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Are There Enough Top-Level Fighters for the Flyweight Division?

Ever since announcing the birth of their own flyweight division, the UFC has every major flyweight locked down outside of Alliance MMA’s Danny Martinez, highly-touted Brazilian prospect Jose “No Chance” Tome and former Tachi Palace Fights’ fl…

For those who lost track, this means they currently hold Louis Gaudinot, John Dodson, Yasuhiro Urushitani and former TPF champions Ian McCall and Ulysses Gomez. In addition, they lay claim to Shooto Brazil flyweight champion Jussier “Formiga” da Silva, as well as Joseph Benavidez, Demtrious Johnson, John Lineker, Chris Cariaso, Darren Uyenoyama and John Moraga.

Dodson will welcome da Silva into the promotion at UFC on FX 5 in Minneapolis, while Lineker combats Urushitani in Macau in November.

In short, the UFC holds something of a who’s who as far as flyweights go, but after Benavidez and Johnson square off at UFC 152, can we claim to spot any top-level fighters?

We already can spot plenty of fighters who can fall under that description right now, if we’re only talking about the UFC’s flyweight division. McCall earned that claim with wins over da Silva and Montague, while da Silva owns a win over touted prospect Mamoru Yamaguchi and Gomez holds the distinction of being a two-division TPF champions.

All in all, though, there aren’t enough “top level” fighters in the flyweight division just yet. Strangely enough, this lack of top-level fighter depth doesn’t hurt the division, and we already understand why this doesn’t hurt the division in forward progression.

The division as a whole is new to fans, and a plethora of talented top-level flyweights—both discovered and undiscovered—still reside in promotions all over the world, while others remain under the radar because of the belief that lighter weight classes just will not sell, no matter how good they are.

As it stands now, roughly 43 percent of the UFC flyweight division dropped from bantamweight. The other 57 percent comprises of natural flyweights, with recent signee Phil Harris coming into the promotion with the distinction of being Europe’s top flyweight.

Luckily for fans, the division will gain depth over time. In the past, fighters who were light for the bantamweight division found themselves training to combat their larger foes because no MMA promotion provided a platform for the flyweights.

Now that flyweights have that platform thanks to the inclusion of the division in multiple promotions, the talent pool definitely provides the depth needed for the division to prosper long-term.

That said, the flyweights will not come unless the promotions themselves build that platform for flyweights to showcase their talents to the world. If the promotion builds it, the fighters will deem that platform as the best platform on which to showcase their talents to the world.

Once the fighter displays their talents on that platform, they will make a name for themselves with each passing performance. At the moment they make their name known to the MMA world, the MMA world will recognize their talent and consider them a top-level fighter.

Right now, the division produces hidden gems and crowd-pleasing favorites, but with so many hidden gems in the division, it gets hard to truly comprehend who stands on the top level and who does not.

However, that could change between now and the time of UFC 152 on Saturday. The division may seem to lack top-level fighters in a division that only now picks up any hype or excitement, but with what the flyweights bring to the table, that hype has the potential to translate into some million-dollar action in the long run.

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UFC 152 Preview: Fantasy Guide to the Entire Vitor Belfort vs Jon Jones Card

Maybe this makes me a nerd, and if so I wear it proudly, but I love fantasy sports. From Pursue the Pennant back in the day, to what we used to call “Rotisserie League baseball,” all the way to today’s ubiquitous fantasy football, pretending to manage …

Despite, as my friend Matt Roth would tell you, my complete and utter lack of skill, fantasy sports are a fun way to get closer to (and smarter about) the games you love. That’s why it’s always bothered me that there hasn’t been a fun fantasy option for MMA. Sure, there have always been pick-em contests, but that fails to capture the nuance that makes fantasy special.

There had to be a way to do fantasy MMA right—I just wasn’t smart enough to figure out how. Luckily, Aaron Ard is just a little bit smarter. His Kountermove game is on the path to being MMA’s first real fantasy option, one worth spending a little time considering.

