Forty-four down, one to go.
Tomorrow night marks the close of the 2014 UFC fight calendar as Lyoto Machida squares off with C.B. Dollaway in the main event of a fight card you can check out on Sportsnet 360 if you don’t have a company Christmas party or family obligations to deal with.
When the UFC unveiled its plans for this ambitious schedule in late 2013, there were a lot of groans and grumbles – questions about how it would look, concerns about too much MMA and not enough “elite talent” to fill out the almost-weekly fight cards.
Saturday night in Barueri, a former champion that just fought for the middleweight title will step in against a guy that has surprisingly morphed into a top-15 talent this year, with another former champion taking on an up-and-coming Canadian finisher in the penultimate fight of the night. For free. On television.
I know there have been some ups and downs over the year, but now that we’re standing in front of the finish line and not preparing to load into the starting blocks, it feels like the early hysteria was much ado about nothing.
Seriously, is a fight card headlined by Machida with Renan Barao riding shotgun really that bad? If your rebuttal starts with, “Yeah, but everything else …” please just stop. Don’t go there. Don’t just dismiss having a pair of former champions and current contenders in quality fights landing on your television because there isn’t a third or fourth big name on the card.
Just as UFC 181 should serve as the blueprint for pay-per-views in 2015, the composition of this fight card is a tremendous outline for how to build televised UFC Fight Night events next year and beyond.
Machida is a star – a legitimate big name, top of the marquee, championship-caliber competitor who has been part of one of the final three fights for 15 consecutive appearances. Including Saturday’s contest, he’s headlined four straight events. That’s a star.
Barao might not be a star, per se, but he’s a former champion and a guy that was unbeaten for nearly a decade. In all honesty, he should be a star – how can you go nearly a decade without losing, claim championship gold, turn back a handful of top contenders and not be considered a star? He didn’t move a lot of pay-per-views when he was atop the bantamweight ranks, but that shouldn’t preclude him from being recognized as one of the elite fighters in the organization.
And their fights carry intrigue and importance in their respective divisions.
While Machida should emerge victorious against Dollaway, “The Doberman” has been on a nice run of late and is the kind of fighter that doesn’t get caught up in what should happen once the cage door closes or the expectations everyone has for him heading into a bout – he simply steps in, fights his fight and awaits the outcome. That makes him dangerous and turns this fight into a chance to see if “The Dragon” is still a cut above the rest of the contenders in the middleweight ranks or starting to slide back to the pack a little.
There is even more at stake for Barao, who missed out on a championship rematch with T.J. Dillashaw in the summer after fainting while cutting weight. In addition to losing out on a chance to reclaim the title he once held (and get paid), the Nova Uniao product lost his place in the pecking order as well, getting shuffled into a tricky pairing with Mitch Gagnon, an under-the-radar Canadian who has collected four straight wins and three first-round finishes since losing his promotional debut at UFC 149 in Calgary.
That’s compelling stuff and it’s available live and free on a random Saturday night in December. Tell me again why this expanded schedule was such a horrible idea?
I like getting to see Patrick Cummins two wins removed from his sudden entry into the UFC taking on a legitimate prospect like Antonio Carlos Junior in a televised fight. You can’t argue that the UFC needs to do more to showcase emerging talent and build new stars and then lament a fight like this being given prime real estate.
Same goes for the Elias Silverio-Rashid Magomedov scrap. Sure they’re not household names, but they’re a combined 5-0 in the UFC, 28-1 overall and steadily working their way up the treacherous lightweight ranks. The winner of this one will sit on the verge of cracking the top 15 and likely face an established contender in the first half of 2015. Why wait until that point to familiarize yourself with them when you can do so this weekend?
Plus Erick Silva returns off a loss, which means he’s due for another spectacular first-round finish. Sorry Mike Rhodes, but the pattern has already been established.
It’s a fun card closed out with some strong matchups, which pretty much sums up the year as a whole as well.
Sure, there were a few events that turned out to be clunkers and injuries scuttled some quality fights, but that happens every year and on the whole, the good has far outweighed the bad.
The doubleheaders made for long days, but there were only five of them, with one actually playing out as a Friday-Saturday split, and the oft-maligned Fight Pass shows ended up producing some of the best moments of the year.
Having 19 events in as many weeks to close out the year (Aug. 16-Dec. 20, inclusive) makes it challenging to give each show and the fighters competing a huge promotional push, but at the end of the day, fans should be primarily concerned with getting to see quality fights and there weren’t many events in that span that failed to deliver.
Tomorrow’s final event of the year will too.