doesn’t want to give him that satisfaction.

He’s not going back to bantamweight because the risk of being second best there isn’t worth leaving the top spot at flyweight.

And that’s the problem. The things that have made him a champion are the same things that have made him almost entirely uninteresting to fans.

But one can dream.

With so many people watching for so many other reasons, such a dream coming true would be about as welcome a surprise as you’ll get in MMA.

Follow me on Twitter: @matthewjryder!

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UFC 178: Johnson vs. Cariaso Fight Card, TV Info, Predictions and More

Don’t sleep on the UFC 178 card on Saturday from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson’s defense of his UFC flyweight title vs. Chris Cariaso may not be the sexiest main event, but whatever the UFC 178 card lacks in…

Don’t sleep on the UFC 178 card on Saturday from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson’s defense of his UFC flyweight title vs. Chris Cariaso may not be the sexiest main event, but whatever the UFC 178 card lacks in the feature, it makes up for in its stellar co-feature, main card and preliminaries.

There are literally five fights on the undercard that could headline a Fight Night event and no one would bat an eye. You know it’s a tight fight card when there are eight fighters in action that are a part of the EA Sports UFC video game roster.

Take a look at this exciting lineup of fights along with viewing information and predictions for each bout. Fights don’t happen on paper, but this schedule of bouts could produce a very memorable night.

Just below the chart is a closer look at the top three fights of the night.

The Silencer

Love him or hate him, MMA and the UFC need guys like “The Notorious” Conor McGregor. He’s got a big mouth, he’s brash, but boy, can he fight.

Unlike Chael Sonnen, McGregor has the game to match the mic work. He has won all three of his UFC bouts, and he hasn’t lost a fight since 2010.

That said, he’s not invincible. His two losses came by way of submission, but not one of his UFC opponents has been able to expose the fact that he’s simply not great on the ground.

Part of the reason for that is because his defense with the big company has been immaculate. McGregor has thwarted every single attempt to take him to the mat.

Against Dustin “The Diamond” Poirier, he’ll meet the first man capable of taking advantage of him on the mat. Poirier doesn’t possess powerful takedowns like Georges St-Pierre, but he is adept at converting submission opportunities.

He attempts 1.7 submissions per 15 minutes, and six of his 16 wins have come via tapout. The aggression of McGregor will work against him in this bout.

Poirier is great off his back, and he’ll likely use this position to roll McGregor into an armbar or triangle-choke finish.

Welcome to the UFC

Eddie Alvarez is one of the last highly regarded fighters yet to make his debut in the UFC. On Saturday night, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone will welcome him, but the greeting will be a rude one.

Alvarez has a solid all-around game, but he’s probably best on his feet. It just so happens that the same can be said for Cerrone.

In Alvarez’s debut, he’ll want to make an impression, and perhaps the best way to do that is by scoring a KO. He’ll be looking for the home run against Cerrone, but instead, he’ll find one of the Cowboy’s vicious kicks to midsection or head. The strike will lead to the beginning of the end.

Cerrone will pounce on his fallen opponent and finish him with his nasty rear-naked choke. It should be impossible to keep Cerrone from a title shot after this win.

Too Fast, Too Skilled, Too Good

Mighty Mouse is one of the fastest athletes you’ll ever see. Cariaso is no slowpoke, but there’s clearly a difference between the two when it comes to pace.

When you combine that with the fact that Johnson works tirelessly at his craft, which allows him to blend speed with technique, he’s the closest thing to a prototypical fighter in the lower weight classes.

To be honest, the only flyweight who can even make for an interesting bout against Johnson is John Dodson. Cariaso will do his best, but ultimately, Johnson will win an easy unanimous decision.

All stats per FightMetric.com

Follow Brian Mazique on Twitter. I dig boxing and MMA.

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Demetrious Johnson Faces No-Win Situation in UFC 178 Main Event

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 ag…

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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Demetrious Johnson vs. Chris Cariaso: A Full Head-to-Toe Breakdown

UFC 178 is headlined by a UFC flyweight championship tilt. Champion Demetrious Johnson defends against the No. 8-ranked contender Chris Cariaso.
Cariaso enters as a massive underdog, as much as plus-900 on some books. The UFC has seen huge upsets in ti…

UFC 178 is headlined by a UFC flyweight championship tilt. Champion Demetrious Johnson defends against the No. 8-ranked contender Chris Cariaso.

Cariaso enters as a massive underdog, as much as plus-900 on some books. The UFC has seen huge upsets in title fights before, but can Cariaso defeat the No. 4-ranked pound-for-pound fighter on the planet?

Johnson defends the title for the fifth time. He has not dropped a bout since 2011 when he unsuccessfully challenged for the UFC bantamweight strap. Cariaso‘s three-fight win streak was good enough for a title shot in a shallow division that Johnson has tormented.

Does Cariaso stand a chance, or will Johnson continue to dominate his division?

This is your UFC 178 main event breakdown.

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The 17 Greatest Quotes From ‘Countdown to UFC 178?

Irish featherweight Conor McGregor is unquestionably the best talker in the UFC. That’s an indisputable truth in the post-Chael era, and it becomes even more apparent when you watch McGregor’s segment of the new “Countdown to UFC 178” preview special. But it turns out that new lightweight acquisition Eddie Alvarez is a quote factory himself, so we decided to pick out his (and the other featured fighters’) best lines from the show, for your education and enjoyment.

