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The Question: Is Chuck Liddell vs. Tito Ortiz 3 the Best or Worst Idea Ever?

What’s old is new again.
It’s 2017 and yet here we are, watching UFC President Dana White apparently bully his athletes, just like the old days before WME-IMG purchased the promotion.
Oh, and we’re discussing the merits (or lack thereof) of a fight bet…

What’s old is new again.

It’s 2017 and yet here we are, watching UFC President Dana White apparently bully his athletes, just like the old days before WME-IMG purchased the promotion.

Oh, and we’re discussing the merits (or lack thereof) of a fight between Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz. For real.

Fellow B/R scribe Scott Harris joins me to talk through every aspect of Liddell vs. Ortiz. Is this a fight we really need to see again? Or is this a feud better constrained to social media and casual forays through the Fight Pass video library?

JEREMY BOTTER: Scott, I know it feels like you’ve emerged from that sweet time machine you found on eBay and found yourself in the year 2007. After all, Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz are doing faceoffs and bickering back and forth just like the old days, and Dana White is still doing that thing where he tries to bully his fighters into doing whatever he wants.

Sadly, it’s still 2017. Dana is still Dana. And Tito and Chuck are retired, or at least MMA retired, which is an altogether different thing than actual retirement.

The social media world got all hot and bothered recently when Chuck posted a photo of himself training, which was notable because he looks far more in shape now than he ever did in his UFC career. I mean, Chuck Liddell had abs. That’s a sentence I never thought I’d type. But there he was, abs and all, teasing a possible comeback.

And then this happened.

Back when Chuck retired, I was happy. He got a sweet no-show job with the UFC, and he didn’t have to get his head beaten into a living death to do it. But that lifetime job Dana promised Chuck…well, turns out it wasn’t really for life, as Ortiz hinted at using all the class he can muster in a social media shot at Liddell.

And normally I’d feel gross about the idea of—abs or no abs—Liddell fighting again. But now there’s Bellator, a fight promotion that has done a bang-up job of grabbing old UFC dudes and using them to fill an unofficial master’s division.

If Liddell, a man clearly in fighting shape, digs the idea of getting back in the cage to smash Ortiz and his planet-sized head one more time, I say why not? It’s not as though Tito has turned into a knockout artist in the years since he was on the receiving end of his last Liddell spanking.

I just don’t see any downsides here. But I suspect you’ve got a few reasons of your own.

SCOTT HARRIS: Why, yes, Jeremy, indeed I do.

I admit there was something stirring about that faceoff profile Liddell posted on his Instagram. There was Liddell’s lantern jaw and mohawked scalp, and Ortiz’s bald dome still looking ready to demolish some uninhabited buildings. What fight fan isn’t going to look at that and feel a twinge?

But it’s not a good idea. It’s just not.

The combined age of these two fighters? Eighty-nine years old (Liddell is 47, Ortiz 42).

Remember how Liddell’s career ended? The short answer is “badly.”

The bottom fell out of the great brawler’s chin, leaving him at the mercy of Rashad Evans, then Shogun Rua, then Rich Franklin. All three of those losses were clean KOs.

The end of Ortiz’s UFC run wasn’t quite as crushing, but he still went out with more of a whimper than a bang. The Huntington Beach Bad Boy had a record of 2-7-1 in his final 10 bouts there, taking three of those Ls by knockout. He only has one knockout loss in the entire rest of his career, so that’s not difficult math to work out.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) can’t yet be definitively diagnosed in a living person, but there are indications Liddell may be suffering symptoms of that or a similar disease caused or exacerbated by concussions. There have been many instances where Liddell has slurred his speech or appeared semi-coherent in public, like this one from 2009 or this one from 2007. Different explanations, from alcohol to sleepiness to medication, have been thrown out there.

We may never know the cause for certain, but it’s enough to raise some flags, especially given Liddell’s hell-demon fighting style. That plus his knockout losses were enough to prompt Johhny Benjamin, a physician and MMA fan who has never examined Liddell, to opine that Liddell should never fight again.

