John Lineker might be the scariest men’s bantamweight fighter on the UFC roster.
You know, if he could consistently be relied upon to actually be a bantamweight.
Lineker put both his virtues and faults on display in Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 96 main event, ultimately besting John Dodson via entertaining split decision despite missing weight the day before.
The outcome of the bout turned largely on Lineker’s heart and chin, and the 26-year-old Brazilian’s power once again proved enough to make even a seasoned veteran like Dodson skittish.
But Lineker has now been overweight five times in his UFC career, accomplishing that ignominious feat in two different weight classes. His name remains as synonymous with weigh-in gaffes as for knockouts—and for a fighter who otherwise appears to be championship material, that’s not a good thing.
On the heels of his sixth consecutive victory, however, it didn’t stop him from aspiring to greater things.
“I am a fighter,” Lineker told UFC play-by-play announcer Jon Anik in the cage after his victory over Dodson. “I will fight anyone they put in front of me, but I think I deserve [champion] Dominick Cruz.”
Now this is where things get tricky.
Lineker’s 10-2 UFC record is about as impressive as you will find on a fighter under 155 pounds. Unfortunately, he’s failed to make weight in nearly half those appearances, and so boosting him into a title fight would be a risky proposition for his fight company bosses.
This latest snafu came just 13 months after Lineker moved up from flyweight to bantamweight in attempt to put his weight struggles behind him. Despite the fact he entered riding a three-fight divisional win streak and ranked No. 3 on the UFC’s men’s 135-pound Top 10, he’ll still likely have to prove he can consistently make the limit before taking the final step up the ladder.
Lineker was 136.5 pounds at Friday’s official weigh-in and blamed the half-pound overage on a litany of issues. He surrendered 20 percent of his purse to Dodson as a result.
Unlike Saturday’s co-main event—where Alex Oliveira missed lightweight by a whopping 11.5 pounds before grinding out a late TKO over Will Brooks—weight wasn’t a factor in Lineker’s win. But booking him into a title fight would mean he’d have to hit 135 pounds on the nose, without even the one-pound weight allowance permissible in non-title affairs.
If he missed it at the last minute, it would constitute a promotional disaster for the UFC.
The organization has historically been fairly unforgiving of fighters who can’t make weight. Matchmakers aren’t likely to even take the chance of handing Lineker a championship opportunity until they can be sure he won’t foul it up before the fight even starts.
And at this point, it’s unclear what Lineker could do to prove he has solved the problem. Missing weight has plagued him since coming to the UFC in 2012, and now the prospect of making either 125 or 135 pounds looks iffy for him.
That’s a shame, too, because his never-say-die fighting style could make Lineker a popular attraction in one of the UFC’s two neediest divisions.
Few flyweight or bantamweight fighters hit as hard as he does or seem to take such pleasure in their work. While the UFC’s lightest men’s weight classes are rife with amazing technicians—think champions Demetrious Johnson (125) and Cruz (135), for example—Lineker is that rare figure capable of inspiring honest-to-goodness fear.
Not even Dodson, who has been a knockout artist in both divisions himself, looked comfortable in the cage with Lineker.
Early on, it was clear the 32-year-old New Mexico native would try to outmaneuver and out-game-plan Lineker. Along with his own power, Dodson’s mobility and boundless cardio have always been among his greatest athletic strengths.
He worked that strategy as well as could be expected in a 25-minute fight, too.
From the opening bell Dodson was circling, bobbing and weaving, never standing still for more than a fraction of a second. His goal was obviously to get Lineker to pursue him with occasionally ponderous power punches so Dodson could use his speed advantage to counter him.
It was an effective technique—mostly keeping Lineker off balance and limiting his ability to hunker down and uncork power strikes—but it was also an unpopular one.
The live crowd in Portland, Oregon, booed Dodson for his mastery, and—in fairness—on multiple occasions he literally sprinted out of danger when Lineker appeared to have him trapped against the fence.
But Dodson also arguably crafted much of the bout’s most effective offense.
He was obviously quicker than Lineker, and his sly counters found their mark with regularity. Dodson raised a welt under one of Lineker’s eyes as the fight wore on, and on the occasions when the two did lapse into short, heart-stopping brawls, Dodson actually seemed to get the better of many of them.
Immediately after the fight, UFC statistician Michael Carroll tweeted a note that FightMetric numbers actually showed Dodson came out ahead in total strikes landed:
But his strategy was a risky one.
It cast Lineker as the aggressor and Dodson as the evader. Anytime a fighter opts to play matador on a bull as determined as Lineker, he runs the risk losing the hearts and minds of the audience and the judges.
Dodson’s game plan forced this fight to resemble a zombie movie during its later stages. Lineker would not fade or die, even after eating some particularly hard kicks to the face. He kept coming forward, throwing his murderous punches.
Even though he never seemed to put Dodson in dire trouble, it was enough to nab victory on two of the three judges’ scorecards (48-47, 47-48, 48-47).
“I came here to give a show to you all,” Lineker told Anik, through an interpreter. “I trained very hard for this fight. I came here for five rounds one right after the other.”
Exactly what the win will earn him remains to be seen—and we should note the loss didn’t seem to hurt Dodson’s stock much, either.
Cruz is already rumored to have a date with current nemesis Cody Garbrandt, per the Daily Star’s Chisanga Malata. If that fight happens before the end of the year, then the 135-pound champion’s dance card will be full until at least early 2017.
Fourth-ranked fighter Bryan Caraway tweeted he would relish the opportunity to fight Lineker. Former champ and current No. 1 overall contender TJ Dillashaw is also fresh off a victory over No. 2 Rafael Assuncao at UFC 200 and apparently injury-free.
Either of those guys makes good sense as a next opponent for Lineker.
No matter who is next for him, Lineker will have more to prove than merely performing well on fight night.
For him, the test starts during the UFC’s new early Friday weigh-ins—and it figures to remain that way for the foreseeable future.
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