Videos and quotes continue after the jump. UFC 178: Johnson vs. Cariaso goes down this Saturday in Las Vegas. Get pumped.

*****

“Although fans might not know who I am, I’m willing to bet every fighter in this division knows who I am.” — Eddie Alvarez

“There’s a lot of really talented guys at 155, whether it’s jiu-jitsu, really talented wrestlers, really talented strikers. But then there’s fighters. That’s what I’m good at. There’s no one better at giving damage and taking damage than myself.” — Alvarez

“I used to wonder why I always do all these crazy things, like what’s the purpose? Why do I want to jump off buildings and swing from ropes and ride four-wheelers and wakeboarding and do everything crazy? ‘Cause it gives you this feeling, like this scared feeling, you know? That same feeling is the same feeling you get right before you walk out to a cage. I’m searching for that feeling and there it is, every time I fight, it’s like the scariest feeling in the entire world.” — Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone

Irish featherweight Conor McGregor is unquestionably the best talker in the UFC. That’s an indisputable truth in the post-Chael era, and it becomes even more apparent when you watch McGregor’s segment of the new “Countdown to UFC 178″ preview special. But it turns out that new lightweight acquisition Eddie Alvarez is a quote factory himself, so we decided to pick out his (and the other featured fighters’) best lines from the show, for your education and enjoyment.

Videos and quotes continue after the jump. UFC 178: Johnson vs. Cariaso goes down this Saturday in Las Vegas. Get pumped.

*****

“Although fans might not know who I am, I’m willing to bet every fighter in this division knows who I am.” — Eddie Alvarez

“You’re telling me you’re gonna pay me X amount of dollars to fight, and then if I do really good you’re gonna give me $50,000 more dollars? I feel like when I step in the Octagon I get one of those wind machines where the fuckin’ bills are flying everywhere and I’m just scooping as much as I can…I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t just fight their ass off. Like if that doesn’t give you enough to just put it all on the line, I don’t know what would.” — Cerrone

“I met my wife when I was 15 years old. I got in a fight at a playground, and none of my friends jumped in, but my wife jumped in. And I said, ‘Man, I’m gonna marry this girl’.” — Alvarez

“Cowboy, he does well if you give him space, but it won’t be like that. It’s a different story here. I’m the boss. I say what’s gonna happen.” — Alvarez

“Them lights are gonna hit me, and you’re gonna see a high-paced, violent fight.” — Alvarez

“I believe not one of these athletes in the UFC understand what the fuck is happenin’. They don’t know what’s goin’ on with this crazy Irishman runnin’ in looking to take their head clean off.” — Conor McGregor

“I remember I walked into the cage, I stood before [Diego Brandao] and blew him a kiss. And he bowed before me. I remember that. I felt he was broke before the contest.” — McGregor

“Conor McGregor seems like a good athlete, he seems like a decent counter-puncher. But, he also seems like a scumbag.” — Dustin Poirier

“I walk the walk, you know? Conor talks the talk. And we’ll see if he’s really about it September 27th.” — Poirier

“I’m committed to this game 100%, and I’m going to be a world champion in the UFC. And Conor, he’s a clown. He’s a joke to me.” — Poirier

“…and then you’ve got me, a slick, handsome Irish kid that takes no shit, that uses his brain, and has climbed to the top of the game quicker than anyone else has done it.” — McGregor

“Dustin’s little pea-head is gonna get removed, it’s gonna get put into my collection, and I’m gonna get on my way to gold.” — McGregor

“He’s just an average journeyman fighter. He’s okay everywhere. He’s basic everywhere, he’s nothin’ that jumps off the page, he’s not flashy, he hasn’t got KO power — you know, that stiffened, curled-toes power. He hasn’t got that. I don’t feel he has anything for me. I’ll beat him everywhere.” — McGregor

“No worries, you have a good night.” — Demetrious Johnson, after smoking somebody in a video game. Man, this guy just can’t bring himself to talk trash, huh. It’s tough when everybody else is in a grudge match but you.

“Wherever the fight goes, I feel like I have the advantage.” — Chris Cariaso, massive underdog, saying words.

Johnson vs. Cariaso: A Complete Guide to UFC 178 Full Card

Get your fighting pants on.
The mismatch in the UFC 178 main event is real, but don’t let that deter your interest. Be interested. Have I ever led you astray? Trust me. You want to watch this.
In that main event, you have UFC flyweight champ Demetrious…

Get your fighting pants on.

The mismatch in the UFC 178 main event is real, but don’t let that deter your interest. Be interested. Have I ever led you astray? Trust me. You want to watch this.

In that main event, you have UFC flyweight champ Demetrious Johnson defending the strap against Chris Cariaso, a long underdog with a 4-2 record as a 125-pounder and a No. 8 slot in the current UFC flyweight rankings.

But I urge you, for your own good: Look beyond the headliner. Because it’s been a long time since a card went this deep. And it’s not just that there are a lot of great fighters on the card, though there are. They’re exciting fighters. Fighters who finish fights. Fighters with storylines and, you know, personalities. Fighters with big, big egos fighting other fighters with big, big egos. Title implications in multiple areas.

If you’re not acquainted with this card, take this opportunity to do so. Here’s a complete guide to the action, including information capsules on each fighter, matchup analysis, predictions and even viewing coordinates. Are you ready? I’m ready.

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