UFC 265: A Terrific Lineup Too Many Are Dismissing
Reports of the demise of this weekend's pay-per-view main card have been greatly exaggerated
When news broke last Thursday that Amanda Nunes was forced to withdraw from her scheduled bantamweight title fight against Julianna Pena this weekend at UFC 265 after testing positive for COVID-19, the reaction on MMA Twitter was swift and almost uniform across the board, with most pundits and observers declaring that the main card that was “not great to begin with” was now a major letdown in terms of a pay-per-view lineup.
Here is the re-vamped main card for this weekend:
Derrick Lewis vs. Ciryl Gane (Interim HW Title)
Jose Aldo vs. Pedro Munhoz
Michael Chiesa vs. Vicente Luque
Tecia Torres vs. Angela Hill
Song Yadong vs. Casey Kenney
Seeing myriad people describe the original card as some variation of “not great to begin with” and almost immediately and unanimously dismissing the re-worked version came as a surprise, as the initial card featured an elite heavyweight matchup, the greatest female fighter of all time defending one of her belts, two outstanding fights between Top 10 contenders in talent-rich divisions, and a 23-year-old prospect that just fell out of the rankings in a tricky matchup against an active, dangerous, veteran opponent, and the new lineup replaced the scuttled bantamweight title fight with a Top 15 pairing in the strawweight division, which is universally regarded as the deepest on the female side of the roster.
When I pushed back at the criticisms and characterizations of this card last week, two main arguments for the downplaying of this lineup emerged:
The main event is an unnecessary interim title fight and people would rather see Francis Ngannou defend his belt next month
The overall quality of this lineup is significantly less than of previous pay-per-view events this year, and therefore doesn’t merit the $70 asking price
Because this is how my brain works (and this is my space), I want to address both objections and try to explain where I’m coming from since all of this “UFC 265 isn’t very good now” talk absolutely boggles my mind.
The Ngannou Narrative
I don’t know anyone that is arguing that (a) Francis Ngannou is not the UFC heavyweight champion, (b) the winner of Saturday’s main event will be the top heavyweight in the world, or (c) that an interim title was needed.
No one is saying any of that — not one person — so why is there this incredible push to use those arguments to diminish what is an excellent heavyweight fight?
Take away the paper title and you’re left with a matchup between the No. 2 and No. 3-ranked heavyweights in the division; a veteran knockout artist who is unbeaten in his last four taking on an undefeated rising star that has already garnered two victories this year and has risen to being a championship contender in less than three years as a professional mixed martial artist.
Like everyone, I want to see Francis Ngannou defend his title and pitting the reigning champion against either of these men would have been awesome, but that isn’t happening, for whatever reasons, and that stinks.
Does it make me dislike this fight? No, not at all.
Does Ngannou’s absence somehow diminish the quality of this matchup? Not in my eyes.
Because Ngannou isn’t fighting, are these two men any less likely to combine for an outstanding fight that establishes the victor as a clear challenger for the heavyweight title? No they are not.
So what’s the problem?
Again, I get that everyone wants to see Ngannou fight and that throwing an interim belt into the mix is unnecessary, but why do those two things have to negate what is actually about to transpire and somehow prompt a large number of media members and fans of the sport to diminish the quality of this matchup and the card as a whole?
Why can’t we be sad for what isn’t happening, but also acknowledge that what is happening is still pretty damn good? It’s like saying the NBA Finals were terrible because LeBron and the Lakers weren’t playing, even though the action on the court was actually quite compelling and featured a bunch of different, intriguing storylines.
It honestly feels to me like there is this push-pull many in the media struggle with where if there is something the UFC does that they don’t like, they become incapable or unwilling to acknowledge anything else surrounding that event or athlete as being positive.
In the case of UFC 265, Ngannou isn’t fighting and an unnecessary interim title has been thrown into he mix, and since no one is happy about those two things, no one wants to say anything positive about the main event or the card as a whole, which makes absolutely no sense to me. The opening couple paragraphs in any discussion of this card can certainly be about the disappointment everyone feels about not having the current champion defending his title and this interim belt being arbitrarily dropped in here, but that isn’t the whole story about this card and presenting it as such is a disservice to the audience and the athletes competing Saturday night because suggesting this as some ho-hum card is inaccurate in my estimation.
But maybe that’s the issue — maybe I’m an outlier in this landscape who looks at this card and thinks, “What an awesome collection of fights,” while everyone else that writes about this sport and observes this sport thinks, “They’re fine, I guess.”
After all, that was the second objection launched last week.
A Very Weak PPV Lineup
The second objection to this weekend’s pay-per-view main card is that without Nunes, the five-fight slate just isn’t strong enough to roll out with a $70 price tag:
If you know me at all, you know I took Phil’s tandem questions above as an opportunity to dive into the lineups that have landed on pay-per-view already this year and put together my personal hierarchy of those events based on the overall quality of those main cards from top to bottom.
