mma / Columns

UFC 208 Embodies UFC’s Slow Start in 2017

February 6, 2017 | Posted by Dan Plunkett

Saturday’s UFC 208 should deliver good fights. Holly Holm vs. Germaine de Randamie should be a very good battle of strikers. Anderson Silva, even at this stage, is an engaging fighter to watch. Jacare Souza’s ability to finish fights from anywhere and Tim Boetsch’s rugged toughness is a promising combination. Although not well known, Jared Cannonier can throw leather and his fight with Glover Teixeira will surely have some level of brutality. Jim Miller may be the most exciting grinder in the sport, and Dustin Poirier is a finisher with something to prove.

However, in another respect, UFC 208 is a weak offering from the UFC, barren of fights with true significance.

Miller vs. Poirier and Teixeira vs. Cannonier may be fun fights, but neither has high stakes when it comes to title contention. Boetsch is an opponent to keep Souza busy as he awaits a middleweight title shot. Derek Brunson is an exciting fighter, but nobody cares to see him beat Anderson Silva, and nobody will remember Anderson Silva beating him.

Holm and de Randamie are vying for a made-up championship for a division that has only one other fighter – and she won’t be able to challenge the winner until December at the earliest. It’s a fight with false stakes born out of desperation. The UFC had no real main event prospects for the date, and couldn’t afford to cancel another pay-per-view event (the promotion had already abandoned a planned January 21 pay-per-view date). Neither fighter even has a claim to a championship fight. Holm has lost her last two bouts, including most recently to the top bantamweight title contender. De Randamie has won her last two fights, both against fighters without Wikipedia pages, and prior to that lost to the current bantamweight champion. The fight is an interesting clash, but a joke as a pay-per-view main event for a brand new championship.

The UFC’s solution to their UFC 208 main event problem is indicative of how they found themselves in their current state. Ten years ago, the UFC had five champions and five weight classes. Even the worst known champions – fighters like Anderson Silva – weren’t drawing fewer than 300,000 pay-per-view buys. The champions, and for the most part their contenders, were well known. On Saturday, the women’s featherweight belt will become the 11th main title and the 11th division in the UFC. The expansion of weight classes has undoubtedly proven to be the right move – the UFC found the two biggest stars in its history at featherweight and bantamweight, two divisions that the promotion didn’t have 10 years ago. It also allowed them to expand their roster so they could put out more content, a key factor in getting a major increase in their TV rights fees (a rights fee which is expected to grow significantly with their next television deal). The past two years have been the biggest in UFC history.

However, the same expansion has also created a tremendous inequality on pay-per-view. There are too many top stars between all of the divisions that casual fans have a difficult time following them. As a result, the basement pay-per-view numbers, once in the 300,000-buy range, have fallen to around 100,000 buys. On the other hand, the UFC has become so much more culturally acceptable that the ceiling has risen for those special superstars that can break out of the pack. Pay-per-view has become mainly a mundane road so low that the valleys don’t seem particularly notable, with the occasional thrilling peaks that overshadow the reality of the rest of the drive.

The peaks were unusually frequent in 2016 between UFC 200, one Ronda Rousey bout, and three record-breaking Conor McGregor bouts. This year won’t have a UFC 200, signs are pointing toward Rousey’s retirement, and McGregor’s status is murky, although he’ll likely fight at least once later this year.

And so, 2017 is bound to be mainly a quiet road beginning with UFC 208. For ardent fans, there will be great fights like Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Tony Ferguson that will help shadow the slow year, but if the first month of the year is indicative of the following eleven, the promotion will have more trouble filling open slots, particularly those needing short notice replacements.

The UFC was forced to move Derrick Lewis vs. Travis Browne from UFC 208 to the following weekend when a replacement couldn’t be found for Stefan Struve, who had been scheduled to headline the Fight Night event. Jimi Manuwa vs. Corey Anderson is the main event for UFC’s first trip to England this year, and the weakest main event they have ever presented to the country. A Fox show for April 15 does not have a main event and only a single fight announced, when in the past it was rare that the promotion didn’t have a main event announced for a show months out.

It’s a year of transition; the first full year for the new UFC owners and a new matchmaker. It will take time for them to find their footing and begin to build the trust that many fighters had in Lorenzo Fertitta. It was that trust that enabled them to fill main events and pull something solid out of nothing when they really needed it. Without that built-up trust, the promotion was forced to resort to gimmicks like making a title for a non-existent division. The new UFC will make it through the slow times, some new stars will emerge, and a new television deal beginning in 2019 will bring another level of prosperity to the promotion. Until then, it will be awkward, and that’s the type of show UFC 208 is.

Dan Plunkett has covered MMA for 411Mania since 2008. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @Dan_Plunkett.