Do first-round knockouts automatically make a UFC event an all-timer?
What is Sean Strickland’s next move to address his displeasure with his current UFC pay? Do a bunch of quick knockouts automatically equal a great event? And is Alex Pereira’s next heavyweight fight a true make-or-break situation?
All that and more in this week’s mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @BenFowlkesMMA on X or @Ben_Fowlkes on Threads.
@wolfe_was_here: Can you break down Sean Strickland’s Magnum Opus/twitter rant? Will the UFC even care? Act? Can Dana be bothered?
I can’t imagine the UFC loves it, but I also think the brass probably feels like they’ve seen this before. We all have. At least, those of us who’ve been around this sport for any significant length of time have.
Here’s how it typically goes: On the way up, most fighters are just happy for the opportunity. The regional shows pay next to nothing, so an entry-level UFC contract feels like a lot. Then they get the next contract and the next. Suddenly they’re middle class. They’ve got a little room to breathe. They can even buy some nice things. They don’t know why all these older fighters are complaining about pay all the time. They should be grateful!
The lucky few go on to become champs. They’re really getting paid now. This is it, the culmination of the dream. Then they look around. If they had reached this same level in boxing they’d be making 10 or 20 times as much per fight. Same if they’d hit the pinnacle of basically any other mainstream sport. They’re always just one loss away from being knocked back to the undercard and they know this can’t go on forever.
Does Sean Strickland really have any options?Chris Unger via Getty Images
Suddenly the money doesn’t look so good anymore. In fact, it looks like a pittance compared to what other top athletes are getting. And the UFC has them locked down in the same contract for the foreseeable future, so there’s no actionable way to get from here to there. They’re stuck. Take it or leave it.
A lot of them get mad then. They want a way out, a path to some form of free agency that would allow them to really cash in on this status while they have it. But most of the time they are made to realize that the UFC is holding all the cards here. Fighters don’t get paid sitting on the couch, and the UFC will roll on with or without them. Eventually, the fighters usually cave and fight for the same money they were just complaining about.
Strickland has been a volatile rebel and outlier in many ways, so maybe he’ll be different. I kind of doubt it, though.
@Jietzsche: So many first round knockouts on the latest UFC numbered card. Was it simply chance or a sign of lopsided matchmaking?
Betting odds aren’t a perfect indicator of lopsided matchmaking, but they are a decent starting point. Depending on the sportsbook you consult, UFC 332 had five fights (out of 14 total) with a favorite who was 5-1 or greater. All five of them won via first-round knockout. Only one underdog — Roman Kopylov — pulled off a victory. Everything else was straight chalk.
Still, we’ve seen other promoters (looking at you, PFL) book much bigger mismatches by the odds, all up and down the fight card, and not get so many quick finishes. Some of that has to be pure chance.
What I think is a better question is, do first-round knockouts automatically equal fan enjoyment? I saw a bunch of people using those knockout stats alone — 11 KOs or TKOS, nine in the first round — as proof that this card was an all-time great.
I get that nobody likes boring decisions, but some of the greatest and most important fights of all time went to the judges. Forrest Griffin vs. Stephan Bonnar. Dan Henderson vs. Mauricio Rua. Weili Zhang vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk. Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson. Others, like Robbie Lawler vs. Rory MacDonald and Jiri Prochazka vs. Glover Teixeira, ended in the late rounds after dramatic swings back and forth.
Personally, I’m not here just hoping to see someone — anyone — get their head knocked off. I want to see competitive, meaningful, exciting fights. Hopefully they finish without the help of the judges. But what makes this sport great is when fighters push each other past the points that even they knew they could reach. If quick finishes is all you want, the local shows have plenty of those. They get them by virtue of some people being good at fighting and others being total novices.
Alex Pereira’s heavyweight journey may be at a crossroads.Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images
@shadore66: If Poatan gets knocked out by the cartoon rocky IV villian does he retire?
This is a tricky fight for Alex Pereira. He’s in the weird spot of being a former two-division UFC champ who is 0-1 at the weight class in which he hopes to find a permanent home. We wondered how his chin would stand up to heavyweight power and so far the answer has been: not great.
Sergei Pavlovich is a scary dude, but also not someone currently regarded as a top guy in the division. If Pereira goes out and gets starched by him — which is entirely possible — this move to heavyweight starts to look like a disaster. The flip side is that a win puts him right back in that heavyweight title conversation. Especially if Tom Aspinall’s eyes remain an ongoing issue.
@ewillcock: We all understand MMA retirements can be fickle and often temporary, but 14 years has got to be some kind of record. I figured Leben was done, but he’s returning next month to fight Akiyama.
Any thoughts on this one?
We just saw Gina Carano come back after almost 17 years away, so Chris Leben is still well short of the record. But yeah, I did not see this one coming. I last talked to Leben back in January and it didn’t seem like he was giving any serious thought to fighting again.
But who knows? Maybe the fans in South Korea have been clamoring for the chance to see their guy, Yoshihiro Akiyama, get his revenge on Leben. Put enough money on the table, and lots of fighters who thought they were all the way done might think again.
@KAIROSMMA2: People have talked about how irrelevant the rankings have become , can you pinpoint the moment things went wrong? I want to say it was when Bisping got to fight Hendo for a defense
From the UFC’s perspective, I don’t think anything ever went wrong. I think the rankings are functioning exactly the way they were always supposed to. They provide talking points for the broadcasts and can be used to hype up certain fighters when necessary, but they’ve never been permitted to get in the way of matchmaking efforts.
Let’s not forget, when Michael Bisping got that title shot he was not the top contender. He got it because Chris Weidman got injured and had to pull out of the fight with Luke Rockhold. The UFC’s first choice to replace him was reportedly "Jacare" Souza, but he didn’t take it. Bisping was just the first guy to pick up the phone and say yes, and then he made the most of the opportunity.
We have to understand that rankings are never going to be the sole or even main thing guiding matchmaking decisions. It’s always going to be some mix of availability and promotability, with the number next to the name being highlighted only when it’s convenient.
@AzzaHausen: Knowing ufc Bantamweight only has 24 women now. Do we realistically see both Kayla and Amanda retiring in november because what could possibly be after that thats worth doing
I knew that the women’s divisions were lightly stocked and that bantamweight in particular had fallen a long way from the days of being the premier weight class in women’s MMA, but wow, I was still shocke
Source: sports.yahoo.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.