Before getting to my rankings and a lot more discussion, here is a quick refresher of what has been offered up on pay-per-view so far in 2021, as well as a reminder of what this weekend’s main card looks like:
UFC 257
Dustin Poirier vs. Conor McGregor
Michael Chandler vs. Dan Hooker
Joanne Calderwood vs. Jessica Eye
Makhmud Muradov vs. Andrew Sanchez
Marina Rodriguez vs. Amanda Ribas
UFC 258
Kamaru Usman vs. Gilbert Burns
Alexa Grasso vs. Maycee Barber
Kelvin Gastelum vs. Ian Heinisch
Ricky Simon vs. Brian Kelleher
Julian Marquez vs. Maki Pitolo
UFC 259
Jan Blachowicz vs. Israel Adesanya
Amanda Nunes vs. Megan Anderson
Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan
Islam Makhachev vs. Drew Dober
Aleksandar Rakic vs. Thiago Santos
UFC 260
Francis Ngannou vs. Stipe Miocic
Vicente Luque vs. Tyron Woodley
Sean O’Malley vs. Thomas Almeida
Miranda Maverick vs. Gillian Robertson
Jamie Mullarkey vs. Khama Worthy
UFC 261
Kamaru Usman vs. Jorge Masvidal
Rose Namajunas vs. Zhang Weili
Valentina Shevchenko vs. Jessica Andrade
Uriah Hall vs. Chris Weidman
Anthony Smith vs. Jimmy Crute
UFC 262
Charles Oliveira vs. Michael Chandler
Beneil Dariush vs. Tony Ferguson
Rogerio Bontorin vs. Matt Schnell
Katlyn Chookagian vs. Viviane Araujo
Edson Barboza vs. Shane Burgos
UFC 263
Israel Adesanya vs. Marvin Vettori
Brandon Moreno vs. Deiveson Figueiredo
Leon Edwards vs. Nathan Diaz
Belal Muhammad vs. Demian Maia
Paul Craig vs. Jamahal Hill
UFC 264
Dustin Poirier vs. Conor McGregor
Gilbert Burns vs. Stephen Thompson
Tai Tuivasa vs. Greg Hardy
Irene Aldana vs. Yana Kunitskaya
Sean O’Malley vs. Kris Moutinho
UFC 265
Derrick Lewis vs. Ciryl Gane
Jose Aldo vs. Pedro Munhoz
Michael Chiesa vs. Vicente Luque
Tecia Torres vs. Angela Hill
Song Yadong vs. Casey Kenney
This weekend’s event at Toyota Center in Houston is the ninth pay-per-view offering of the year, and looking at the five-fight collections for each event, my personal opinion today remains the same as it did upon a cursory look at the lineups on Thursday:
In order for me, it goes UFC 261, 259, 263, 265, 260, 257, 262, 264, and 258.
If we’re just talking main events, it’s certainly different, and if we’re talking individual star power, that’s a different conversation as well, but in terms of the collection of fights and the assembled talent, this weekend’s fight card — to me — trails only the two events this year that featured three championship matchups on the main card and UFC 263, which had two title fights and a five-round welterweight scrap between Leon Edwards and Nathan Diaz as the swing fight on the main card.
But I think that’s where the disconnect exists though — in the individual names on the marquee and the buzz surrounding different fighters, which is quite different than assessing a fight card by the quality of the matchups, the competitiveness of the fights, and the skills of the combatants.
The two biggest pay-per-view events of this year — UFC 257 and UFC 264 — land in the back half of my rankings, despite doing the most pay-per-view buys and having the biggest name in the sport, Conor McGregor, in the main event. There is no denying McGregor is a greater draw, that his fights with Dustin Poirier had much more hype and buzz than any other fights that have taken place this year, but from start to finish, the five-fight lineups at those two events were less interesting to me than several of the other fight cards that carried a $70 sticker price throughout the year, including this weekend’s event.
Yes, Poirier-McGregor 3 is a bigger main event than Saturday’s interim heavyweight title fight (though not by as much as some might suggest, in my opinion) but I’ll take Chiesa-Luque as the swing fight on the main card over Tuivasa-Hardy, I prefer Torres-Hill to Aldana-Kunitskaya, and am more interested in Song-Kenney than I was O’Malley-Moutinho; the co-main events are pretty much a wash for me.
It seems, however, that the majority of people base their assessments off the main event and the number of recognizable names or hyped fighters attached to a given card, which is why my guess is a significant number of people would argue the main card at UFC 260 was superior to this weekend’s slate. Side-by-side, they’re actually perfect lineups to compare and contrast, as both feature heavyweight main events, a non-title co-main event, and then three more scraps featuring a varied collection of competitors.
