UFC Aftermath: Why Do We Keep Downplaying These Athletes, Matchups, and Events?
A post-event rant in the wake of a main event breakthrough apparently no one saw coming and another card that exceeded oddly low expectations.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot since the close of Saturday’s event in Las Vegas and wanted to finally sit down and write about it, but rather than put together a nicely structured, super-meticulous op-ed, I kind of want to just get it all out and have a conversation, provided anyone is interested in discussing what I’m about to get all “Soapbox Spencer” about here in a second.
So here goes…
The narrative / perception heading into Saturday’s event was that there were a bunch of quality fights, but the main event was lacking because it was a hastily put together pairing between strawweights most viewed as being outside of the title picture without a real chance of breaking into that mix, and they were fighting up a division too.
There were questions as to why the UFC didn’t just elevate one of the other bouts on the card into the main event spot, and the general excitement around the headlining clash between Marina Rodriguez and Michelle Waterson was tepid at best.
Saturday night, Rodriguez and Waterson go out and engage in a really entertaining clash with the Brazilian delivering another breakthrough effort and the post-fight conversations are all about how she had a tremendous showing, is now in the title picture, and did the right thing by calling out Joanna Jedrzejczyk, who really does seem like the absolute ideal opponent for her next time out given how things look in the division at the moment.
I get that performances can change opinions, and it’s great that more people are recognizing how talented Rodriguez is today, however I genuinely don’t understand why there was none of this heading into the fight because what transpired Saturday was exactly what I expected to transpire, which is precisely why positioning Rodriguez and Waterson in the main event was the absolute right call.
I’m not sure if folks just haven’t been paying attention to Rodriguez, were basing their interpretations of where she stands and what she brings to the table off bare results and not really understanding what transpired in her last bunch of fights, or were lower on her because she was paired off against Waterson, whose ceiling has long been established, but remains a UFC favorite, and can therefore be a difficult sell at times, but whatever it is, I really think the pre-fight conversations about this fight and Rodriguez in particular were way off and I’m trying to figure out why.
As I’ve said in the past, I think there are a lot of people who would rather downplay an event or particular fight and be pleasantly surprised than be excited and end up disappointed, but that always feels backwards to me because we spend all week telling people not to bother, not to be excited, or that a particular bout isn’t really that good, only to turn around on Sunday and Monday and say, “What a great moment for Marina Rodriguez, who did everything right and is very much in the title picture now!”
Rodriguez should have been on everyone’s radar heading into this hastily made main event because of the way she dropped and stopped Amanda Ribas in January and her strong overall record inside the Octagon.
Yeah she has a couple draws in there and was 1-1-1 in her last three fights, but there are tons of people on worse streaks that everyone gets excited about and talk about all the damn time, and if you paid close attention to those results, you’d know a case could be made for her being 3-0 in those fights, as the loss came by split decision against a former champ, and the draw occurred when Cynthia Calvillo blew weight by a country mile.
I just don’t get it.
Her potential as a contender was downplayed in the build to this fight because of her age, because of her last three fights, because she’s not an established name, because she was fighting someone behind her in the rankings, but then she goes out and beats Waterson handily, and folks are suddenly on board with her as a contender.
While it’s great that it’s happening now, it needed to happen before she fought and before countless people downplayed the significance of that fight, especially considering how it played out was exactly how all kinds of people thought it was going to play out.
Everything is super-reactionary in this space and while I’m not arguing against having conversations about how results reset the chess board, I have never and will never understand why so many people seem so hesitant to have those same conversations in advance.
It’s like no one wants to break away from the consensus and share an unpopular opinion because if everyone else says this fight isn’t particularly meaningful and doesn’t make sense as a main event, they don’t want to be the one prominent voices offering up an alternative thought, just in case it ends up being a boring fight. Folks want to err on the side of caution, keeping expectations low and thereby allowing for the possibility of being pleasantly surprised, rather than make a case for something being better than the consensus believe on the chance that it underwhelms.
