Last year proved to be a difficult transition for new UFC owners Endeavor (formerly WME-IMG), who bought the UFC for over $4 billion in 2016. With superstars sidelined and hype trains’ stock crashing in a single night, it’s been a tough go for the UFC. Couple that with injuries, weight-cutting issues, rampant performance-enhancing drug use, […]
Last year proved to be a difficult transition for new UFC owners Endeavor (formerly WME-IMG), who bought the UFC for over $4 billion in 2016.
With superstars sidelined and hype trains’ stock crashing in a single night, it’s been a tough go for the UFC. Couple that with injuries, weight-cutting issues, rampant performance-enhancing drug use, and rapidly declining pay-per-view sales, and it would seem like things can’t get much worse.
There’s obviously still time for Endeavor to turn things around, but their margin for error is considerably smaller in 2018 than it was at the start of 2017.
With a new year ahead of them, the UFC must abide by six directives in order to succeed in 2018.
6. Spread The Hype More Evenly
UFC 220 was a perfect example of what the UFC cannot do in the coming year.
Title challengers Francis Ngannou and Volkan Oezdemir were hyped beyond belief, especially Ngannou.
The hype was so excessive that it actually came across as disrespect to champions Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier, to the point where Miocic refused to let Dana White put the belt around his waist after snuffing out Ngannou’s hype train.
The UFC had the right intentions but the wrong idea; they need to build up their champions, especially Miocic, instead of flavor-of-the-month prospects. They have an absolute killer as a heavyweight champion and they put more energy into Ngannou, who in reality had only knocked out two top fighters – both of whom Miocic dispatched before beforehand.
With so many new divisions and champions, it may seem hard to do, however, it’s the only way to avoid the pitfalls of last year.
Rose Namajunas has no issues with giving Joanna Jedrzejczyk a rematch. The two will meet for the strawweight title at UFC 223 on April 7 from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. For Namajunas (7-3), the hard part is figuring out a way to improve upon her …
Rose Namajunas has no issues with giving Joanna Jedrzejczyk a rematch. The two will meet for the strawweight title at UFC 223 on April 7 from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. For Namajunas (7-3), the hard part is figuring out a way to improve upon her dominating performance from last November vs. Jedrzejczyk (14-1). “That’s […]
The early betting odds for the rematch between current UFC women’s strawweight champion Rose Namajunas and former champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 223 have been set. Leading into this fight, some things have changed but also have stayed the same as Jedrzejczyk is still the betting favorite over the newly crowned champion. The UFC has […]
The early betting odds for the rematch between current UFC women’s strawweight champion Rose Namajunas and former champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 223 have been set.
Leading into this fight, some things have changed but also have stayed the same as Jedrzejczyk is still the betting favorite over the newly crowned champion.
The UFC has already announced that Namajunas will defend her title against Jedrzejczyk in the co-main event of UFC 223, which is slated to take place UFC 223 is slated to take place on Saturday, April 7 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The main card will air on pay-per-view at 10 p.m. ET while the preliminary card will air on FOX Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass. Tony Ferguson vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov will headline this event. This marks the second time that Namajunas will take on previously undefeated Jedrzejczyk. If you recall, they fought back in November at UFC 217 where Namajunas won with a first-round knockout. This was a shocker to oddsmakers as Jedrzejczyk closed as a more than 8-1 favorite. Veteran MMA oddsmaker Joey Oddessa has set the odds for Jedrzejczyk at -225 with Namajunas coming back at +180. By breaking it down, a winning $100 bet on Jedrzejczyk would result in a net profit of $44.44. On the flip side, a winning $100 bet on Namajunas, meanwhile, would net a profit of $180.
Going into their first encounter, Jedrzejczyk’s antics were talked about a lot as she brought up Namajunas’ history of mental instability. Before UFC 217, there were many people who believed that Jedrzejczyk was the best female fighter on the planet.
