Unreasonable Expectations in Extraordinary Times

Increasing complaints about fight cards highlight shifting nature of UFC fandom

Author’s Note: for the last nine years, I’ve been a freelance contributor to the UFC website, penning interview features and series like On the Rise, The 10, and the weekly Fight By Fight Previews. It doesn’t alter or cloud my perception of or reaction to UFC events, but since some people find that hard to believe, I want to make my conflict known to all, right here, right now, so that no one calls “shenanigans” later.

Last weekend’s UFC fight card lost its main and co-main event in the seven days before the athletes stepped into the Octagon.

First, Renato Moicano was sidelined from his bout with Rafael Fiziev, and then, the day before the event, Curtis Blaydes was scratched from his headlining assignment against Derrick Lewis. In both cases, positive COVID-19 tests were responsible for the postponements.

As a result, Saturday’s card went forward with 10 fights, capped by a light heavyweight pairing featuring former title challenger Anthony Smith and journeyman Devin Clark.

Many people lamented the quality of the event being offered on Saturday evening, labelling it the worst lineup of the year and criticizing the UFC for deigning to put forth such a terrible offering, as if the late changes should have been anticipated and accounted for in advance.

I’m not going to argue that Saturday’s fight card was great, nor will I try to make the case for the original lineup being all-star caliber; it was fine given the circumstances, and the pre-alterations edition was as a quality offering with a great main event in my opinion.

What I will say, however, is that literally every event is going to be significantly downgraded if you pull the main and co-main events.

Seriously, scroll through the list of UFC events on Wikipedia, scratch the main and co-main off every card, and see what you’re left with afterwards. Some are better than others, obviously, but the top-to-bottom depth of fight cards varying from show-to-show isn’t anything new, so why it’s become such a point of contention during “The COVID Era” is beyond me.

Last weekend’s original lineup graded out somewhere between a B and a C+, depending on how much you’re interested in Anthony Smith, Miguel Baeza, and some of the other intriguing names on the undercard. But when you lose the Moicano and Blaydes fights (plus one other), that card tumbles into being an event where a C+ represents the highest possible grade it could muster from even the most ardent fans.

Would it be great if the UFC could crank out B+ cards or better every single week so that changes still result in events that grade out above a solid C? Absolutely, but that’s an unrealistic expectation in the best of times, and a completely unreasonable ask when these events are being built and executed in the midst of a global pandemic.

Last week’s show was disappointing to a lot of people, but a good number of those people were also disappointed with the pay-per-view offering the week before, and that says more to me about how fight cards are judged and graded than anything else.

UFC 255 featured tandem flyweight title fights accompanied by a Top 5 matchup in the women’s 125-pound weight class, a guaranteed welterweight barnburner, and a light heavyweight rematch kicking things off, and to a lot of people, that was an unsatisfactory slate.

We all have our favorites and preferences, and the decision to shell out for a pay-per-view has probably been a little more complicated over the last nine months, so I’m not going to begrudge anyone for doing what is right for them.

That being said, if you flat out aren’t interested in watching Deiveson Figueiredo and Valentina Shevchenko do their thing or think an event capped by each of them defending their titles is low quality, I’m at a complete loss and question your fandom.

I know that makes me sound like an elitist douche, but so be it, because if you honestly look at a card like that and think it’s sub-par, it leads me to believe that you’re more a fan of a handful of fighters or a particular brand of action and not the actual sport as a whole.

There’s nothing wrong with only being interested in the absolute upper echelon of fighters and a few hyped emerging talents, and it seems like more and more people are trending in that direction, but that obviously alters how one perceives fight cards, skews opinions, and impacts how events are graded.

Expecting every fight card to feature an assemblage of the small percentage of established names and rising stars that the majority of fans know so they can withstand losing two or three bouts is ridiculous. Never in the history of the UFC has every event been flush with three, four, or five top-flight matchups, and expecting that to happen right now, with everything going on in the world, is an insane request.

Rather than getting pissed when you don’t see a bunch of names you recognize on the lineup, maybe invest in learning a little more about a few more fighters.

I know I’m an outlier, but I've actually really enjoyed getting a chance to see more and more fresh faces make the walk to the Octagon since the restart in May and it has resulted in finding a ton of newcomers to be excited about going forward.

If you don’t know two-thirds of the lineup because you choose not to pay that close attention, why is the UFC solely to blame for you not having a greater interest in someone like Baeza or Sean Strickland or Khaos Williams, all of whom had quality wins earlier this year and earned big victories in November?

The standard argument is that its incumbent on the UFC to make you interested in those athletes, but that’s bullshit to me because we shouldn’t really need the UFC to hold our hands so we can discover every talented fighter on the roster; just pay attention and figure it out yourself.

Ironically, I actually try to introduce people to three emerging fighters they might not be checking for already ahead of literally every fight card on the UFC website with my On the Rise series, plus there are features with just about every fighter set to make the walk that week on the site as well, so the UFC is actually providing opportunities to learn more about these athletes before they step into the Octagon… you just have to be willing to put in a little work.

Unfortunately, that seems like it’s asking too much for too many people these days, so here’s my proposition:

If you just want to like the people you already like and have little interest in expanding the list of athletes you tune in to see, that’s cool — just please stop dumping on every card that doesn’t include three or four of your favorite fighters like it’s some grand travesty, especially while we’re still dealing with a goddamn global pandemic.