The Basics

A bit about the game. Earlier this year, we talked to Ard about his creation and he broke down the basics:

“Our game is fairly simple on its face; our games are played over a single night during one event. Prior to the event, players get a total of $25,000 fantasy dollars and you get to pick five fighters for your team,” Ard said. “Each fighter is given a specific price by Kountermove. We assign a value for each fighter based on how we believe the fight will go.

“Points are scored if your fighters scores a finish, wins a round, lands significant strikes, knocks an opponent down, scores takedowns, secures dominant positions or attempts submissions. The more dominant your fighters’ performance, the more points you’re going to score. If you score more points than your opponents, then you win the money.”

The winners in each game are determined by total fantasy points earned by their team of fighters during the event—strikes landed, submission attempts, knockdowns, dominant positions, rounds won, and knockout or submission bonuses.

Scores are based on full-event stats, not just overall wins like a basic pick’em game. Therefore, even if a fighter on a member’s fantasy team loses, it is still possible for that member to win the game.

All cash entry fees are added into a prize pool that is divided among the league’s winners at the end of the game. After each event, Kountermove updates game results by listing the points members received for that event, the rankings, and prize pool winnings.

Starting with UFC 152, you can now check and update your Kountermove teams on your phone. It’s too easy. Last year, according to Ard, 41 percent of fantasy sports players used their smart phones to access real-time updates about their fantasy teams and 28 percent used their phones to make changes to their fantasy team rosters.

“MMA fans are an even younger, smart phone carrying demographic. And most MMA fans watch the big fights with friends at parties or in a bar, not in front of their computer, so we built Kountermove mobile for our members to play on-the-go,” Ard told Bleacher Report.

Kountermove spent the summer building this mobile website and they expect that offering the popular fantasy MMA game on mobile will dramatically increase member engagement during live events.

No more excuses. I believe in this game and am going all in.

So, going forward, I’ll be doing a Kountermove Preview for every major event. We’ll also, in the weeks to come, have our own tournament, so the commenters who think I’m a drooling moron can prove their superiority on the field of (fantasy) battle.

UFC 152 Preview

As you can see, Kountermove (based on a number of factors including: historical points scored, fighter’s style, weight class, opponents style and skill) believes that Jon Jones, Michael Bisping and Joseph Benavidez are all significant favorites.

Main Card Lock for UFC 152: Jon Jones

Come on. The best light heavyweight in the world is fighting an old middleweight who probably still has Anderson Silva‘s foot imprinted on his face. I like Jones early, for big bonus points.

I agree with the odds, but also see an upset looming in those big three fights. Remember, the possibility of an upset doesn’t necessarily mean you should make a play, but it might mean you avoid picking the favorite and getting stuck with a big money, little point fantasy albatross.

Upset Pick for UFC 152: Brian Stann

I think Bisping is the more talented overall fighter, but Stann has one punch knockout power. Fifteen minutes is a long time for that not to come into play. Stann may not beat Bisping, but the risk of an upset is significant enough that you should at least reconsider dropping serious bucks on the Brit.

Of course, the key to a successful Kountermove campaign is careful study. The better players pick from all over the card and don’t limit themselves to just the higher-profile fighters, which means you have to do your homework on these fighters.

Undercard Lock for UFC 152: Jim Hettes

Jim Hettes is a safe play. He should walk all over Brimage. He has it all: good boxing, takedowns, and competent Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. What makes him a great pick is his relatively cheap price for a fighter who is likely to get the early round finish for lots of points.

There’s also something to a valiant loser, especially when the salary structure doesn’t always allow you to pick five fighters who are prohibitive favorites. Your going to have to pick an underdog, so you might as well make the most of it.

Dog of the Week: T.J. Grant

Grant is cheap ($4000) and at the very least I don’t see him getting submitted or knocked out. So, while you may not get points for a win, you will at least get all three rounds of statistics.

I encourage you to take a look at their site and give the game a shot. I’ve read the comments—many Bleacher Report readers believe themselves experts. Just between us, I think I know a thing or two as well. Now’s our chance to go out an prove it. See you there.