What makes this doubly challenging (to me, at least) is that this is precisely how we end up with all these athletes who apparently “come out of nowhere” each year to win titles and rattle off lengthy winning streaks or land in a position where lesser-known, but deserving fighters like Rodriguez are tasked with headlining being told by the masses that they’re undeserving, simply because the masses haven’t been paying close enough attention.
It’s a miserable cycle that just continues uninterrupted because the approval rating of an individual fight or a particular card needs to be in the low 80s before anyone really wants to admit they’re excited for what is about to transpire, and no one wants to be the person pushing hard for the widely maligned, but actually quite good fight card on tap next weekend.
And yes, I know I just keep repeating myself in different ways, but I just don’t fucking get it and when I’m thoroughly confused, as I am now, I keep trying to find the one analogy or example or offshoot that is going to flip that lightbulb on for someone else in hopes that they see what I’m saying and can maybe tell me that I’m not wrong and that I’m not alone on this island.
I don’t know if people are lazy, afraid to go against the grain, or are just slipping when it comes to their abilities to look at a fighter, a fight, or an event and project how the landscape will change depending on the finite number of outcomes available, but it really feels like there are far more instances where we’re dismissing athletes, matchups, and events than we are trying to raise the profile of a competitor, a contest, or a card, and that feels misguided to me.
I genuinely do not understand the general pessimism and apathy that exists in this space these days.
I don’t get why there are so many fighters, fights, and fight cards that viewed as average or below when my Twitter timeline is alight with excitement and enjoyment and energy just about every Saturday evening.
It’s like everyone begrudgingly plunks down on their couch or whatever to watch these fights on Saturday, even though they’ve been told they’re only okay, and then has a really good time, only to jump right back into the “they’re only okay” routine again a few days later.
We’re 16 events into the UFC’s 2021 campaign and we already have at least five legitimate Knockout of the Year contenders, a few dope submissions, a handful of genuinely terrific fights, a bunch of intriguing newcomers to track and more action and excitement across the majority of the divisions than we’ve had in years, and yet it feels like every Tuesday through Friday is spent being kind of blasé about whatever is about to transpire inside the Octagon on Saturday.
There have been outliers, of course, but I mean on the whole, the consensus from the most prominent voices and the MMA Twitter community heading into most of these cards so far this year has been “they’re good, but not great” and week-after-week, event-after-event, the men and women crossing the threshold into the UFC cage are blowing those limited expectations out of the water, and yet no one is adjusting their opinions.
And it’s not that you couldn’t possibly see these positive outcomes and these quality efforts coming — you absolutely could, as long as you weren’t going into things looking for reasons to be disappointed and downplaying everything.
It’s not that we shouldn’t be critical and scrutinize fight cards and examine how things could go sideways, but there is another side to that coin as well, and to me, we don’t look at that other side nearly enough these days.
We’re predominantly critical, lamenting what we don’t have or what we’ve lost, and skimming over anything other than the obvious storylines, the easy narratives, and the most prominent names.
We want everything to be super-dope on paper in order to even be remotely energized about it, and when it’s not, we act like we can’t be arsed and you shouldn't be either, but then when it’s pretty cool on Saturday, everyone’s like, “Man, did you see that pretty cool thing this weekend?”
No.
I didn't.
You told me not to bother.
You told me it didn’t matter.
You told me it was average, at best.
I know this is a lot of the same shit I said in the Unpopular Opinion piece last week, but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t fucking right… and being right actually makes me angry because if I can see it, why can’t everyone else?
Saturday’s card was pretty goddamn solid and we got some very important, very meaningful results, that will have immediate ramifications on the rankings in a couple key divisions, and change the trajectory of a couple quality prospects, which is kind of what we’re hoping for on any given Saturday, no?
This was a very good card going in and despite some late alterations, still managed to exceed expectations once the dust settled.
I’m honestly getting tired of writing these rants and wanting to have these conversations with people (who never seem to want to have these conversations with me), so my hope is that this past weekend’s event ushers in a little shift in how folks talk about these fight cards in the build to the weekend, prompting more people to talk about what could happen and why you should tune in instead of downplaying and dismissing things.
/rant