A few months ago I went on a date. Things were going well, the girl in question was lovely and the chances of a second were looking promising. That was until the question of have you done any travelling lately was asked. Somewhat distracted by the food in front of me (often my downfall) I casually replied “yeah I went to Vegas last December for the McGregor fight”. In hindsight I should have said anything else as what followed was a period of painful long silence followed by an “oh you like that do you”. At this stage I was in too deep and even though I realised my answer was as well received as if I had said I was anti puppies, I offered up a meek yes in reply. There was to be no second date.
Now I am not egotistical enough to suggest that UFC was the sole reason things didn’t work out, but, it does show that despite the company being worth a staggering $4.2 billion mixed martial arts is most definitely the marmite of sports. You either hate it or love it, there is no in between.
Last Night UFC 200 took place, the biggest event in the history of the company up until this point. That’s despite everything going wrong in the build up, by the time it started the show had at various stages of the build up four different main events.
First was McGregor-Diaz 2 but, that was cancelled when McGregor refused to get on a plane to do a press conference to promote the fight. Which is hilarious in hindsight given the fact the two had an unremarkable press conference during the week and reinforced just how pointless the cancelation of the fight was in the first place.
Next up was Jones-Cormier 2 which was more than an adequate replacement for McGregor and Diaz, that was of course until Jon Jones failed a drugs test and that too had to be scrapped.
You have to wonder what the future holds for Jones. He has been given opportunity after opportunity and rightly so as arguably the most talented fighter ever to step into the octagon. However, at some stage the UFC will reach it’s breaking point on him or otherwise they will look like Bart Simpson when he kept grabbing the cupcake that gave him electric shocks. The sad thing about Jones is that in his toughest fight that between the better angels and demons in his head it seems like he is losing.
That lead to the bizarre and still unexplained sequence of events that saw Brock Lesnar and Mark Hunt announced as the Main Event only to be replaced 24 hours later by Tate-Nunes a fight that itself nearly never took place as Tate barely made weight.
After a week like that could you really blame Dana White and Zuffa for selling the company.
As for the show it’s self it proved to be less exciting than the build up. To try and explain it to non UFC fans it was a lot like the knockout stages of Euro 2016 just a bunch of athletes paralysed by the fear of making a mistake on the big stage, adopting very conservative gameplan and more than happy to play for penalties or in this case the judges decision. In fact only two fights on the main card had a finish the rest went the full distance.
That is not to say the event was out without note. Brock Lesnar was victorious in his return to the octagon and you feel that despite his contract with the WWE we will see him fight again with or without their permission. As the man himself said Brock does what Brock wants
Jose Aldo’s win sets up him for the highly anticipated rematch with McGregor. Conor who wasn’t even fighting was still involved in the image of the night as the above photo looks like it was captured from an Aldo nightmare. November in Madison Square Garden would be an ideal date for that fight and venue considering it’s only a 6 hour flight from Dublin.
The game of hot potato continued in the Women’s Bantamweight division also as Miesha Tate lost her title in her first defence to Amanda Nunes. Tate who as I said earlier very nearly didn’t make weight looked on the verge of tears as she walked out that maybe due to the fact her song was Katy Perry’s Roar though.
In the end UFC 200 was a lot like my date after I said I liked the sport. Not something anyone will be going out their way to revisit.