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UFC 152 Fight Card: Info and Predictions for Jones vs. Belfort

Jon Jones’ public image has taken a considerable hit since he last stepped into the Octagon against Rashad Evans.In June, the UFC’s light heavyweight champion plead guilty of driving under the influence, after wrecking his Bentley Continental GT into a…

Jon Jones’ public image has taken a considerable hit since he last stepped into the Octagon against Rashad Evans.

In June, the UFC’s light heavyweight champion plead guilty of driving under the influence, after wrecking his Bentley Continental GT into a pole. However, that only began the stream of constant criticism that Jones has had to deal with leading into his fourth title defense.

After Jones’ UFC 151 opponent, Dan Henderson, was forced out of their fight due to injury, the titleholder turned down a short-notice bout against former middleweight title contender Chael Sonnen. That decision ultimately led to the cancellation of the UFC 151 fight card, which caused many fans to blame the champion despite the fact that Jones was not responsible for putting together an event that was considered unsuitable without him.

Now, Jones finds himself headlining UFC 152 in a fifth straight championship bout against a current or former UFC champion. After months of battling verbal assault, Jones finally gets to do what he does best. He gets to close his mouth and talk with his fists.

Along with predictions for every fight, here is all the information a fan could need heading into Saturday’s UFC 152.

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Joseph Benavidez and the 10 Best Fighters Under 145 Pounds

The world is just not a very kind place for the little guy.This summer, dynamic flyweights Joseph Benavidez and Demetrious Johnson had the spotlight to themselves. At UFC 152, set to take place Sept. 22, the two would fight for the chance to become the…

The world is just not a very kind place for the little guy.

This summer, dynamic flyweights Joseph Benavidez and Demetrious Johnson had the spotlight to themselves. At UFC 152, set to take place Sept. 22, the two would fight for the chance to become the UFC’s first champion at 125 pounds. It would be the main event of the evening. And these two men thought they would live forever.

But the heavy jackboots of fate, as they so often do, had other marching orders. As quickly as UFC 151 went up in smoke, Benavidez and Johnson, just as quickly, found themselves dwarfed by one of the most controversial—if not competitive—co-mains in recent memory.

But I, for one, would like to think I’m the type who sticks up for the little guy. This is especially true when the little guy in question could probably kill me or any one of my enemies three different ways before any of us realized we were under attack. That’s probably why I’m more excited for the flyweight title bout this Saturday than I am for Jon Jones and Vitor Belfort.

But where do Johnson and Benavidez rank among the best fighters under 145 pounds? Read on to find out. For this ranking, we’re covering men only.

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UFC: The Withdrawal Epidemic and the Fighter Insurance Argument

Much has been made of the UFC’s “injury epidemic” over the past several months, but it has occurred to me that their plight could more accurately be described as a “withdrawal epidemic”. This distinction goes beyond mere s…

Much has been made of the UFC’s “injury epidemic” over the past several months, but it has occurred to me that their plight could more accurately be described as a “withdrawal epidemic”.

This distinction goes beyond mere semantics. The former suggests that the injury rate has risen substantially, which is a reasonable assumption to make. Unfortunately, this overlooks the role played by the UFC’s fighter insurance policy, a perspective that so many find unpalatable.

The level of discourse on this particular topic has been substandard, to say the least. Indeed, one gets the impression that the majority of MMA journalists are in principle opposed to the notion that fighter insurance could in any sense be the reason why so many fighters are pulling the figurative ripcord.

They seem to think that an acknowledgement of the argument’s legitimacy would, by implication, mean that calls would soon be made to strip the athletes of their right to some sort of health coverage. Again, this is a conflation of two distinct issues: injuries and withdrawals.

Injuries, not withdrawals, are the problem the UFC is faced with. The implementation of fighter insurance simply offers athletes the financial freedom to fight at their physical peak, rather than pressuring them to compete while under the burden of impending healthcare costs.