Adding an extra note of sadness to this is the strong likelihood that Liddell is doing this, as you suggested, Jeremy, for the money. The gravy train left the station when the UFC took on new owners. That was six months ago.

And now, suddenly, he has the itch again?

Far be it from me to tell a man not to make a living, but at the age of 47, couldn’t a famous and highly accomplished person like Liddell find a less concussive way to make a buck? This is a bit out of character for me, but I’ll let UFC President Dana White have the final word here.

In a first-person account given to Bloomberg in 2013, White explained his rationale for essentially staging an intervention to force Liddell’s retirement.

“Someone can say, ‘Listen, I know about concussions. I had a couple in college. I’m done with them.’ Then there are these guys, like, ‘I don’t give a s‑‍-‍t if I get a concussion every single hour. This is what I’m going to do until the day I die.’

“The guys who came off the first season of The Ultimate Fighter became some of our biggest stars. But every athlete’s run comes to an end. Age catches us all. Chuck Liddell, a fighter who helped us build the brand, got to the point in time where he wasn’t Chuck Liddell anymore.”

That’s scary and it’s sad. And I don’t want to see it get worse for the benefit of my nostalgiaphilia.

BOTTER: I’d usually agree with you, Scott, that it’s better to err on the side of caution with older fighters.

I was happy when Liddell was forced into retirement. I didn’t want to see him take more punishment from a younger generation of fighters that had clearly passed him by. I still shudder when I think of that hellacious knockout he suffered at the hands of Rashad Evans.

But that was before Bellator.

I’m not looking to have Liddell come in and face a young, 20- or 30-something light heavyweight contender. I don’t want to see him in the cage with Phil Davis or Ryan Bader.

What I’m looking at is a situation where Liddell signs with Bellator and faces guys like Ortiz, Ken Shamrock or Vitor Belfort, should the Young Old Lion make his way to Scott Coker’s promotion in the near future.

There’s also the personal dream match I never got to see in Liddell vs. Fedor Emelianenko. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t watch that one. Both guys are older, yes, but both guys being older is the reason a master’s division works. You’ve got one aged competitor fighting someone his own age and with similarly diminished skills.

Granted, that’s not something every fight fan will dig. It’s not mixed martial arts at its highest level. But as long as these guys are matched up with others in their own age bracket, I’m probably going to get excited when fight time rolls around. And I know I’m not alone.

HARRIS: Oh, there’s no way you’re alone. If it happens, this pulls monster ratings. Legends and freakshows are bread and butter for Bellator. The promotion’s ratings record came last year at Bellator 149. Topping that card were two fights—one between 50-year-old Royce Gracie and 52-year-old Ken Shamrock, the other between Kimbo Slice and Dada 5000. You remember that fight as the one where Dada 5000 nearly died in the cage.

Plenty of people will like this. I’m not one of those people, and I know I’m not alone on that side, either.

On the issue of safety, I don’t think I’d put this as erring on the side of caution. Although CTE is always something of a guessing game, erring on the side of caution implies prevention. At this point, I’d say we’re talking less about prevention or caution and more about stopping additional damage. In other words, erring on the side of caution is no longer an option for these two, in my opinion.

But there’s more than a safety issue underpinning my objection. And hey, these are grown men who are experts in their field. I’m not here to be their nanny or wring my hands. As sad and scary as CTE might be, these are two men who are free to make their own decisions.

I guess part of it is what you indicated, Jeremy—that the actual quality of the fight will be very far diminished from their glory-days fights. Another part is the concussion issue, which would make me wince at various points throughout this fight whether I want it to or not. Another part is that I don’t like watching old people fight—simple as that. Another part is the sad assumption that these former champions are doing it because, contrary to the evidence at hand, they need a quick paycheck. They’re humiliating (not to mention potentially badly hurting) themselves for a buck.

