Love them or hate them, you can’t deny the quality of the action provided by the fights in the lighter weight classes. A look at MMA’s archives will show a number of fights in the featherweight, bantamweight and flyweight divisions that all did their p…
Love them or hate them, you can’t deny the quality of the action provided by the fights in the lighter weight classes. A look at MMA‘s archives will show a number of fights in the featherweight, bantamweight and flyweight divisions that all did their part in highlighting exactly how they hold their own with those of the more established divisions.
Remember how long it took before fans accepted the lightweight division? And remember that they faced similar questions to those encountered by the lighter weight classes? Now, lightweight stands as one of the most talent-rich divisions in the sport, let alone the UFC, and the talent in that one division always produces a number of fights that stand on paper as Fight of the Night candidates for almost every fight card that occurs.
Featherweights, bantamweights and flyweights can produce thrillers of the same cloth, and with time, flyweights for sure will get the recognition that they deserve. However, despite the lack of depth in the division in all three divisions, fans of the sport will do themselves a great justice by embracing these lighter weight classes for more than just the “remember when lightweights first got on?” argument.
Let the reality sink in about these three divisions if any doubt still exists, especially since many will eventually come to about this matter. Despite the fluctuation of poundage that separates the divisions from each other, the action quality holds the same high level at heavyweight as it holds in the other divisions.
The primary five divisions all needed to establish longevity before fans caught on to what most fight fans already knew, which is that great fights always happen regardless of the weight. Fans catch on to this after witnessing a fight or two in a division, thus causing them to pay attention to the divisions more prominently than they may have done in a previous point in time.
Obviously, it may not help fans to get behind the division if the fights consistently get booked on Fuel TV, FX or okay pay-per-view cards, but considering that a number of cable subscribers enjoy FX on a daily basis, one can make the statement that those subscribers definitely have the necessary means to get themselves interested.
Also, the UFC will aim to garner further interest in their lightest division when flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson makes the first defense of his title against John Dodson at UFC on Fox 6 in Chicago, while Jose Aldo looks to keep a grip on his featherweight title at UFC 156 against Frankie Edgar. The quality of both fights promise exciting firefights and memorable finishes, but will fans embrace these fights before or after they transpire?
They absolutely know how to draw in the casual viewer while changing the mind of the skeptical hardcore fan, so few will find a reason to believe that they cannot embrace these fights.
However, until fans begin to recognize the reasons for why they should embrace these fights, the divisions will take longer to earn their long-overdue respect than they did to make it into the sport’s premier league.
Demetrious Johnson will defend his UFC Flyweight Championship for the first time live and free on FOX. He will tussle with John Dodson on January 26th at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois.Dodson is 3-0 in the UFC with his last two victories coming…
Dodson is 3-0 in the UFC with his last two victories coming at featherweight. He is The Ultimate Fighter season 14 bantamweight champion. He will become the eighth TUF winner to challenge for a UFC championship.
Johnson won the UFC championship via a split decision victory over Joseph Benavidez at UFC 152 to become the first ever champion of the division.
Mighty Mouse and The Magician will lock horns in January, and this is how they stack up to one another.
Just like December’s UFC on FOX: Henderson vs. Diaz card, it’s a pay-per-view caliber lineup that we’ll be getting for free. Early predictions: Johnson/Dodson goes to decision, Cerrone/Pettis wins Fight of the Night, and Rampage blames his impending loss on an injury. Fine, call me a hater — but see if I’m wrong.
Ian McCall isn’t looking to make friends in the flyweight division.The former Tachi champ took aim at Demetrious Johnson and John Dodson over the weekend at an event in Culver City, California.Johnson is slated to defend his UFC flyweight title for the…
Ian McCall isn’t looking to make friends in the flyweight division.
The former Tachi champ took aim at Demetrious Johnson and John Dodson over the weekend at an event in Culver City, California.
Johnson is slated to defend his UFC flyweight title for the very first time against Dodson at a yet to be determined date. Unfortunately, the bout isn’t really turning any heads in the MMA community.
While the flyweight division is one of the most exciting weight classes in the sport, it has also become the most ridiculed.
“It kind of sucks because no one likes our weight class right now,” said McCall.
“No one likes Demetrious. I guess he doesn’t translate well publicly. I don’t really know why. No one likes John Dodson because he’s kind of annoying. He’s cooler in person. He just acts like a 12-year-old annoying girl sometimes on TV. I don’t know why he does that or why he thinks it’s the thing to do.”
A small part of McCall must still believe he should be flyweight champion.
He fought Johnson earlier this year at UFC on FX 2 in a bout that ended in a draw. The controversial ending led to an immediate rematch at UFC on FX 3, where Johnson was awarded a unanimous decision.
