UFC Sacramento: Don't Worry, The Kids Are Alright
UFC Sacramento turned out to be an action-packed card despite boasting only four finishes. With multiple Fight of the Night contenders (the honor would eventually go to Leslie Smith and Irene Aldana’s slugfest) and a successful send-off for the legendary Urijah Faber, it was all you could ask for in a free card.
Yet the story of the night, that will no doubt carry over into Monday morning, was that of a pair of losses. Specifically, those of the UFC‘s supposed wonder twins, Sage Northcutt and Paige VanZant. Both dropped submission losses in their co-main and main event fights, respectively.
Immediately, the naysayers came out, as they always do surrounding this pair. Again, Northcutt was chided for a supposedly “weak” ground game — which, to a point, is fair criticism, until it bleeds over and begins to question his very status as a fighter, something that came up at the post-fight press conference.
That question then became whether his opponent, Mickey Gall, had ever beaten anyone of true UFC caliber. Let’s put that to rest now, shall we? No, Mike Jackson (brought in because the UFC needed a warm body for Gall’s first fight) and CM Punk are not UFC caliber fighters. Yes, Sage Northcutt is. Gall is a brown belt in jiu-jitsu, Northcutt is all of twenty years old. That’s a two and a zero. The kid just left his teens and is 3-2 in the UFC.
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It seems that fight fans are quick to forget that both Gall and Northcutt are talented young guns each discovered on a reality series (Dana White’s Lookin’ for a Fight) who are just getting started out in their careers. Both remain huge prospects, and whatever shine may have been lost in Northcutt’s second career loss (which wasn’t all bad news — he did some solid damage prior to getting caught in the choke) at least rubbed off on Gall, himself only twenty-four years old.
In short, these two are the future of the lightweight and/or welterweight divisions, if they continue to progress as fighters. One or the other may wash out before the end, but there’s a good shot one of them makes it pretty far.
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VanZant, meanwhile… there are days where it’s embarrassing to be an MMA writer. Saturday night was one of those. The deluge of questions about VanZant’s entertainment career (she’s appeared in exactly zero films, did one season of Dancing with the Stars, and to hear reporters in attendance at the post-fight presser, you’d think she was on her way out of the sport) was downright shameful.
Despite repeatedly stating that her other activities were not a distraction, rerun after rerun of the same question was hurled at her. What about movies? What about TV shows? Did they play a role in the loss?
No, Michelle Waterson being an experienced fighter with a solid game plan that included an unexpected switch in stances was the answer, but apparently, you can’t let the action in the fight interfere with the narrative. The most ridiculous thing? It wasn’t as if VanZant went out easy. She fought off Waterson’s rear-naked choke for quite some time, and never did tap, opting instead to go to sleep.
That’s a fighter. Showing up at the post-fight press conference still smiling and saying she’d be getting back in the gym after a brief holiday (it’s Christmas time, after all) — that’s a fighter.
And again, there’s no real downside here. Neither Northcutt or VanZant are really hurt by these losses. They should grow from them, their popularity is intact, and Waterson, meanwhile, gets her chance in the UFC spotlight. She deserves it — she’s every bit as marketable and positive as VanZant, and a world champion in Invicta on top of it. At 30, she’s not exactly one of the kids, but she still has lots of time to make an impact.
To some, it’s the downfall of the UFC’s future stars. Pay that no heed. In fact, the UFC may have doubled its young star power Saturday even while a legend hung up the gloves.