Basically, these are no longer titans of the sport. They are fallen titans.

I don’t want to watch fallen titans fight.

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Max Holloway Is UFC Featherweight Champ—But Is McGregor the Best Ever?

The mixed martial arts are constantly evolving, techniques coming in and out of favor as fighters discover what works and what doesn’t in the world’s most demented scientific laboratory—the UFC’s Octagon. But sometimes it’s the old standbys that work best, as Max “Blessed” Holloway proved Saturday night in Brazil, dropping legendary featherweight Jose Aldo with the oldest trick in the book, the old one-two.

A jab opened his defenses. The subsequent right hand dropped him on his backside. The rest was just a matter of time. With his win, Holloway ascended the throne as the top featherweight in the world, perhaps relegating the great Aldo to the history books.

“He had everything I wanted,” Holloway told Fox Sports 1. “But his time is over. Welcome to the Blessed era…The man is the GOAT, but this is my reign now.”

With Aldo’s decline has come an increased focus on his legacy. For six long years after winning the WEC championship from Mike Brown in 2009, he dominated everyone in his path at 145 pounds. As champion of the WEC and later the UFC, Aldo won nine consecutive fights against some of the best competitors in the sport.

While his title reign was defined by the numerous fights he didn’t show up for as much as it was his eventual victories, his exploits when he managed to make it to the cage will live forever with the sport’s hardcore fans. The spectacular eight-second knockout win over Cub Swanson, the brutal destruction of Urijah Faber’s leg and the casual way he wrecked refugees from lightweight like Frankie Edgar and Kenny Florian more than establish his bona fides.

Aldo is without a doubt the most accomplished fighter his weight class has ever known and a first ballot Hall of Famer. His cumulative success cannot be denied, his long reign atop the division proving his greatness to even the most hardened skeptics. But, at the peak of his powers, Aldo was not the best featherweight of all time.

That honor belongs to Conor McGregor.

You remember Conor McGregor right? Before devoting his life to auditioning for a boxing match with Floyd Mayweather, he was the most popular fighter in UFC history, exploding the dubious, long-held belief that smaller fighters couldn’t draw in mixed martial arts.

As he becomes more caricature than man, it will be harder and harder to recall a time when McGregor was just an athlete. Lost in the snap of paparazzi cameras and the absurdities of his burgeoning celebrity is the key to his considerable appeal—McGregor is an amazing fighter.

In two short years, he wiped out the featherweight division, dropping contender after contender to the mat with his deadly left hand. While Aldo seemed content to outpoint everyone he fought, winning five of his seven title bouts in the UFC by decision, McGregor displayed a killer instinct the likes of which the sport has rarely seen.

Six men entered the cage against him en route to the championship. Five didn’t survive to hear the final bell—only Holloway managed that honor, in part because McGregor tore his left ACL during that fight.

Despite the injury, he beat the man who is now champion decisively.

McGregor‘s featherweight journey culminated in an epic fight against Aldo for the championship of the world. Before the bout, the two men toured the world, creating unprecedented interest for a division that had consistently failed at the box office during Aldo’s time on top.

It was here, in front of an adoring press and enraptured fans, that McGregor truly established the persona that would drive his rise to the top of the sport. He was in his element the moment the cameras came on, emasculating Aldo over and over again, his silver tongue turning out to be every bit the weapon his left hand is.

Eventually, however, a prize fight moves from behind the microphone to the center of the Octagon. But the change of venue did little to change the outcome. McGregor remained dominant, knocking Aldo cold in just 13 seconds, a devastating loss that will always linger over any discussion of the Brazilian’s otherwise brilliant career.

McGregor, once champion, never fought at featherweight again. Why bother with a draining weight cut when the 155 pound division was ripe for the taking? The Irishman would go on to take UFC gold in there too, looking even stronger, fresher and healthier than he had at featherweight.

