UFC Fight Night: Maia vs Usman: The best and worst

#2 Worst: The UFC fails to protect a top prospect in Grasso

The UFC should be doing more to protect a marketable prospect like Alexa Grasso

After the way Tatiana Suarez performed last night, it’d be hard to deny that she deserved a fight with a top ten contender, but the question I’m asking is why did that fighter have to be a fellow young prospect in Alexa Grasso?

Sure, Grasso was going into the fight ranked as the #9 Strawweight in the world, but realistically she’d only beaten one other ranked fighter – the inconsistent Randa Markos – to gain that spot. A marketable and exciting fighter, Grasso could’ve gotten some momentum had she been matched with a couple of lower fighters, but now she’ll be forced to rebuild after suffering a one-sided loss to Suarez.

With other, older fighters around the same area of the rankings, (Markos, Cortney Casey, Felice Herrig) it would’ve been smarter for the UFC to have Suarez test herself against one of them rather than match prospect against prospect. Suarez/Grasso sounded cool on paper, but the UFC ought to be doing more to protect top prospects like Grasso.