So UFC 208 is in the books and unfortunately what looked like a weak card on paper ended up being a weak show in execution as well. When UFC president Dana White is quoted as saying his highlight was the flight home, you know it’s a bad show.
In fact this was probably the worst UFC PPV since 2014’s disappointing UFC 174.
We got a ten-fight card with a whopping nine decisions; Ian McCall’s fight was cancelled on uber-short notice again (for the fifth time in a row in fact) and we also lost a Heavyweight fight on short notice too, when newcomer Justin Willis somehow couldn’t make the 265lbs limit (!) for his fight with Marcin Tybura.
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All in all, not good.
Still, as with any UFC show there are always a few interesting talking points – even if a lot of them this time don’t have much to do with what were a bunch of really slow fights overall.
#1: Issues with the New York State Athletic Commission
As everyone is well aware, New York is the most recent US state to legalise MMA and as it was the UFC’s equivalent of Moby Dick for many years, the promotion have promised the state a large amount of shows per year.
If that’s the case then the NYSAC needs some improvement, stat, or the UFC might be facing all kinds of issues judging by this show.
We’re all used to issues surrounding the judges at MMA shows, with their scoring of fights often not matching up with the scoring done by fans and online analysts. UFC 208 unfortunately had more judging issues than most shows.
Firstly, the prelim between Islam Makhachev and Nik Lentz saw Makhachev pick up a unanimous decision, which was undoubtedly the correct call. The problem was more with the scoring.
On a night when the UFC were clearly pushing the judges being more liberal with 10-8 rounds, Makhachev in my opinion should’ve received 10-8 scores for both R2 and R3 and in fact judges Chris Lee and Eric Colon did score the fight that way.
Douglas Crosby however scored the fight 30-27 for Makhachev, meaning three 10-9’s. The red flag here is that it’s a well-known fact that Crosby is a good friend of Lentz, which raises the question as to why he was chosen to judge the fight in the first place? As we all know, it’s the state athletic commission that chooses the judges, not the UFC.
Judging issues would raise their head again in the Anderson Silva/Derek Brunson fight, but for now we’ll look at the other fudge from the NYSAC, this time in the main event. The choice of referee for the Holly Holm/Germaine de Randamie title match was bizarre to say the least, as despite experienced and well-known referees Yves Lavigne and Dan Miragliotta working the show, the nod was given to the largely unknown Todd Anderson, who in his wisdom allowed de Randamie to land punches on Holm after the buzzer in both the second and third rounds.
The penalty for these illegal blows? Nothing, nada. Barely even a warning. This was a ludicrous call and had Anderson taken a point as he should’ve done in the third round, the fight would’ve been called as a draw.
I know the NYSAC is new to the sport of MMA but with the amount of shows the UFC plan to do in the state – the next one is another big PPV, UFC 210 in Buffalo – they need to shape up quickly.
#2: Where does Women’s Featherweight go from here?
The idea behind introducing the Women’s Featherweight (145lbs) division seemed like a sensible one when it was first discussed – the idea clearly being to get a title on Cris Cyborg, who seems to be a surprisingly good drawing card, and then have her defend against challenger-of-the-month types and squash them.
When Cyborg ruled herself out and Holly Holm vs. Germaine de Randamie was made for the inaugural title, the plan really remained the same – the winner would fight and lose to Cyborg and we’d be back to the original idea.
Then USADA happened and who knows what’s going on with Cyborg now? Dana White has been saying all weekend that she may be able to apply for a retrospective TUE and get off scot free, but then he said similar things about Jon Jones and he still got slapped by a one-year suspension.
And who knows what kind of nosedive Cyborg’s popularity might take if she ends up with the stench of another positive PED test hanging over her?
If Cyborg can’t be booked for a substantial amount of time then the division is in trouble. The Holm/de Randamie fight was not exactly an entertaining one and while things could’ve been salvaged had Holm won, the UFC now has another largely unmarketable champion in GDR who is also seen as somewhat of a dirty fighter following her after-the-buzzer shots this weekend.
And as for the next challenger, if it isn’t Cyborg? It’s another question mark.
The UFC could bring in the fighters from Invicta’s 145lbs division and maybe give the next title shot to their champion, Megan Anderson. But Anderson realistically is still very inexperienced and the division in general isn’t exactly stacked.
They could ask a larger 135lber like Cat Zingano to step up and challenge, but by doing that they water down an already-thin 135lbs division. Basically without Cyborg the division is in deep trouble, and with her future up in the air right now then I think it’s safe to say the division is a question mark going forward.
#3: Should Anderson Silva retire?
Okay, so Anderson Silva picked up his first official win since 2012 on Saturday when he was awarded a unanimous decision over Derek Brunson. He then went on to suggest he wants to fight a further four times for the UFC before he retires. Realistically though, is this a smart decision?
Saturday’s performance wasn’t exactly a vintage one for one of the greatest fighters of all time. The fight was close enough that you could maybe argue for Silva winning, although personally I had it 29-28 for Brunson giving him R1 and R3. And the Doug Crosby 30-27 Silva scorecard was inexcusable.
If he’d lost the decision, as most thought he did, that would’ve meant a run of 0-5 with one No Contest since the beginning of 2013. Anderson also turns 42 in April. To put things into perspective, Chuck Liddell retired at the age of 40, and he’d gone 1-5 in his last six.