The brevity of his time in the division means McGregor can never be considered the greatest fighter in featherweight history. That remains Aldo until Holloway builds a competing claim of his own.

But, at his apex, McGregor was the absolute best, a brief flicker of light in a division that desperately needed a star’s shine.

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.

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Jose Aldo Gets Second Serving of Heartbreak from Max Holloway at UFC 212

It still feels wrong to see Jose Aldo get beat up.
Somehow, though, there he stood in the closing moments of Saturday’s UFC 212 pay-per-view, bloodied and bruised in the middle of the Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro after losing his men’s featherweigh…

It still feels wrong to see Jose Aldo get beat up.

Somehow, though, there he stood in the closing moments of Saturday’s UFC 212 pay-per-view, bloodied and bruised in the middle of the Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro after losing his men’s featherweight title to Max Holloway via third-round TKO.

A hematoma the size of a croquet ball was forming on the side of his head, and the expression on his face said he couldn’t quite believe it.

He was not alone. An announced live crowd of 15,412 in his home country were all making the same face. Maybe quite a few people watching at home were, too.

It’s not that it was shocking to see Holloway beat Aldo. On the contrary, the 25-year-old Hawaiian was a chic pick to win this title unification fight and had even spent some time as the betting favorite the week of the event, per OddsShark.com (h/t Bloody Elbow).

It’s just that after nearly seven years and 15-straight fights where Aldo held the featherweight class in his terrifying sway, we got used to seeing him a certain way.

This man was a destroyer. A killer. For a long time, he was the only 145-pound champion the Octagon had ever known, the greatest featherweight fighter ever and one of most dominant titlists in UFC history.

Suddenly, there he was looking like this—again:

The first time we saw Aldo get unceremoniously dethroned, of course, was in his stunning 13-second KO loss to Conor McGregor at UFC 194 in December 2015.

That time, it was so startling and over so quickly—just a single, devastating left hand from McGregor during the first real exchange of the fight—it took on an almost dream-like quality. The way Aldo’s body dropped lifelessly to the canvas didn’t seem quite real.

This time, arguably, was worse.

This time, we’d already witnessed Aldo’s redemption. In the wake of that mystique-shattering defeat by McGregor, he’d battled back to beat Frankie Edgar at UFC 200 to recapture an interim version of the title. Four months later, after McGregor was stripped of his featherweight belt by the UFC and embarked on a lengthy paternity leave, Aldo was promoted to undisputed champion.

He’d looked good enough cruising to a unanimous decision over Edgar to convince us that he was still his old, frightening self—but a victory over Holloway was the one Aldo truly needed.

The 5’11” Holloway was the archetype for the modern UFC featherweight—big, young and exceedingly skilled. He rode into this fight atop one of the company’s most impressive win streaks, with 10 consecutive victories and an interim title of his own, after a third-round TKO over former lightweight champ Anthony Pettis at UFC 206.

Aldo dictated the first 10 minutes of the fight, using the crisp, powerful boxing combinations that had been his calling card throughout his UFC career. In the first, he stunned Holloway with a straight right and a left hook, pushing him back against the fence with a flurry of punches and a thudding knee to the face.

At that point, it appeared the old lion would have his day.

Meanwhile, Holloway looked uncharacteristically stiff and timid in the early going. His trademark high-volume pressure style was absent, and he wasn’t alternating stances between orthodox and southpaw, as had been his practice during his run to this title fight.

As the fight wore on, however, Aldo began to slow down, and Holloway’s coaches called for him to ratchet-up his attack. By the third, Aldo looked flat-footed but still dangerous when Holloway dropped him to the canvas with a pair of jab-cross combinations.

Once the fight hit the mat, Aldo fought to survive, weathering some heavy leather and warding off a rear-naked choke attempt from Holloway. Eventually, however, he wound up turtled on the floor with the younger fighter on his back. Holloway rained down punch after punch until referee John McCarthy stepped in to stop the action.