Those amongst you with a little philosophical training will doubtless be screaming, “Occam’s razor, homie. Why you gotta go and complicate the issue?”

At the risk of strawmanning you folks, this is about the level of debate I am often faced with when I present the fighter insurance argument. It is either dismissed out of hand with extreme prejudice or I am offered a profoundly unsophisticated rebuttal that amounts to little more than a non sequitur.

The stock reply goes something like this:

“If fighters don’t compete, then they don’t get paid; ergo, there is no benefit to withdrawing from a fight due to injury.”

I was crestfallen when Ben Fowlkes, so often the bastion of rationality, laid out a version of this argument over at MMAJunkie.com:

“The thing about the fighter insurance is that it’s not some golden ticket. It’s not like you get paid your show and win money for sitting on the couch with an ice pack on your knee. It’s not as if these guys are going in for elective surgery.”

This kind of response misses the point. Consider, if you will, the climate that existed prior to the UFC’s decision to insure their fighters. Most of their athletes did not have the luxury—a term I hesitate to use in this context—of being able to pull out of a fight.

If a fighter was carrying an injury, he oftentimes needed that paycheque in order to cover the costs of his surgery or his rehab. As a shank-wielding Jon Jones stood over the bloody corpse of UFC 151 (R.I.P.), we all witnessed the undercard fighters expressing the extent to which they rely on their show money to simply get by.

Imagine those same fighters having to fork over their savings to pay for surgery. Am I the only one who thinks that many of them competed injured in order to alleviate that kind of financial burden?

The simplistic rebuttal, outlined above, also seems to disregard the long term goals of your average UFC fighter. There is more to consider than earning a single paycheque, particularly when you don’t have to worry about picking up the tab when you visit the hospital.

Sure, you don’t get paid unless you fight. However, you are also risking your spot on the roster every time you compete far below your physical potential. You are putting your long term employment on the line all in an effort to pocket a few thousand dollars, and maybe some bonus money if you luck out.

To disregard these factors is to fail to reason honestly about the broader benefits of fighter insurance. Conceding that the UFC’s athletes may be more willing to withdraw from a scheduled bout is not akin to identifying fighter insurance as a problem.

On the contrary, it is very much a good thing that the UFC has unburdened its roster, and not just because healthcare should be a right rather than a privilege. It has also exposed the fundamentally flawed nature of modern MMA training and its bafflingly counterintuitive “train as you mean to fight” philosophy.

If the case I have made is not sufficiently compelling, simply ask yourself why Bellator are not dealing with a withdrawal epidemic. Answers on a postcard, please.

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UFC 152: After Vitor Belfort Who Will Challenge Jon Jones?

Come this Saturday, Jon Jones will be defending his title against Vitor Belfort. Make no mistake about it, Jones is going to beat Belfort just as he has every other former Champion placed in front of him.The question is, what comes next?There’s been a …

The question is, what comes next?

There’s been a huge shakeup in the light heavyweight division since Henderson pulled out of UFC 151. It seems like Henderson has lost his title shot because he failed to disclose the injury soon enough.

Machida too looks like he lost his number one contender spot when he refused to fight Jones on short notice.

So who is left to fight Jones for the title? The obvious answer emerges at UFC on Fox 5.

Shogun Rua is facing Alexander Gustafsson in what looks a lot like a number one contender fight. Rua is a former champion and obviously that gives him an edge in getting another shot to reclaim his title. Gustafsson on the other hand is a once-beaten fighter who has been steadily climbing the light heavyweight ranks.

When these two square off, we will have an obvious candidate to take a fight with Jones. If Rua wins, he’ll have amassed a three fight win streak and beaten a top prospect. If Gustafsson wins he’ll have worked his way through increasingly difficult opposition and beaten a former champion. Either man will be an easy sell as a number one contender.

And what about Jones and Machida? Supposedly the two will be fighting before years end. Both men are known to have no objection of taking some time off after their fights.

Given the frequency with which Jones fights, in December we could have two contenders ready for an early- to mid-year fight with the champ.

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