Do Not Anger The Great and Wise Dana
Dana White had a message for Johny Hendricks and Tyron Woodley when he awarded Carlos Condit his title shot. It is a pretty clear and emphatic “F-you” to both Hendricks and Woodley. I do not know what else to say about Condit, a man they both beat, getting a title shot ahead of them.
Can you imagine Serena Williams going to the finals instead of Roberta Vinci because the U.S. Open officials thought it would be more popular with the fans.
Hendricks vs Woodley, Dana White and Title Shots
I mean, do not get me wrong, the fan in me loves the fight between Robbie Lawler and Condit, and I love the fight between Hendricks and Woodley. There is the part of me that thinks that title shots should be earned in the octagon. However, instead of the title shot being earned inside the octagon, it seems like it is more important to make Dana White happy.
See, both Hendricks and Woodley have angered the wise and mighty Dana in the recent past. What terrible transgressions did these two ruffians commit against the delicate Dana?
Why Hendricks had the audacity to punch at 70-percent during his five round title fight with Georges St-Pierre and admit it during the post-fight press conference.
The reason that angered Dana so much? Simple, because the fight ended in a controversial decision that angered and confused the fans. You could see Dana’s logic at work. If Hendricks had hit St-Pierre at closer to 100-percent then he would had clearly won the fight eliminating all of the controversy.
Exactly WTF is a 70-percent Punch
Really, Hendricks does bear some of the blame for all his situation. C’mon man, who hits someone 70-percent during a fight? Then, after losing you say you were only trying to win the fight with about 70-percent of your effort instead of 100-percent?
That is what it sounded like to a lot of fans when Hendricks said he was only punching at 70-percent early in the fight to conserve his energy for the five rounds. For many of the fans watching they thought the same thing as Dana in that moment.
They wondered if Hendricks had hit him a couple of times with full-power maybe he would have ended the fight. I certainly thought it. Hendricks opened up that train of thought with his comments.
The whole situation left St-Pierre so despondent that he walked away from the sport leaving a void at the top.
Instead of a new champion dethroning the old one, we got a split-decision that left everyone a little angry and disappointed. Dana, most of all, does not like to be angered or confused.
Johny loves Judges
Hendricks’ other big transgression has been his transformation from a KO artist to “The Decisionator” during his UFC career. Hendricks started off 10-1 in the UFC with six of the wins coming via KO/TKO, but Martin Kampmann was his last finish at UFC 154 in November of 2012.
Since then Hendricks has gone 3-2 with all of the fights going the distance. Even worse then all going the distance, a couple of them were boring.
Somehow, Hendricks was able to have boring fights with both Condit and Matt Brown in that stretch. Hendrick’s 2-2 record since the win over Condit, and the forgettable nature of those fights, had to contribute to him not getting this title shot.
But is that right? If the sport is trying to match up the best fighters, then it should not matter if they are the most exciting ones.
A big aspect of the problem is that there is no clear path to a title-shot, and even if you are in a “title-eliminator” or “title-contender” fight it does not mean you will get the shot.
The most recent example of this is Meisha Tate. As she pointed out on UFC Tonight, her fight with Jessica Eye had been billed as a title-contender fight. After she won Dana would confirm that she was the next fight with Ronda.
Until she was not, and suddenly Holly Holm was next. We would later learn on UFC Tonight that Dana was just doing Meisha a favor. Apparently, he knew she would lose again to Ronda and it would kill Meisha’s career.
Daddy Dana Just has the Fighter’s Best Interest at Heart
See, Dana was just looking out for Meisha. It had nothing to do with the fact that people showed a lukewarm reaction at best to the thought of Meisha vs Ronda III.
Dana is not going to try and make it seem like he is doing any favors for Woodley. He has been annoyed with Woodley since he turned down a fight with his American Top Team teammate Hector Lombard.
The situation was a strange one as Lombard was eager for the fight but Woodley invoked the teammate defense. This is one of the problems that is unique to MMA when teammates fight in the same weight class. They are teammates but also possible opponents. Dana loves to pit teammates against each other whenever he gets the chance.