The immediate impression was of a sudden swing in the momentum, leading to a bitter second serving of heartbreak for the once-great champion.

When it was over and the experts parsed through Aldo’s performance, a couple of things stood out. First, that his mid-fight drop-off, which has been his Achilles heel throughout his career, opened the door for Holloway to find his rhythm and put this fight away.

Second, that Aldo fought nearly 15 minutes without throwing a single leg kick, the powerful and disruptive technique that had epitomized his long, successful career.

The mood for Holloway was pure jubilation as he received the title in the cage. He’d waited a long time to get this shot and in the absence of McGregor—who is off chasing a boxing match against Floyd Mayweather—this win marked the dawning of a new era at featherweight.

If there’s a silver lining here, even for Aldo fans, it’s that the new champion is truly likable.

“I went out there, took my time, and it was my night,” Holloway told Fox Sports after the fight, via CBS Sports’ Lyle Fitsimmons. “Slow and steady always wins the race. I’ve got five rounds. I knew he would fade and I took advantage as the shots opened. I was in there to fight. My game plan was to go out there and fight. This [isn’t] a sprint. Everything turned out the way I wanted to.”

Yet Aldo has been such a staple in the MMA world for so long, it’s difficult to see him go out like this. For years, it seemed like a given he would go down as the greatest 145-pound fighter in UFC history. Now, this pair of losses might well end up defining his legacy.

His supremacy over the division was smothering during his heyday, putting up nine consecutive title defenses from 2009-2015 across the WEC and UFC. He beat Urijah Faber in the WEC‘s only PPV bout, beat Chad Mendes twice, beat Edgar twice.

At the same time, however, Aldo never cracked the glass ceiling to become a full-fledged promotional monster for the UFC. His title run was beset by injuries and—after the highlight-filled swath he cut through the WEC before the UFC absorbed the smaller company in 2010—it was somewhat underwhelming by comparison.

He won just two fights in the Octagon by stoppage, while six went to decision. Granted, he was taking on the rest of the best featherweights in the world and in most cases running circles around them, but after seven stoppages in eight WEC fights—including some jaw-dropping highlights, like his eight-second, double-flying knee KO of Cub Swanson at WEC 41—we knew he was capable of greater things.

Now, it’s possible Aldo’s reign will be framed as defining only the early days of the featherweight division. He found much of his success against smaller, grappling-based foes, before longer, better-rounded fighters like McGregor and Holloway showed up on the scene.

It bears repeating that Aldo isn’t done yet. He’s put 13 years and 29 fights into this sport and, if he chooses to carry on, could conceivably have five or six years of prime fighting life left in him. He remains a dangerous matchup for anyone at this weight and could certainly work his way back to contender status.

The waters before him now will be largely uncharted, however, as he makes the transition from perennial champion to aging foil.

Meanwhile, the division opens up for Holloway with the promise of a fresh matchup against Edgar, a potential rematch with Swanson and a possible future meeting with fellow young gun Yair Rodriguez.

Aldo will be locked out of that picture for the time being.

Until he can change his fortunes, our lasting image of him may well be as the guy crouched against the cage with his head in his hands, being consoled by teammates as he tries to make sense of what just happened to him.

And we might never get used to seeing him like that.

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Forget Conor McGregor; Max Holloway’s the New Boss of the Featherweight Division

Max Holloway was the runaway train we never saw coming. When he debuted in the UFC back in 2012 at just 20 years old, he was the youngest fighter on the roster. Unsurprisingly, Holloway went through early struggles. After his first six bouts in the Oct…

Few fighters have started their careers with this kind of arc and gone on to become a UFC champion. Usually, greatness manifests itself early. But Holloway grew, worked, grinded and started racking up wins. He stopped four opponents in a row. Then, he outclassed veteran Cole Miller. And then, when he choked out Cub Swanson, there was no more hiding that Holloway had evolved past most expectations for him.

