Fans, even fans of a cutting-edge sport like mixed martial arts, are traditionalists at heart. There is comfort in the familiar. It’s part of the appeal of sports. Ball players we are watching today are playing essentially the same games they played in our grandparent’s day. That’s a beautiful thing.
Sometimes, though, fans need to be pulled, kicking and screaming, into the future. Sometimes you need a three-point line, a forward pass, to eliminate holding. Sometimes, in short, change is necessary. The UFC recognizes that, and this Friday plans to dump us, unceremoniously, right out of our comfort zone.
Big galoots? We can handle that. Nothing excites your average MMA fan more than two giant behemoths throwing heavy leather. Finely tuned, ripped and shredded athletes? We’ve got that too. After all, Georges St. Pierre has been a constant presence in our lives for years.
Two 125-pound scamps scurrying around the cage like two hyped up squirrels? Two competitors with a combined weight well under the UFC heavyweight limit?
That’s something different indeed. But the long promised flyweight division is finally making its UFC debut on FX this Friday. Are fight fans ready for a flyweight class?
“Just turn on your television and give it a chance,” Demetrius Johnson told Bleacher Report. “It’s like me telling someone they need to watch Dragon Ball Z and then telling me ‘Nah, nah, I’d rather watch Pokemon.’ Because Pokemon is more famous. Dude, just give us a chance…I’m pretty sure you won’t be disappointed…we don’t get tired, we don’t stop moving, we have submissions, and it’s always a great fight. Do you want to see two elephants fight? Or to see two jaguars fight?”
Johnson, who made it all the way to a title shot despite being dwarfed by opponents at bantamweight, is one of four men vying to become the first UFC flyweight champion. Later in the evening, Joe Benavidez will face Yasuhiro Urushitani, immediately after Johnson fights Ian McCall. The two winners will meet later in the year to crown the first champion.
McCall is the great unknown. Unlike Johnson and Benavidez, he didn’t pursue the big time, preferring to compete at 125 pounds, even if that meant doing so at the regional level. The ceiling is highest for McCall, at least in terms of star potential.
He has the real potential to fill the hipster niche Luke Cummo, Amir Sadollah, and Cody MacKenzie have pioneered with varying degrees of success. He’s charming and disarmingly funny. Best of all? McCall comes prepackaged with a great nickname (“Uncle Creepy”) and a great gimmick-a silent film villian’s curly cue mustache that he calls “a title belt for my face.”
“The first flyweight fight ever. Like you say, that’s something for the record books and for trivia questions,” McCall told Bleacher Report. “We have the chance to kind of etch our names into forever.”
Despite being the newcomer to the international scene, McCall certainly doesn’t lack confidence. When I sent out a call for questions, one came back from a fan that I thought could be interesting: “Ask McCall and Benavidez how it feels to know Brock Lesnar could pick up and curl either of them.” McCall didn’t hesitate to take that question head on.
“Brock Lesnar could probably bench press a house. He’s also boring and a douchebag,” Uncle Creepy said. “I was at Whole Foods the other day, I’m actually at Whole Foods two or three hours a day, and this guy comes up to me and says ‘I just don’t find the lightweights that exciting. I want to see someone get knocked out.’ We kind of talked and I understood his point of view. He’s not someone who watches this sport all the time. He’s just kind of a casual fan. The purists, the people who really enjoy this fight for what it is. They’re going to enjoy it more obviously.”
The truth is, the UFC is still struggling to sell the featherweight and bantamweight classes to fight fans. It’s been just over a year since the first featherweight fight in UFC history. Bantamweights followed shortly after.
As headliners, the two divisions have yet to set the world on fire. Over time, that could change. After all, smaller fighters dominate boxing and can pack them into arenas and make millions of pay per view. Joe Benavidez, the favorite in this four-man tournament, believes it is just a matter of time.
“All this stuff happens with time,” Benavidez said in an exclusive interview. “Look at the UFC when it first started. Not everyone respected it like they do now as a sport. And those guys were big. People are used to seeing the 205 pounders and heavyweights because they’ve been around for awhile. This (the flyweight division) is new stuff. I think the more fans see it, the more they will respect it. There’s no way you can watch one of our fights and not respect it….when it’s all over, they’ll probably end up favoring the smaller weight classes. Because the fights are so much more exciting and technical.”
Benavidez, a long time training partner of former featherweight champion Urijah Faber at Team Alpha Male, has lost only twice in his career-both times to bantamweight kingpin Dominick Cruz. Despite being, arguably, the second best fighter in the weight class, Benavidez had reached a ceiling of sorts. He’d lost to Cruz and wouldn’t fight his friend Faber. Changing weight classes opens up a new horizon for Benavidez, who has thought long and hard about what a UFC title would mean.
“To be crowned the first flyweight champion. To be a UFC champion? That’s a dream come true,” Benavidez said, echoing the other fighters in the tournament. “That’s been my goal since the very beginning. I have a picture of the UFC belt on my mantle. Just a photograph until I do get a real one. I look at it everyday. That’s the dream.
“That belt is going to be the first of its kind. Talk about a legacy,” Benavidez continued. I could practically see his eyes light up despite the continents between us. “That’s a legacy all in itself. The first flyweight champion. That’s something I’ll always be able to look back on. Set out on the road for all the other flyweights to come. That would be huge.”
Four little giants. Tiny titans. On the road to history. Check out the UFC on FX2, airing Friday at 9 PM EST, to watch the flyweight journey begin. Jonathan Snowden is the author of Total MMA: Inside Ultimate Fighting and The MMA Encyclopedia. He’s a regular contributor to Bleacher Report.
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