Most in the mixed martial arts world were shocked when former women’s strawweight champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk lost her title to Rose Namajunas via first-round knockout at November’s UFC 217. After defending the title five times, Jedrzejczyk lobbied for an immediate rematch with ‘Thug’ Rose despite the quick and vicious nature of her loss. Ultimately, she got […]
Most in the mixed martial arts world were shocked when former women’s strawweight champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk lost her title to Rose Namajunas via first-round knockout at November’s UFC 217.
After defending the title five times, Jedrzejczyk lobbied for an immediate rematch with ‘Thug’ Rose despite the quick and vicious nature of her loss. Ultimately, she got it as well, signing on for the rematch at April’s UFC 223 from Brooklyn, New York.
When she does, however, she’ll prepare for the bout without the aid of her former nutritionists Perfecting Athletes, whom she fired following a disagreement about how her weight management was handled prior to the Namajunas fight. Details were scarce about just what prompted Jedrzejczyk to incite such drastic change, but today (Mon., Jan. 22, 2018), the former champ revealed why to Ariel Helwani on today’s The MMA Hour in a graphic description.
Jedrzejczyk said she cut an alarming 15 pounds in only 14 hours and was surprised to even make weight:
“Man, I felt so bad, I had to cut 15 pounds in 14 hours; I did it in 14 hours.
“I think Perfecting Athletes couldn’t believe that I did that. I start my weight cut at 5 pm on Thursday and I was on weight five minutes before 11 am on Friday, so it was a miracle. I was praying to God for this miracle. And it happened. I took this mentally. I was crying, I was so weak but I believed it. I said to one of the Perfecting Athletes team, ‘Hey, it’s a shame for a champion to not make her weight’, and then I made it — a thing I couldn’t believe.”
Photo by Noah K. Murray for USA TODAY Sports
The title challenger continued on about the drastic cut, detailing how things got worse when her legs began to numb, which returned the day of the fight:
“After the weigh-ins, I had only fluids and I went to bed because I took just two 15-minute naps during the weight cut.
“The thing is, my legs got numb after I woke up. I said to my doctor, ‘Hey, my legs are numb’, and she said, ‘nothing to worry about, we’re going to hydrate you more’ and ‘you’re going to be fine’.
“But the next day, I felt the same and thought the most crazy things. I took the fight mentally. I wanted to go into the fight and push away all of the worries.”
With her rematch now in sight, Jedrzejczyk said that she had trusted her advisors at Perfecting Athletes, but they made a mistake – a mistake which she paid the ‘ultimate price’ for after being light all training camp before running into serious trouble towards the tail end:
“They were like family, you know. I trusted them so much and I paid the ultimate cost for someone’s mistake,” she said. “They agreed with me. We sat and talked on Monday after the fight and they agreed with me that they made a mistake, but I paid the ultimate price.”
“I was light in this camp,” Jedrzejczyk continued when asked what mistake had been made by Perfecting Athletes.
“I was like 127 on the Friday and Saturday a week before the fight. We were planning to get me to 125 by Tuesday, but my weight went up on Sunday to 130 and I couldn’t drop the weight for three or four days. I did everything that I could, and it’s their mistake. I started my weight cut with the limit at 130, so it was almost impossible to make that weight.”
Rose Namajunas will defend the UFC Women’s Strawweight Championship against former title-holder Joanna Jedrzejczyk on April 7 during UFC 223 at the Barclays Center in New York City.
UFC announced the rematch Friday.
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Rose Namajunas will defend the UFC Women’s Strawweight Championship against former title-holder Joanna Jedrzejczyk on April 7 during UFC 223 at the Barclays Center in New York City.
An Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) stawweight title rematch may take place this spring. TalkMMA first reported that Rose Namajunas is set to defend her 115-pound gold against Joanna Jedrzejczyk on April 7 at UFC 223. MMAFighting.com was later info…
An Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) stawweight title rematch may take place this spring. TalkMMA first reported that Rose Namajunas is set to defend her 115-pound gold against Joanna Jedrzejczyk on April 7 at UFC 223. MMAFighting.com was later informed that the title rematch is being discussed, but hasn’t been finalized. Back in November, Namajunas stunned […]