Still, he had to further to go. Way further, as he piled up wins against Charles Oliveira, Jeremy Stephens, Ricardo Lamas and Anthony Pettis. By the time he was done—by the time the UFC agreed that yes, he was ready to fight for the undisputed belt—he’d won 10 straight, the longest streak any fighter has ever authored before fighting for a championship.

To take the final step, he only had to beat Jose Aldo, the consensus greatest featherweight ever. He only had to do it on Aldo’s home soil.

In a match that imitated Holloway’s career, the start was shaky and the finish was stunning. The UFC’s most unheralded win streak paved the road to gold, as Holloway captured the undisputed featherweight championship via technical knockout at 4:13 of the third round in Rio de Janeiro.

The stoppage—which came after dozens of unanswered strikes—left the once-frenzied crowd in almost complete silence, pondering Aldo’s fall and Holloway’s rise, and everything in between.

And there is so much else.

This is the division that Conor McGregor ruled and then abandoned without a second thought, a division that has had his long shadow cast upon it by his absence all the while.

However fair, Holloway and Aldo were fighting that, too, the memories of what McGregor had done to the division, and to both of them before he left to chase the UFC lightweight belt, and then—maybe—boxing.

A relatively short time ago, McGregor starched Aldo with a quickness. And some time before that, he’d drowned Holloway on the mat on the way to a decision win.

Those results don’t just go away; they can’t be erased. But Holloway has done everything possible to show his improvement. Back then, he was just a kid, young and green. Today, he is still just 25 years old, but he is reimagined, revamped and remarkable. And he is a worthy champion. An 11-bout winning streak is its own statement. So is the way he won.

In the early going, Aldo was sharper and faster and better. Holloway looked slow and unsure, but ate what Aldo had to offer before taking over.

The end came on a four-piece combination, followed by a ground swarm that could serve as an instruction manual for fight-finishing. Overhands and elbows and back-taking and flowing to mount. With every move, Aldo was sinking in quicksand. With every move, Holloway was drowning him.

“No adversity; it is what it is,” Holloway said on the Fox Sports 1 post-fight show. “Slow and steady always wins the race. I was taking my time. I had five rounds. I took my time. I knew he’d fade later on, and I took advantage of the shots that were open.”

It’s important to realize the context of this win; Aldo, we must repeat, is the featherweight G.O.A.T., even if he had his legacy changed by a single punch, one of the loudest left hands ever thrown by a loudmouth.

The thing about it is that it wasn’t a fluke, and neither was the man who threw it. McGregor is both a superstar and a super-fighter, yet the aftermath of that punch has stuck on Aldo like a putrid stench.

On an objective level, most people understand that a loss is a loss. But in the moment, emotion matters. The setting matters. The opponent matters.

Aldo’s failure was notable because of all the circumstances that predated it. The long lead-up. The world tour. The trash-talking opponent. All of it served to intensify the match, and to magnify the result.

Never mind that McGregor has lost, too. Never mind that he has more career losses than Aldo. All of that is forgotten in the electricity of a magical moment.

Still, as that moment recedes into history and Aldo’s entire past comes back into view, perhaps reason will come back to us, too, and context with it. Perhaps as everything returns into focus, we will better grasp just what it is that Holloway accomplished.

In UFC history, guess how many people have had longer win streaks than Holloway? Four. Anderson Silva (16), Jon Jones (13), Georges St-Pierre (12) and Demetrious Johnson (12).

That’s legendary consistency and a belt to go along with it. That’s enough to conclude that whatever the past, Holloway has reached greatness.

Everything changes in time. Fighters evolve and records are broken and shadows are overcome by light, and Max Holloway is a representation of all of this.

When he first showed up all those years ago, we couldn’t see what he could be, not because we’re nearsighted, but because it was simply too far off in the distance. The future was whatever he made it. The future is still his.

