April, 2017
Archive

By In Mixed Martial Arts

The Paradox of Perfection

“Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White was the first to take the dais after UFC on Fox 24 in Kansas City, Missouri. He announced the usual business — gate numbers, bonus winners, compliments to the host city — before telling the press about how he overheard Demetrious Johnson asking coach Matt Hume what he did wrong in his one-sided drubbing of Wilson Reis. White answered on behalf of Hume and really anyone else who witnessed the fight: “Nothing.” When asked about Robert Whittaker’s win, he was just as effusive: “He fought a perfect fight.” As for Rose Namajunas: “[She] fought a flawless fight.”

Perfect, perfect, perfect. It’s typical promoter hyperbole, but in a lot of ways, White wasn’t wrong. None of the winners in the top three fights had to overcome any real adversity. Namajunas utterly dismantled Michelle Waterson; Whittaker completely stifled Ronaldo Souza; and Johnson? He Mighty Mouse’d Reis, landing more significant strikes than his opponent even attempted before adding demoralization to dominance by submitting the jiu-jitsu ace. For Whittaker and Namajunas, it was the best performance of their careers thus far. For Johnson, it was business as usual.

Of course, this wasn’t just any old fight for the flyweight phenom. This was his opportunity to tie Anderson Silva’s title defense record, the most hallowed record in the promotion, if not the sport. However, with Johnson, the results of his work, as impressive as they tend to be, are never as impressive as the work itself. He was overwhelmingly favored to make his 10th title defense, which took some air of that narrative, but the manner in which he did was, well, perfect…”

 

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By In Mixed Martial Arts

The Most MMA Event of the Year

“Event of the year it was not, but by the end of 2017, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a card more MMA than UFC 210 on Saturday in Buffalo, New York.

Let’s take a minute to unpack that idea first, since saying that an MMA event was “so MMA” — and the fact that almost everyone immediately knows what that means — is telling. It hints at the bizarre, sometimes horrible and often frustrating things we expect from this sport. It’s a particular feeling in the MMA community, somewhere between victimhood and resignation, over-salted with well-earned cynicism. When hyped fights fall through last-minute due to freak injury, a United States Anti-Doping Agency flag for “dick pills” or someone slipping in the bathtub during weigh-ins, or when impossibly bad scorecards turn up after a fight, the most accurate, most succinct way to describe that feeling is to say it’s “peak MMA.” Fighting is a weird and crazy sport, so we expect weird and crazy things to happen.

Though co-main eventer Gegard Mousasi made some fight-week ripples by vocalizing unapologetic opinions about his paystubs — a point of interest compounded by the fact that the top-5 middleweight’s bout against Chris Weidman was the last on his contract — the real ridiculousness started at the weigh-ins. Strawweight Pearl Gonzalez was reportedly removed from her fight after hitting weight but not because of a failed drug test or any of the other usual suspects; she has breast implants, which are barred by the New York State Athletic Commission in boxing. She was never officially pulled from the fight and everything ended up getting squared with the commission, but the episode was a portent of just how MMA this card would turn out…”

 

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