Admittedly, Silva isn’t being knocked out regularly like Liddell was. But even so, it’s quite clear that the reflexes, athleticism and speed that served him so well and allowed him to dominate the 185lbs division for the best part of a decade are now gone.
His once-iron chin is diminished too if not fully cracked. Realistically prime Anderson Silva would’ve toyed with a guy like Derek Brunson on Saturday, but this Anderson Silva could barely do a thing with him.
We all know Silva made a lot of money during his run as champion – remember the ‘Anderson Silva money, playa’ meme? We all know he’s got nothing else to prove – even his positive PED test seems to have been swept under the carpet, excused as just Anderson trying to heal up from his broken leg a little faster.
So why continue on? Granted, the men he’s losing to aren’t scrubs; Michael Bisping is the current champion, and well, I guess the record books show he beat Brunson, a top ten ranked fighter, but even so.
Dana White ought to encourage Anderson to do one more fight, probably in Brazil at UFC 212, and then walk into the sunset and into the UFC’s Hall of Fame. Anything else may well damage his legacy for good.
#4: Will Jacare ever get a title shot?
Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza picked up UFC 208’s only finish, effortlessly submitting Tim Boetsch with a kimura in the first round. This put him at 7-1 in his UFC run, with six finishes and the only loss coming to top contender Yoel Romero. Undoubtedly, he’s worthy of a title shot. The problem is all in the timing, however.
It’s looking more and more likely that Michael Bisping’s next title defense will come against Romero, not Jacare, and it’ll probably be around May/June time. Even if the winner comes out relatively unscathed, that means the next Middleweight title fight may well not be until November or December, and that would be a hell of a long time on the shelf for Jacare if he wanted to wait for a shot.
The other issue is what if another contender manages to leapfrog him in that time? It’s not like it hasn’t happened before; UFC has promised title shots to plenty of others (Jon Fitch, Lyoto Machida and Miesha Tate to name three) who were then leapfrogged and forced to fight again in the interim.
April sees Chris Weidman face Gegard Mousasi and an impressive win for either man could make them more worthy than Jacare in the eyes of the UFC and of the fans. After all, Boetsch was essentially a set-up for Jacare, a bone thrown to him after Jacare’s manager placed a spoof Craigslist ad on twitter to ask for a fight.
Jacare was booked to fight Luke Rockhold back in November before Rockhold injured himself and had to pull out. With Romero and Bisping destined to face off, it wouldn’t surprise me if the UFC re-booked Jacare vs. Rockhold to decide the next contender.
That’s a massively dangerous fight for the Brazilian and I don’t know if I’d favour him against a fully healthy Rockhold. If that fight doesn’t get booked then another Boetsch-type may be chosen to face Jacare, but that means he risks being overlooked in favour of the Weidman/Mousasi winner.
Either way I don’t think Jacare will get a title shot any time soon. It may well be a case that in years to come, we look back and see that his shot should’ve come in October 2016, when Romero was under suspension and both Weidman and Rockhold were shelved.
That shot went undeservedly to Dan Henderson, for those who’ve forgotten. It’s unfortunate but perhaps the lack of trash-talk and a wild persona from the Brazilian has cost him dearly.
#5: What the hell is going on at 205lbs?
UFC 208 only had one fight at Light-Heavyweight and that was an oddity to begin with; former title challenger and perennial top five contender Glover Teixeira against Jared Cannonier, a man who’d only just dropped to 205lbs (in December) and had all of one win in the division.
I get that the UFC needs to make new stars but to me this was trying to make Cannonier run before he’d proven he could walk. Sure enough, Teixeira easily outpointed Cannonier, using his grappling game to stifle the ‘Killa Gorilla’ for a unanimous decision. The fight was hardly exciting though, and didn’t do much to rebuild Teixeira as a contender in the eyes of fans and analysts alike.
205lbs is a division that seems to be getting thinner by the month. There are three fighters at the top who are clearly above the rest in Jon Jones, Daniel Cormier and Anthony Johnson; there are two perennial contenders in Teixeira and Alexander Gustafsson, capable of giving the top three a difficult fight, and after that the landscape is largely bare, full of broken veterans like Shogun Rua and Rogerio Nogueira, and largely unproven fighters such as Jimi Manuwa, Nikita Krylov and Corey Anderson.
That’s why it’s so baffling that according to news sources this weekend, the UFC are allowing both Ryan Bader and Misha Cirkunov to move to pastures anew. You can maybe understand them letting Bader go – he’s already lost to Jones and Johnson and would most likely lose to Cormier, and he hardly has the most exciting reputation.
Cirkunov though oozes star quality – he looks like a bodybuilder, has a quiet charisma reminiscent of the great Fedor Emelianenko, and he’s also gone 4-0 in the UFC with all of his fights finished – including a big win over fellow prospect Nikita Krylov.
According to Dana White, Cirkunov “flaked out” on a new UFC deal. We don’t know the ins and outs of this but personally I can’t imagine that he was demanding that much money, and even if he was, with 205lbs looking as thin as it does right now, paying the top prospect in the division a little more would surely be worth it?
Especially on a weekend when another prospect in Cannonier was exposed as being miles away from title contention. It’s another baffling decision from the WME-IMG suits now running the UFC and it’s one I can’t imagine the Fertitta brothers would’ve made.
Got any other talking points from UFC 208? Add them below.
Until next time....
