mma / Columns

MMA’s Moneyweight Dilemma

August 8, 2016 | Posted by Robert Winfree
UFC 196

It turns out that Conor McGregor has given us all one more headache in addition to his seemingly never ending hype train and the portion of his fan base that mindlessly parrots everything he says, the hypothetical “moneyweight” division. While other fighters in the past have angled for super fights, Randy Couture even tried to leave the UFC out of his desire to fight Fedor Emelianenko, McGregor’s status has pushed the idea of eschewing legitimate competition or deserving contenders in favor of blatant cash grabs to a level not previously seen in the UFC. While I’m not attempting to blame the recent trend in champions behavior entirely on McGregor, we’re all responsible for our own choices after all, any examination of that trend must begin with the brash Irish champion.

On December 12th 2015 Conor McGregor knocked out Jose Aldo with one punch, and in just thirteen seconds, to become the second ever UFC featherweight champion. McGregor subsequently talked about moving up to lightweight and make a bid to become the first man in UFC history to hold titles in two different weight classes simultaneously, though Mike Goldberg would undoubtedly refer to him as a consecutive title holder rather than concurrent (how a $4 billion company lets their lead play by play man misuse that word every single time baffles me). His intention to pursue history was met with little backlash, despite there being two viable contenders in the form of former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar or Max Holloway, mostly because McGregor brought a couple of appropriately mitigating factors into the discussion. Edgar was on a five fight winning streak and the day before had knocked out Chad Mendes in the first round but Edgar was never much of a draw, and Max Holloway had only won his eighth consecutive fight on the same night that McGregor claimed the title but his last loss was to McGregor meaning that McGregor could easily dismiss him as a previously conquered foe.

The second factor was size. Jose Aldo is a big featherweight, Conor McGregor is a lightweight who was somehow able to consistently make the featherweight limit. The pictures of McGregor on weigh in day are so nearly emaciated that it was long speculated a move up in weight was inevitable for his own health, and with the new weight cutting guidelines prohibiting intravenous re-hydration and some states flatly banning dehydration as a method of weight cutting seemed to reinforce that McGregor moving up to lightweight was the correct decision. If McGregor were to move up to lightweight, a division more suited to his frame, then granting him an immediate title shot wasn’t the worst idea in the world. While him surrendering the featherweight title at that point becomes quite likely there’s little overt harm in letting him keep that belt while trying for history. McGregor wasn’t really stepping over any lightweight contenders at the time, Eddie Alvarez was scheduled to fight Anthony Pettis, Khabib Nurmagomedov was still on the road to recovery from injury, and while Tony Ferguson was on a seven fight winning streak his biggest win was over Edson Barboza and talks of him facing off with Nurmagomedov were again going on. The entire situation meant that the most deserving contenders were occupied and no one was being unfairly leap frogged.

The final reason McGregor was able to essentially call his shot for a lightweight title fight was the reality that he is the biggest star the UFC has right now. McGregor has earned the right to be treated a little differently from the average UFC champion, much less the average UFC fighter. Providing your biggest draw with the opportunity to make history all without compromising the fundamental integrity of the sport just makes sense when that particular set of stars align. Unfortunately here the narrative takes a twist that tosses much of that into disarray. The lightweight champion at the time, Rafael dos Anjos, suffered an injury and couldn’t make the fight with McGregor. The UFC and McGregor, not wanting to waste all the effort they put into promoting the event, found a late notice replacement fighter in the form of Nate Diaz and changed the weight class to welterweight to accommodate Diaz given the time constraints. Diaz shocked many people when he submitted McGregor in the second round of their fight, and the reality is that with his potential claim on a lightweight title shot derailed McGregor should have either defended his featherweight title or surrendered it and settled in at lightweight. Such was not to be the case.

The premise of a “moneyweight” fight is that it makes money, a borderline egregious amount, and is worth jeopardizing elements of your legitimacy to make. Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz at UFC 196 did approximately 1.5 million PPV buys. That number is somewhat disputed, specifically by McGregor, but even if taken at face value it would be the second most purchased UFC PPV of all time. With that much potential money to be made, elements of the narrative such as the short notice replacement fighter in Diaz, and McGregor’s desire to avenge the loss, the UFC basically informed the rest of the featherweight division that they don’t matter and booked a rematch between Diaz and McGregor for UFC 202 later this month. Speaking personally I didn’t care about their first fight and I care less about the rematch, though I freely admit I appear to be in the minority on that count. The reality of the situation is that McGregor is different from the rest of the roster, save perhaps Ronda Rousey, and has earned a certain amount of latitude to operate in. I may not like how that plays out at times, the fact that he’ll go nearly a year between winning the title and his hypothetical first title defense while taking two fights outside of that division bothers me, I can and will criticize it while also understanding how we got here.

Unfortunately for pretty much everyone else McGregor’s decision to bring the money first philosophy front and center coincides with a couple of other factors that went into creating the current situation we find ourselves in. First and foremost is fighter pay. The amount of money fighters make has long been discussed, and is a discussion that should continue, with many high profile fighters expressing discontent with their current compensation. Seeing McGregor make millions of dollars they naturally seek to emulate his success. Worth noting around this same time is the sale of the UFC for $4 billion, fighters can now try to place greater value on themselves as they see what the product they make is worth. Seeing what the company they make up is valued at so highly while they make comparatively much less must be slightly disconcerting. Two recent champions have been trying to follow in McGregor’s foot steps, and those situations bear examination as this problem of “moneyweight” continues to grow.