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Vitor Belfort’s UFC Swan Song Is a Bridge to the Cheap Thrills of Bellator

1998 is a long time ago. Brazil is a far way away.
It was there that the world first saw Vitor Belfort.
Sure it had met him before, as the force of nature who took over the heavyweight bracket at UFC 12 and destroyed all in his path before simila…

1998 is a long time ago. Brazil is a far way away.

It was there that the world first saw Vitor Belfort.

Sure it had met him before, as the force of nature who took over the heavyweight bracket at UFC 12 and destroyed all in his path before similarly demolishing Tank Abbott in under a minute at UFC 13, but the UFC’s first foray into Brazil was the first time the world truly saw him.

Blistering across the cage to pump piston rights and lefts into the unsuspecting dome of Wanderlei Silva—an eventual legend in his own right—Belfort let the world know that he was as real as it got.

It was grisly and fun in equal measure, and that meant a lot in 1998.

It was still very much about ultimate fighting then, with emphasis on the fighting. As related to the modern conception of mixed martial arts, the only thing mixed was the blood and sweat and the only art was the giant bald figurehead emblazoned on the canvas.

Few men emerged from that era to remain active two decades later. Belfort is one of them, and he’ll fight Nate Marquardt at UFC 212 on Saturday night in a bout that is to be his swan song with the promotion.

Most thought that meant retirement until reports recently began to appear that Belfort would, in fact, not be retiring and instead had an eye on moving to Bellator, where he could more appropriately act his age, as it were.

In the MMA sense of the phrase, that means picking fights with other guys who’ve been around for a couple of decades, who are equally diminished but still every bit as interesting to fans focused on the names on a fight poster.

It’s about as close to a legend’s league as he’s going to come.

And in that neighboring promotion, one working so hard to be legitimate but still far enough from nipping UFC heels that they can book Royce Gracie or Ken Shamrock without batting an eye, Belfort will find his fellow legends.

Either of those names would look fantastic opposite him on a marquee, particularly for fans of the most deplorable elements of the sport.

Silva has migrated to Bellator. He’ll be 41 years old this summer and hasn’t fought in four years after a host of drug and regulatory issues stalled his career.

Chael Sonnen, another former Belfort nemesis who didn’t get the chance to consummate their feud with some face punching, will fight Silva later this month and would surely love the chance at another Brazilian star after that.

Even popular names that aren’t on their last legs like Rampage Jackson or Melvin Manhoef would probably get the blood pumping for most people interested enough to pay attention to Bellator in the first place.

They’re cheap thrills for sure, but they remain thrills nonetheless.

MMA is a different realm of the sporting world than most, where veterans lose their appeal long after they’ve lost their physical capacity. Whereas a team sport expects that the old will die out and the young will take over, MMA provides the opportunity for the young to do the killing in a more hands-on manner.

Yet there is generally still an appetite to see the old, and when matched appropriately, there isn’t great harm in it. Many of the past generation could still stand to make a paycheque, and if people are still willing to pay to see them do it, then everyone wins.

That’s where Belfort is at this stage: not good enough to compete with the best, but not so far gone that he can’t be of value outside the UFC.

Many of his contemporaries have already proved as much when it comes to a veteran’s worth. Many more will surely come behind him to keep proving it.

But for now, we have his UFC swan song and it’s service as a bridge to the cheap thrills he’ll find for himself and provide for others in Bellator.

For now, we have some old-fashioned grisly fun on our hands, just like in the old days.

It’s quite fitting that it’s Belfort who’ll provide it.

Follow me on Twitter @matthewjryder!

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Unbeaten Knockout Machine Paulo Borrachinha Carries Hopes of Brazil’s UFC Future

Every time that Paulo “Borrachinha” Henrique Costa has stepped in the cage, he has decimated an opponent. The middleweight has done it any number of ways. The maulings have come via head kick, ground-and-pound, right cross, left hook, combination barrage and the kitchen sink. They’ve come in small regional promotions and followed him into the UFC. And they’ve all come in a single round or less.

