With two title fights, a middleweight bout with huge championship implications and one of the most stacked cards in recent memory, UFC 152 is set to be one of the biggest events of 2012. Light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is set to headline the card …
With two title fights, a middleweight bout with huge championship implications and one of the most stacked cards in recent memory, UFC 152 is set to be one of the biggest events of 2012.
Light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is set to headline the card against long-time MMA veteran and dangerous striker Vitor Belfort, and in a rare treat, the co-main event features a second title fight between Joseph Benavidez and Demetrious Johnson for the UFC’s inaugural flyweight championship.
The entire fight card is full of exciting matchups, and anyone with even the slightest interest in MMA should go out of their way to check out this card.
Across combat sports, a lot of people don’t care for the little guys. They just can’t get any love from fans, no matter how exciting they are, how much talent they display, or how many times they steal the show. In some cases, it could even…
Across combat sports, a lot of people don’t care for the little guys. They just can’t get any love from fans, no matter how exciting they are, how much talent they display, or how many times they steal the show.
In some cases, it could even be justified.
Look at the UFC’s lighter weight classes as an example: featherweight has been completely cleaned out by Jose Aldo, a pound-for-pound great who feasted on minnows in shark-like fashion on the way to killing off the best 145-pound competition out there before his 25th birthday.
Ten pounds below him, Dominick Cruz has juked and jived his way to an undefeated record as a bantamweight, holding UFC gold since it was made to exist at his class.
Still, few people want to watch him (just check the TUF ratings when he coached opposite “bitter rival” Urijah Faber if you don’t agree) and his long injury layoffs are becoming too frequent and too problematic for a generation that wants its entertainment and wants it now.
Thus, when the UFC decided it was going to open the floodgates to a 125-pound class, only the hardest of the hardcore were enthused at the thought.
“Not enough talent,” said most.
“Not interested in seeing little dudes fight anyway,” said others.
But you know what? In well less than a year, the flyweights have proven to have more substance in the cage and more potential stars out of it than any weight class within 30lbs. of them. With the UFC having faced more than a few difficulties in 2012, that’s got to have them grinning ear to ear.
Sure, they might have mistook the appetite for Joseph Benavidez and Demetrious Johnson as fan-favorites and potential stars, but you can’t blame them for trying to make a champion out of a guy they had already put money into marketing since the days of the WEC. Aside from that oversight, everything they’ve touched in the 125-pound class has turned to gold.
They have a legitimate megastar in waiting in Ian “Uncle Creepy” McCall, who’s combined accessibility, capacity to entertain, and the best moustache of the modern era into a persona that will only get bigger as he gets more exposure.
TUF alumni like John Dodson and Louis Gaudinot have the looks and personality to become stars as well, coupled with the in-cage excitement that fans crave.
Lesser-knowns like John Lineker and Tim Elliott are guaranteed fireworks the minute they sign on the dotted line for a fight, and will probably get far richer from their inevitable bonus cheques than they will from their fight purses.
And all that is to say nothing of the unseen flyweight scrappers that are still unsigned, yet to debut, or possibly haven’t even been discovered.
Dana White has offered up plenty of rhetoric as he tries to steer the UFC ship through a shaky year of transition over to the FOX family of networks. In the midst of all that rhetoric has been the repeated promise that people will love the flyweight division, because the guys fighting there basically don’t even know how to put on a boring fight.
White may not be right at this exact moment regarding fan interest, but it’s only a matter of time before he’s proven to be. In a month the division will have its first ever champion, and from there a host of potential stars will line up for their shots, garnering fans with every frenzied exchange.
It looks as if the winner of UFC 152’s flyweight championship bout will have a credible title challenger after all.When Demetrious Johnson and Joseph Benavidez battle for the inaugural flyweight championship, the UFC looked to be in major need of an el…
It looks as if the winner of UFC 152’s flyweight championship bout will have a credible title challenger after all.
When Demetrious Johnson and Joseph Benavidez battle for the inaugural flyweight championship, the UFC looked to be in major need of an elite fighter to challenge the new title-holder.
In the past week, the UFC has made bulking up the flyweight division a priority. Last week, the Zuffa boys have announced the signing of former Shooto flyweight champion Jussier da Silva. This afternoon, Ulysses Gomez has been announced as the newest member of the UFC roster.
Gomez was the inaugural Tachi Palace Fights flyweight champion, and bulked up to bantamweight to win the TPF bantamweight championship last December.
“Useless” fights out of team Cobra Kai, an academy that he helped to found with Marc Laimon back in 2004. It was announced this afternoon that Gomez will step in at UFC on Fox on August 4th to fight John Moraga.
Ironically, Moraga was originally announced as an opponent for Da Silva at the event, but Da Silva was forced out of the bout due to an injury. Moraga himself is riding a four-fight winning streak, and is the Cage Rage bantamweight champion.
These signings are great news for the UFC flyweight division, which has been hurting for top-level talent. Da Silva and Gomez are two of the best in the world and will make welcome addition to the lineup.
If the UFC is as determined to sign the world’s best flyweights as they seem, then we should be hearing about negotiations with Darrell Montague and Sean Santella in the near future.
Case in point — at UFC 152 on September 22nd in Toronto, Bisping is fighting Brian Stann in a bout that could have title implications in the middleweight division. Technically, it’s the co-main event that night, supporting the UFC’s first-ever flyweight championship fight between Joseph Benavidez and Demetrious Johnson. (Whenever there’s a title match on a UFC card, it automatically gets main-event status, regardless of the relative popularity of those headliners compared to the card’s supporting players.) Anyway, here’s Bisping trying to sell his fight against Stann during an appearance on FuelTV on Saturday:
“In my opinion, and I think in most people’s, this is the main event. This is the real main event. Two big hard hitting guys. No one cares about little flyweights, this is the real main event, this is the real big fight, tune in cause someone’s getting knocked out, ain’t going to be me though.”
