UFC 208: Does the Promotion Suddenly Have a Credibility Problem?
When Holly Holm meets Germaine de Randamine at UFC 208 in Brooklyn to decide who will be the inaugural UFC women’s featherweight champion, the two fighters in the cage will not include the best female featherweight on the planet. That’s just the tip of the promotion’s credibility problem at the moment.
UFC 208 is the culmination of a string of bad decisions and poorly booked events that have resulted in two cards being canceled or postponed, a hastily created “second” interim featherweight title, and an absolute lack of available active champs to headline cards.
It would be easy enough to blame it on the triple header of title fights at UFC 205, but it goes beyond even that.
In essence, the UFC has double-booked title fights on PPV cards for a while now whenever possible, except where a marquee-worthy non-title affair could serve as a main or co-main event. Think of McGregor vs. Diaz 1, which had Holly Holm vs. Miesha Tate as the co-main event. Or Rousey vs. Holm, which saw Joanna Jedrzejczyk take on Valerie Letourneau in the co-main slot. That’s actually a solid business strategy, ensuring that if one fight falls victim to circumstance (read: injury), the second can still headline the show.
The problem is that it means far fewer active champs available to headline shows because you’re doubling up.
The answer? More belts.
Now, that’s also not a bad idea. A large number of fight fans have been calling for a women’s featherweight (and flyweight, frankly) division for a while. However, as recently as a few months ago, it was a non-starter with UFC President Dana White. The talent pool at 145-pounds was simply too thin, went the argument. The promotion did put on a women’s flyweight bout between Joanne Calderwood and Letourneau this past June in Ottawa, but wouldn’t commit to launching the division.
Now, it was announced that the new featherweight title will be awarded in Brooklyn this February. So what happened?
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Circumstance. A lack of active champs. 205 ate up three championship belts. 207, oddly, is eating up two more, despite headliner Ronda Rousey having never pulled out of a fight during her title reign. Dominick Cruz vs. Cody Garabrandt, however, is scheduled to be the co-headliner of a stacked card that really didn’t need a second title fight.
At UFC 206, an event that surpassed some low expectations and featured a Fight of the Year candidate, a made up interim title was captured by Max Holloway, while Jose Aldo was promoted to the full title (Conor McGregor, meanwhile, is off counting his millions and scoffing at the whole situation no doubt). In short, that move was made to save the Toronto card, and the interim title is really just a ticket to a shot at the full title, something even Holloway has acknowledged. Ergo, the promotion’s credibility as it pertains to new titles was already in question.
With Daniel Cormier hurt and dropped from 206, Michael Bisping healing up from his fight with Dan Henderson, Demetrious Johnson just having defended his flyweight title, and Stipe Miocic taking a bit of time off, there weren’t a lot of options left for UFC 208 in California in January. So the UFC scrapped the show, saying it was “postponed” (not a good look after Fight Night Manila was axed), and making February’s Brooklyn show the new 208.
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Only, new date, same problem: a lack of champions available to fight.
The promotion made something of a big deal about Holloway making a quick turnaround to fight Aldo on that date, only to see Holloway balk at giving up Christmas and his son’s birthday to fight someone known for pulling out of events. Fight camps can take weeks if not months, after all. Jose Aldo’s history, it seems, has finally come back to haunt the promotion.
And so they created another title, only a more legitimate one than the interim featherweight belt they conjured up for UFC 206. A female featherweight title was long overdue.
Once again, however, how the promotion has gone about it is the wrong way.
Building a division, having a little tournament, and letting the best woman win, similar to the introduction of the strawweights and men’s flyweights — that is how you bring in a new weight class. Alternately, if you have a legit “best in the world” fighter in the weight class, you pair him or her up with the next best fighter, and let them duke it out.
Taking a former bantamweight champ coming off two straight losses and pitting her against a fighter who has never worn gold in the promotion, nor even flirted with a title shot? Not credible. Not at all.
Of course, sitting on the sidelines is Cyborg Justino, the number one female featherweight on the planet, under contract with the UFC. It has been well publicized that she turned down a pair of shots at this featherweight title because she wasn’t given enough time to prepare. So the UFC went around her and awarded the opportunity to Holm and de Randamine to ensure they have a title bout in Brooklyn.
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Suddenly, fans were feeling a little deja vu. The promotion’s credibility is once again called into question when you bypass the most deserving fighter in the division because she won’t take a short notice fight. Bad booking is the promotion’s responsibility, not the fighter’s. No one under contract is obligated to bail the company out of its own mess.
There are some other odd facts muddying up the waters of this new weight class. For one, the UFC has yet to confirm that Justino would even be entitled to the next title shot. That may be because of Rousey’s pending return: after all, if she wins against Amanda Nunes, she might want to follow in McGregor’s footsteps and try to reign over a second weight class.
Then there’s the fact that Holm, who has not won since dethroning Rousey back in 2015, could in 2017 become the first female two-division champion, despite being on a losing streak. Not to mention there has been no sign that the UFC is even trying to build this division. Will fighters come over from Invicta? Will we get a women’s 145lb season of TUF?
This was a move made out of desperation, at least on the surface. The fact that it will probably work out in the end — that once again, we got the right result, just the wrong way — doesn’t change that. It doesn’t change the fact that this is reckless matchmaking. It’s another hit to the promotion’s credibility and a worrisome sign that in the WME-IMG era, where the new ownership needs a big return on their investment, anything goes.