In this case the fight made sense as they both were vying for a chance at the title at the time and each needed a big win over a top opponent. Instead of fighting Lombard he took a fight with Kelvin Gastelum, another top welterweight contender at UFC 183.
Their clash resulted in a SD win for Woodley over Gastelum. It was an uninspiring fight that started to fall apart at the weigh-ins when Gastelum came in nine-pounds over the 170-pound limit. It was the type of fight that we all wish never happened after we watched it.
The fight actually might have peaked during the weigh-ins, as Gastelum’s battle with the scales was as exciting as anything that happened in the octagon.
The Natural Born Killer Returns
Meanwhile, Condit recovered from his knee injury and made his return against Thiago Alves. He came back in typical Condit fashion, getting the TKO win via a doctor’s stoppage over Alves by busting up his nose.
The win was enough for Condit to leapfrog the two higher ranked fighters who had also defeated him in the octagon. I expected that to happen if Rory MacDonald had dethroned Lawler. For the last couple of years MacDonald has been clear about his desire to avenge his loss to Condit. It would have made sense for him to want Condit for his first defense.
When Lawler retained the belt it seemed like a third fight with Hendricks was on the way, but this is the UFC. Instead, Condit jumped ahead of both Hendricks and Woodley, which can only be interpreted as Dana sending a message to them about exciting fights and accepting fights.
The result of all of this from a fan’s perspective is two potentially exciting fights in Woodley vs Hendricks and Lawler vs Condit. It is hard to fathom that Woodley and Hendricks do not want to send messages of their own back to Dana.
I Don’t Care About You or Your Stinkin Belt No More
The best way to do that, the best way to earn the next title shot, is an emphatic and exciting win. An exciting fight would benefit both fighters but a boring one could bury both fighters in one of the UFC’s deepest divisions. As inconceivable as it seems Hendricks or Woodley could win this fight and still not get a title shot in the next year.
Hendricks seems to understand that and apparently does not care according to this article by David St. Martin based on an interview with Ground and Pound TV. Hendricks indicates that he is now just focused on fighting and winning over entertaining. He also hinted that he would continue to rely heavily on his wrestling to secure those wins.
Now, this could be Hendricks just saying he is going to wrestle when he plans on coming out striking, or he could truly not care. It is strange for someone who talked incessantly about the title, like Hendricks has in the past, just not caring about it anymore because he was passed over a couple of times.
It could be that Hendricks is pissed-off at getting passed over and is going to defiantly keep fighting like he did against Matt Brown. Utilizing a conservative and controlling game plan based on his dominant wrestling.
There is of course the fact that one Mr. Tyron Woodley is going to have something to say about how this fight unfolds. Woodley is the best MMA wrestler that Hendricks has faced since Georges St-Pierre and has finishing power. It could be that these two just negate each other giving us another snoozer.
If it is a boring but close fight then I expect the UFC will continue to bypass the winner.
Feels Just Like A Number
Remember, the rankings really do not mean anything and the UFC uses them when it serves their purposes. Like justifying Chad Mendes getting the nod over Frankie Edgar against Conor McGregor at UFC 189. But,then as Meisha Tate pointed out, the UFC paired up the eighth ranked Holly Holm against Ronda Rousey while offering Tate the number four ranked Amanda Nunes.
In a perfect world none of this would be happening. In a perfect world, the rankings would matter and make sense, there would be a clear path to the title, we would get five-round title eliminator fights and each fight would be a classic.
But, the UFC is far from a perfect world and almost none of that exists. Instead we get Dana White either sending messages with the title shots or the UFC trying to give us what we want as fans.
I have to admit I am more excited about seeing Lawler versus Condit than I am of a third Lawler and Hendricks fight. I do not feel good about this as I know it is wrong in so many ways, but at the same time it is a much better fight on paper. It is a fight I really want to see even though I know it is wrong.
See, that is one of the aspects of fighting that appeals to many of us, the slightly dirty side. We know it is wrong but at the same time it is so much fun. It is an element of the sport from the early days that drew people to it. It is something many fans feel is missing more and more these days as the sport becomes more corporate and mainstream.
Robbie Lawler versus Carlos Condit is an old-school nasty fight. It is going to be violent and it is going to be bloody and we cannot wait to watch it.
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