Here’s how the two cards break down for me fight-by-fight, with UFC 260 on the left, UFC 265 on the right:
Ngannou vs. Miocic > Lewis vs. Gane
Luque vs. Woodley < Aldo vs. Munhoz
O’Malley vs. Almeida < Chiesa vs. Luque
Maverick vs. Robertson < Torres vs. Hill
Mullarkey vs. Worthy < Song vs. Kenney
I’m happy to listen to the arguments suggesting the different between the main events is so great that it elevates UFC 260 as a whole and that O’Malley is the most compelling name outside of the heavyweight title main event, neither of which I would argue against, but neither of those things have any tangible impact on the quality of the matchups and the depth of talent on display.
Yes, O’Malley is a rising star who garners a great deal of attention, but is he further ahead in the bantamweight ranks right now than Song Yadong or Casey Kenney?
Each of the three has seven UFC fights under their belts. The combined records of their respective opponents thus far are as follows:
O’Malley (6-1 UFC): 29-35
Song (5-1-1 UFC): 32-23-3
Kenney (5-2 UFC): 36-21
O’Malley is a much bigger name, has far more buzz, and is positioned as having a significantly brighter future than both Song and Kenney, but he’s fought the weakest slate of the three thus far and the talent gap between “Suga” and 23-year-old Chinese prospect Song isn’t as pronounced as some might believe.
Buzz certainly sells more pay-per-views, but in terms of the competitiveness of the matchups and the talents of the participants, this weekend’s bantamweight opener between Song and Kenney is a better fight than each of O’Malley’s two bouts this year, and arguably each of his seven UFC appearances to date.
You can argue this weekend’s main card is short on marquee names, but to suggest a lineup featuring four Top 15 pairings and a quality bantamweight scrap leading things off is “a strong Fight Night card, but a weak PPV” feels egregious to me, but again, maybe it’s just me?
Conclusions
I think a lot of my contemporaries care a lot more about narratives and names than me, and we all know that is the case with the fight-buying public. Additionally, I think those contemporaries also care far more about projecting what kind of business a given pay-per-view offering will do and those estimates influence and shape the way they talk about these fight cards.
I’m not that guy, and that does, in fact, make me an outlier in this landscape because I care so much more about what is going to happen inside the Octagon each and every Saturday night than anything else, and letting all these peripheral things that have zero influence on the action determine how I feel about a particular event is completely foreign to me and something that I just don’t understand.
It doesn’t matter to me that Pedro Munhoz isn’t out here talking junk about Jose Aldo and has less buzz than someone like O’Malley — what matters is that he’s been a fixture in the Top 10 in the bantamweight division for four or five years, is one of the most consistently entertaining fighters on the roster, and a legitimate title contender if he gets a win this weekend.
I don’t care that Vicente Luque is a quiet, unassuming man who is humble and respectful in interviews — I just want to see him step into the Octagon and conduct another symphony of violence on Saturday night, which he is sure to do.
But those things matter a great deal to everyone else, it seems, and influence how they judge and rate these fight cards, as well as how they speak about these competitors.
Scores of writers talk all the time about how the UFC needs to do a better job of marketing and promoting these athletes in order to get more fans interested in people like Munhoz or Luque or the upside of someone like Song Yadong, which is true, but they never seem to consider the impact their own words and how they way they speak about these competitors and events impact those audience perceptions.
I know I say this a lot here, but I believe it to be true: if the most prominent voices and individuals on the largest platforms covering this sport constantly downplay and diminish the skills and talents of these athletes and the make-up of these events, fans and observers are going to continue to believe that fight cards like this were “not that great to begin with” and aren’t pay-per-view worthy now.
Buzz or not, trash talk or not, rivalries and interim titles be damned — UFC 265 is an excellent collection of competitive, meaningful fights that carry immediate and significant divisional ramifications in three of the deepest divisions in the UFC and the most prominent weight class in the sport from a casual and mainstream standpoint.
Each of Saturday’s victors will move forward into a matchup with a higher ranked opponent in a fight carrying even greater divisional significance next time out, while none of those that are vanquished will fall too far back in the divisional chase.
How that isn’t enough to capture the interest of and spark excitement in MMA writers and diehard fight fans is beyond me, but here we are, a handful of days away from an excellent main card that most are presenting as a really great Fight Night offering because a guy we’d all like to see compete isn’t stepping into the Octagon and the ranked talent throughout the rest of the card aren’t bigger loudmouths with greater social media followings.
I think UFC 265 is a fantastic card and I can’t wait for Saturday night.
My name is Spencer; I’m an outlier.
Thanks for reading.