While he respects Johnson’s skills, McCall doesn’t feel like he put on his best performance that night.
He feels like he didn’t take Johnson serious enough, which is odd considering it was the biggest fight in his professional career.
“Speed is a big thing. With me, the second time I came in too heavy. I cut 18.8-pounds in the last 20 hours, and then we weighed in at like three or four o’clock, and by 10 o’clock, I was 150.5,” said McCall.
“It was my own fault. I didn’t diet right. I just think I didn’t take it seriously enough, which for some reason I don’t know why. I finally get to the UFC, and I don’t take it seriously. I don’t know. I would just go back to how I fought him the first time. I was thinking too much, I didn’t fight like I should have.”
(Having recently established himself as the alpha male, the Bigfoot eagerly races off into the jungles of Brazil to copulate with the herd’s last remaining female.)
We may be a few days removed from UFC on FX 5, but that doesn’t mean that the future has already been determined for the night’s biggest winners. Joe Silva and Sean Shelby may be the best in the biz, but even they could probably use a bit of matchmaking advice — or at least a backup plan– considering that half of the fights they book in the aftermath of this event will be cancelled due to injury, arrest, or a classic case of bitch wife. This is where the Armchair Matchmaker comes in, for what are sports without over analysis, needless speculation, and a headscratching appearance from Liam Neeson? By the end of this article, you will have witnessed at least one of these.
Here we go.
Antonio Silva: You might chalk this up to laziness, but pairing the rebounding “Bigfoot” against Stefan Struve seems like an awesome idea to us. We know Stefan called out Fabricio Werdum following his big win over Stipe Miocic at UFC on FUEL 5, but we think this matchup makes just as much sense, if not more. Both men have recently reestablished themselves at legitimate threats and Werdum 2.0 (you know, the one that can do this to people on the feet) seems like he would put on a clinic against either man. It would be a stretch to declare that either Struve or Silva are exactly title-worthy material yet, so let these two big men slug it out and give the winner a top contender. It’s a classic battle of Chin vs. Lankiness — Jay Leno vs. Conan O’Brien in an MMA ring, if you will — and would surely deliver an exciting finish inside the distance.
(Having recently established himself as the alpha male, the Bigfoot eagerly races off into the jungles of Brazil to copulate with the herd’s last remaining female.)
We may be a few days removed from UFC on FX 5, but that doesn’t mean that the future has already been determined for the night’s biggest winners. Joe Silva and Sean Shelby may be the best in the biz, but even they could probably use a bit of matchmaking advice — or at least a backup plan– considering that half of the fights they book in the aftermath of this event will be cancelled due to injury, arrest, or a classic case of bitch wife. This is where the Armchair Matchmaker comes in, for what are sports without over analysis, needless speculation, and a headscratching appearance from Liam Neeson? By the end of this article, you will have witnessed at least one of these.
Here we go.
Antonio Silva: You might chalk this up to laziness, but pairing the rebounding “Bigfoot” against Stefan Struve seems like an awesome idea to us. We know Stefan called out Fabricio Werdum following his big win over Stipe Miocic at UFC on FUEL 5, but we think this matchup makes just as much sense, if not more. Both men have recently reestablished themselves at legitimate threats and Werdum 2.0 (you know, the one that can do this to people on the feet) seems like he would put on a clinic against either man. It would be a stretch to declare that either Struve or Silva are exactly title-worthy material yet, so let these two big men slug it out and give the winner a top contender. It’s a classic battle of Chin vs. Lankiness – Jay Leno vs. Conan O’Brien in an MMA ring, if you will — and would surely deliver an exciting finish inside the distance.
Jake Ellenberger: He may have come away with a victory over a legit fighter in Jay Hieron on Friday, but Ellenberger’s performance was easily one of the most disappointing in recent memory, which is saying something considering he was just TKO’d in his last fight. Ellenberger seemed far too content to throw haymakers with the hope of a flash KO and never really went out of his way to try and obtain a finish, so there’d be no better way to light a fire under him for his next fight than to pair him with perennial trash-talking contender Josh Koscheck. Kos is coming off a close loss to Johnny Hendricks, who he ranked just above “Ingleburger” in a previous interview and would love the opportunity to prove all of us retarded, fighter-ranking assholes wrong anyway.
John Dodson: Although Dodson earned the right to fight newly-crowned flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson with his impressive second round knockout of Jussier Formiga, we’d rather see Dodson take on the drunken asshole that couldn’t keep quiet on Friday in a no holds-barred street fight to the death. If Dodson wins, we can never complain about another flyweight fight again. If he loses, we pack him and as many flyweights as humanely possible into an undersized car and let the hijinks ensue.
