The UFC website currently lists 561 fighters across nine weight classes. There is a 10th that has started sending fighters to the Octagon—women’s strawweight—but just as Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan forgot the actual first bout in the weight class happened prior to this past weekend, the four combatants who have already fought under the UFC banner don’t yet exist as far as the online roster is concerned.
Taking away the handful of retired or released fighters whose profiles haven’t been removed as of yet (Hello, Chuck Liddell! What up, Peggy Morgan?), let’s say there are exactly 500 active fighters on the UFC roster.
Obviously, not all 500 are elite.
Let’s be honest, not even a quarter of them are elite.
Even if you generously counted everyone who appears in the latest version of the UFC Fighter Rankings, that’s only 144 fighters and no one really considers No. 14-ranked heavyweight Andrei Arlovski or No. 8-ranked bantamweight Bryan Caraway top tier. Just as there aren’t scores of elite fighters on the roster, there also aren’t nearly as many scrubs, as watching a UFC event with Twitter open would lead you to believe.
The phrase “UFC calibre” gets tossed around a lot during a fight card—usually in the early stages of an event and usually in a derisive manner: “That guy should be cut, he’s not UFC calibre.” The problem with trying to determine whether a competitor is up to snuff or not is that it’s a vague notion quickly slapped on anyone at the lower end of the food chain. No one is allowed to have a bad night or simply get beat—not without being declared unfit to compete on the biggest stage in the sport.
One of the issues with that line of assessment is that it doesn’t take into consideration—or even acknowledge—that the continuous expansion of the schedule means the roster must grow, and not all of the new faces are going to be major talents and high-upside prospects. But the reality is: (a) there needs to be a healthy collection of fighters in the lower tier of each division and (b) we’re too quick to judge whether or not a fighter belongs at this level.
Neil Magny is a good example. A contestant on Season 16 of The Ultimate Fighter, the 25-year-old welterweight won his debut against Jon Manley and then dropped consecutive contests to Sergio Moraes and Seth Baczynski, two fighters who have never been considered contenders, yet alone elite talents.
At that point, some probably said Magny “wasn’t UFC calibre” given that he came off one of the weakest seasons in TUF history and stumbled out of the gate. Over his past three fights, however, he has started using his length more and showing improvements, leading to three straight victories, including a second-round technical knockout of Rodrigo de Lima.
Not only does the UFC need guys like Magny populating the lower quarter of its, but the new reality facing the sport has changed the timeline for gauging a fighter’s potential and true abilities. Gone are the days of athletes getting a half-dozen tough tests on the regional circuit before getting called up to the big leagues. Between avoiding hard fights in order to maintain quality records and how quickly regional talent now gets scooped up, some fighters land in the Octagon while still a couple years away from being fully-formed talents. The lower tier of the UFC is now a “work in progress” zone—a place where inexperienced fighters get two, three or four fights that are more audition than anything else. It’s a chance for the organization to kick the tires on a bunch of hopefuls and see what they’ve got.
In some seasons, The Ultimate Fighter has functioned the same way. While the long-running reality TV competition unearthed some future champions and perennial contenders in early years, many of the recent seasons have been about adding depth to shallow divisions and discovering long-term prospects.
Four years after being a finalist on Season 12, Michael Johnson has put it all together, gone on a nice little run and become a Top-10 lightweight, while it has been a six-year odyssey of constant improvement that finally had C.B. Dollaway breaking into the upper tier of the middleweight division.
Everything seems to be judged at extremes and decided immediately these days, but that’s not a sound way to evaluate talent. Every fight isn’t “the best ever” or “absolutely awful” and sometimes an athlete needs a little more time to reach his or her full potential.
Let’s not forget that last weekend’s headliners—Robbie Lawler and Matt Brown—both looked like they were “not UFC calibre” just a short while ago. It’s time to redefine that designation and stop throwing it around so liberally.