(“He didn’t mean it, Ian. Come on. You’re a star in my eyes, bro.” / Photo via Steve Mitchell/US PRESSWIRE)
Case in point — at UFC 152 on September 22nd in Toronto, Bisping is fighting Brian Stann in a bout that could have title implications in the middleweight division. Technically, it’s the co-main event that night, supporting the UFC’s first-ever flyweight championship fight between Joseph Benavidez and Demetrious Johnson. (Whenever there’s a title match on a UFC card, it automatically gets main-event status, regardless of the relative popularity of those headliners compared to the card’s supporting players.) Anyway, here’s Bisping trying to sell his fight against Stann during an appearance on FuelTV on Saturday:
“In my opinion, and I think in most people’s, this is the main event. This is the real main event. Two big hard hitting guys. No one cares about little flyweights, this is the real main event, this is the real big fight, tune in cause someone’s getting knocked out, ain’t going to be me though.”
To say that “nobody” cares about “little” flyweights is both an exaggeration and a bit insulting. Some people do care about the 125-pound division, and having the two best flyweights in the world headline a pay-per-view is the kind of thing that UFC needs to do in order to build more interest in that weight class. (And yes Mike, you’re taller than Joseph and Demetrious; go ahead and pat yourself on the back.) Also, does Bisping really need to diminish other guys in the promotion in order to hype his own fight? I understand why he’d want to talk shit on Lombard, but publicly dissing the UFC’s newest weight division doesn’t do the company any favors from a business standpoint.
Then again…through his assholishness, Bisping manages to raise a valid point. Do all title fights deserve to get main-event status by default, when there are other fights on the card that would draw more attention? (Keep in mind that UFC 152 also features Rory MacDonald vs. BJ Penn, which is a more exciting matchup to me than Benavidez/Johnson or Bisping/Stann.)
Hardcore UFC fans will know that there are at least three interesting fights leading the UFC 152 lineup. But if you’re a casual fan and you just see “UFC 152: Benavidez vs. Johnson” on your cable listings, that probably won’t mean much to you — certainly not enough to shell out $55 on the spur of the moment. Like it or not, the main event has a significant impact on the overall interest level for a given card, and if that affects how many people turn out to see Michael Bisping fight Brian Stann, then the Count has a right to be salty about it.
What do you guys think? Does Benavidez vs. Johnson really deserve to be UFC 152′s main event? And when it comes to your interest level in MMA, how much does size matter?
In December 2011, the UFC announced that it was, for the first time ever (for all intents and purposes) adding a brand new weight class. Granted, the UFC “added” the featherweight and bantamweight division when it axed the WEC and absorbed …
In December 2011, the UFC announced that it was, for the first time ever (for all intents and purposes) adding a brand new weight class. Granted, the UFC “added” the featherweight and bantamweight division when it axed the WEC and absorbed all their fighters. But now, the UFC is building a full stable of fighters from the ground up.
This entire endeavor is hard for casual fans to wrap their heads around, and many want to know more about this process. That’s what we are here for.
Welcome to the Bleacher Report Casual Fan’s Guide to the UFC Flyweight Division.
Here, you will learn all you need to know about what the UFC is doing to attract fighters, who they currently have on-staff, the division’s title picture and what is happening in the rest of the world among flyweights.
Well, The Count now has an opponent in place for September 22’s UFC 152 in Toronto. Standing across the cage from Michael Bisping will be none other than Brian Stann.
When we last saw Stann in action, the former Marine made very quick work of Alessio Sakara at April’s UFC on FUEL TV 2, knocking him out two and a half minutes into their bout. Stann was then expected to welcome Bellator Middleweight Champion Hector Lombard to the UFC at August’s UFC on Fox 4, but a shoulder injury forced him off of the card. After being called out by none other than Michael Bisping, “The All-American” would accept Bisping’s callout on July 4th, which I’m sure has some kind of significance.
Well, The Count now has an opponent in place for September 22′s UFC 152 in Toronto. Standing across the cage from Michael Bisping will be none other than Brian Stann.
When we last saw Stann in action, the former Marine made very quick work of Alessio Sakara at April’s UFC on FUEL TV 2, knocking him out two and a half minutes into their bout. Stann was then expected to welcome Bellator Middleweight Champion Hector Lombard to the UFC at August’s UFC on Fox 4, but a shoulder injury forced him off of the card. After being called out by none other than Michael Bisping, “The All-American” would accept Bisping’s callout on July 4th, which I’m sure has some kind of significance.
Likewise, Michael Bisping is coming off of a unanimous decision loss at the hands of Chael Sonnen at UFC on Fox 2 in January. Bisping was expected to face Tim Boetsch at UFC 149, but fell victim to the UFC 149 injury curse.
While a victory for Stann would certainly put him “in the mix” at 185, a loss for Michael Bisping would more than likely keep him out of contention for the foreseeable future. Losing two straight fights would already be enough to warrant a gatekeeper for his next fight, but seeing how Mayhem Miller is arguably the biggest name he’s defeated since his 2008 victory over Chris Leben, it’s doubtful he’d be getting another top contender any time soon.
In other UFC 152 booking news, the finale of the Flyweight Tournament will also take place at this event. Demetrious Johnson and Joseph Benavidez will be fighting for the right to be the first champion in the history of the UFC flyweight division. Barring any kind of mistake that forces a rematch, nothing can possibly go wrong, right?
Across combat sports, a lot of people don’t care for the little guys. They just can’t get any love from fans, no matter how exciting they are, how much talent they display, or how many times they steal the show.