In nine fights, Costa, who professionally goes by Borrachinha, has never had to fight more than five minutes. His shortest outing was just 32 seconds, and in his UFC debut just less than three months ago, he needed just 77 ticks of the clock to pummel Garreth McLellan into an early evening.

For his 10th fight, he’s been anointed. The UFC has placed him on the main card of this Saturday’s UFC 212, where he’ll take on Oluwale Bamgbose. The placement of Borrachinha smack in the middle of the card is no accident. The UFC has always taken fight order seriously, and it is rare to see someone in his second fight with the promotion on the main card of a pay-per-view. After all, to most of those watching, including the hardcore MMA fans, Borrachinha is a nobody. But the UFC hopes that by about 11 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday, his name will be trending in Brazil and abroad.

The home market is the key one. Since the UFC formally re-entered the Brazilian sports scene in 2011, it has been one of the most important stops on their never-ending world tour. In 2012, the UFC set up its Octagon in Brazil three times. In 2013 and 2014, they visited seven times each, raking in millions.

But since then, it’s been a steady decline. In 2015, they came five times, and in 2016, the number dipped to three. This year, unless something changes, they’re only scheduled to visit the South American nation twice.

That’s no accident.

Part of the falloff stems from Brazil’s economy, which went from supercharged to struggling right around 2013. But part of it is due to the nation’s fading star power in MMA.

Anderson Silva is still around and still wildly popular, but he’s now 42 years old. He’s also stumbled continuously since losing the middleweight title, capped off by a failed a drug test in 2015. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira retired. Shogun Rua and Lyoto Machida have struggled. Even Vitor Belfort, who’s had one of the longest, strangest careers in UFC history, has openly discussed retirement.

Other fighters like Erick Silva and Renan Barao, who at one time seemed destined to replace them as perennial headliners, have also fallen on hard times.

Brazil could really use some new draws, and Borrachinha will get the opportunity to vault himself up the pecking order in a hurry on Saturday night in Rio de Janeiro.

What does the UFC see in him? Besides his sterling record, he is an action fighter, forging a style that nearly promises a series of car crashes until only one person remains standing. He’s young (he just turned 26 years old), resembles a bronze statue, and rumor has it he speaks passable English.

These are all things that matter during a time when the UFC is owned by an entertainment giant that prizes the show on par with the sport, if not above it.

Borrachinha thus far has only had one blip in his MMA career, coming during his time on The Ultimate Fighter Brazil 3. He earned a spot in the house despite having only three pro fights at the time and, in his first bout, faced Marcio Alexandre Jr., who was far more experienced at 11-0. Alexandre weathered Borrachinha’s first-round storm and bounced back to take a split-decision win. (The fight does not count on either man’s official record since it’s classified as an exhibition.)

In that setback, Borrachinha’s mistakes were those of an unseasoned fighter. He expended too much energy wildly going for a first-round finish and was completely out of gas by the third and deciding round. Still, it said a lot for his potential to fight so competitively with a far more experienced foe.

Since then, he’s made changes to his preparation, most notably moving his training camp to put himself under the tutelage of the Nogueira brothers.

His perfect record has not come against cupcakes. His nine opponents had a combined record of 49-18 before facing him, and one of them, Wagner Silva Gomes, was a UFC veteran. In that fight, which came after Borrachinha’s TUF experience, he scored a knockout in just four minutes, 37 seconds. In all, his fights average just 2:30.

All of this portends well for his future, but there is also no pretending he doesn’t have plenty to prove. Can he more wisely allocate his energy? How will he fare against the division’s strong wrestlers? Is he just another in a long list of MMA one-round wonders who fades after five minutes?

All of these are questions that will be answered in due time.

For now, and for at least until Saturday night, his future is tinged with excitement and the hope that in him, the UFC has found a new Brazilian star.

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