Justin Edwards: Edwards is four fights into his UFC career, yet we still don’t really know what to make of the guy. His 45-second victory over Neer was both impressive and unexpected, but again, it didn’t tell us much about him other than the fact that he has a nasty arm-in guillotine. Simply put, we need to see more of Edwards, and a fight that would show us a lot about the guy would be against a Dan Miller type fighter. Not only does Miller also possess one of the nastiest guillotines in the division — which he used to score his last victory — but he is a well rounded, middle-of-the-pack guy who would be the perfect litmus test for Edwards. Miller was expected to face Sean Pierson at UFC 152, but pulled out when he received word that his son Danny Jr. would be undergoing a much needed kidney transplant. Now that Danny Jr. appears to be in the clear for the time being, we imagine Dan could use some more help paying the bills, and a win over Edwards would be a solid step in the right direction.
Michael Johnson: The TUF 12 product was able to overcome some early difficulty against Danny Castillo (thanks in part to a slight mental error by “Last Call”) in the first round and scored the most vicious knockout of his career in the second. Now finding himself on a three fight win streak, Johnson could use a slight step up in competition to see if he can overcome adversity again. A clash against the ever-improving Matt Wiman would make sense. Wiman recently scored a huge upset over Paul Sass at UFC on FUEL 5, and like Johnson, could use another big victory to keep his name in circulation.
Mike Pierce: It was almost eerie how similar Pierce’s and Johnson’s performances were last Friday. Both men were rocked in the first round, only to release the Kraken (I TOLD YOU!) and deliver a spine-shattering knockout early in the second. Considering how terrible Pierce looked in his victory over Carlos Eduardo Rocha his last trip out, he has to be feeling like a boss right now and rightfully so. Pierce is now 7-3 in his UFC career, with all of his losses coming to title challengers, so why not toss him another former title challenger? After falling to a third round come from behind submission at the hands of Martin Kampmann, Thiago Alves was supposed to fight Yoshihiro Akiyama at UFC 149, but blah blah blah injury curse, so pairing him against Pierce seems like a pretty smart move to effectively destroy any hope one of these men has at a title shot (or another in Alves’ case).
Are there any matchups that you’d rather see, Potato Nation?
At UFC on FX 5 Friday night, John “The Magician” Dodson and Jussier Da Silva delivered an underrated fight that saw more a tactical “chess match” style of battle than what some MMA fans regularly witness.With a crack at reigning UFC flyweight champion …
At UFC on FX 5 Friday night, John “The Magician” Dodson and JussierDa Silva delivered an underrated fight that saw more a tactical “chess match” style of battle than what some MMA fans regularly witness.
With a crack at reigning UFC flyweight champion Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson up for grabs, Dodson and Da Silva spent time implementing fancy footwork and a hit-and-run plan of attack. Partial reasoning for this came by virtue of Dodson’s takedown defense and respect for the clearly improving striking of Da Silva, who packed on some muscle and showed some good footwork of his own.
In reality, only one real knock can apply somewhat to Dodson’s performance, and that knock comes in the form of Dodson’s flat-footed lateral movement, but in outstriking “Formiga”, Dodson proved to do more with his flat-footed approach than what Formiga could do in attacking from angles.
Unfortunately for both flyweights, the crowd reaction suggests that nobody really cares how much one man did to the other, nor does anyone really care that Dodson knocked Formiga down twice, earned a second-round TKO victory, punched his ticket to a shot at Johnson’s belt and became the first man to finish the Brazilian prospect.
Is that a personal knock on the fighters themselves? Absolutely not.
In fact, let this author state for the record that he is, was and will remain a proponent for the flyweight division and its development in the sport.
At the end of the day, however, a new division by any other name is still a new division and that’s OK. Every active division in the sport needed to develop and earn their reputation as an electrifying source for top-tier MMA action.
Some can point to the cage size or the lack of power when looking at flyweight fights as “point fights,” but the public could’ve easily seen a lack of power as a detriment with the lightweights when the 155-pounders first rose to prominence. I personally find it hard to believe that the Octagon stays the same size for every single fight card, even if it looks huge every now and then.
With time, the flyweights will grow, and when they do, they will grow on fans. For now, however, we must wait and give the flyweights that time to grow.
Until we let the division develop, more fights will deliver tactical chess matches like Dodson vs. Formiga and fewer fans will appreciate the beauty of the action right before our eyes.
Love them or hate them, you can’t deny the quality of the action provided by the fights in the lighter weight classes. A look at MMA‘s archives will show a number of fights in the featherweight, bantamweight and flyweight divisions that all did their part in highlighting exactly how they hold their own with those of the more established divisions.