Michael Bisping became the UFC middleweight champion at UFC 199 and promptly ignored two deserving contenders in favor of calling out Dan Henderson, a 45 year old man who’s just 2-3 in his last five fights and on all of a one fight winning streak. The most deserving contender at middleweight is Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza or Yoel Romero, yet the champion has no interest in facing a top contender and would rather remove the legitimacy surrounding the title in favor of a hypothetically larger pay check. Henderson just recently made his way back into the top fifteen rankings of the UFC’s middleweight division, at 13, and in reality a stronger case exists for nearly every fighter ranked ahead of him. The UFC just recently announced that Bisping and Henderson will indeed meet in a rematch of their fight from UFC 100, this would make Henderson the lowest ranked fighter to challenge for a UFC title since the UFC began using official rankings. Fighters like Souza or Gegard Mousasi have stronger claims on that shot, yet are being passed over.

Now as with McGregor there are a couple of somewhat mitigating circumstances, Michael Bisping is something of a draw. He’s no where near the level of McGregor or Rousey, but in his native England he has a fairly substantial fan base and his tenure with the UFC at this point has won him a good following. Bisping and Henderson also have history, Henderson’s knockout win over Bisping at UFC 100 is one of the most replayed knockouts in the promotions history and Bisping has been vocal about wanting that rematch for a while now. Henderson is a true legend of the sport and the second best American mixed martial artist of all time, behind only Jon Jones, so again his tenure and solid fan base no doubt contributed to this fight becoming a reality.

Unfortunately this fight is blatantly sacrificing the legitimacy of the middleweight title for money, there are several deserving contenders who are unfairly being dismissed in favor of this rematch. Part of the appeal of the UFC as a promotion is that the best fight the best, if I wanted to see a champion call their own shot and pad their record there are a multitude of examples in boxing. The cold reality is that the UFC middleweight champion is not fighting the best contender at UFC 204, he’s not even fighting the best available contender if we allow for scheduling and injuries. The UFC is blatantly sacrificing the integrity of the title for a few extra dollars, the truly deplorable thing is that they will undoubtedly have the temerity to try and sell Dan Henderson as a dangerous and deserving challenger and give yet another tacit admission of their relatively low opinion of their fan base.

This leads us to the most egregious example of “moneyweight” shot calling by a champion in recent memory, new UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley went on record almost immediately after winning the title and expressed his desire to defend that belt against Nick Diaz. Now if Woodley wishes to duck the deserving number one contender Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson that is a valid path, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has been ducking Gennady Golovkin for years now, but he didn’t even have the decency to call out a man who beat him like Rory MacDonald. Woodley called out Nick Diaz. Nick Diaz hasn’t won in the UFC since 2011when he won a decision over BJ Penn. He’s on a three fight losing streak, technically only two after the loss to Anderson Silva was changed to a No Contest but anyone who saw that fight knew Diaz lost, and coming off of an 18 month suspension for a failed drug test. There is not a single meritorious argument in favor of that fight. Tyron Woodley, like Michael Bisping, wanted to find an opponent that would draw the most attention while simultaneously offering him the highest chance of getting a successful title defense. If the UFC decides to go with Woodley vs. Diaz they might as well start scripting the endings of their encounters and drop all pretense of legitimacy. As it stands Dana White is rapidly losing his ability to criticize the Bob Arum’s of the world.

Balancing spectacle and the ability to draw the most money with the integrity of your sport is always a tough balancing act. Some promotions, like Bellator, have basically abandoned legitimacy in favor of freak show fights in an attempt to draw the highest number of eyeballs to their product possible. The UFC has generally done a good job of balancing spectacle with athletic competition, and really my gripe about the “moneyweight” trend is that it has taken away from the integrity of the titles. If the UFC would strip McGregor of the featherweight belt and that division could move on I’d have no complaint at all about his fighting Nate Diaz, I still wont care but there’s no reason not to run that fight again at that point. Dan Henderson and Michael Bisping fighting again has some interest to it, but Henderson is in no way the most deserving contender to the UFC middleweight title and Ryan LaFlare has about as much legitimate claim on a welterweight title shot as Nick Diaz does at this point, probably more so.

I am of the opinion that titles have to mean something, your champion should defend that title against the most deserving contender and within a timely manner. The current situation is unlikely to get better in the near future, bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz started making noise about fight Conor McGregor and new lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez wants nothing to do with deserving contenders Khabib Nurmagomedov or Tony Ferguson and would instead prefer to fight McGregor or Nate Diaz for his first title defense. How the new ownership handles this new movement on the part of their champions is going to be very telling about how the UFC will operate going forward, because the desire of fighters to make the most money possible isn’t going away and more often than not that desire coincides with keeping the belt as long as possible, even if that means fighting less than deserving contenders and jeopardizing the integrity of their titles or the sport as a whole. I for one have no desire to see MMA go the way of boxing with regards to champions calling their own shots and ducking deserving challengers.

Robert Winfree is a libra, the current host of the 411 Ground and Pound radio show Sunday’s at 8pm eastern standard time, and your live coverage guru for MMA events here at 411mania.