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411 Fact or Fiction MMA: Will Floyd Mayweather Make a Splash in MMA?

March 29, 2018 | Posted by Lorenzo Vasquez

Welcome back to another edition of 411 Fact or Fiction MMA! I’m your host, Lorenzo Vasquez III, and it is my pleasure to bring you another earth-shattering round of Fact or fiction MMA. Thank you, for your votes and comments last week, it is appreciated. Last week, Dino Zee and Robert Winfree brought the thunder in devastating fashion. They smashed and clawed their way to the top but when the dust settled, the battle was declared a draw! Thank you both for the effort and contribution.

This week, “Handsome” Dan Plunkett returns hoping to shut Alex Rella’s lights out. They will lock horns over, whether Tyron Woodley and Floyd Mayweather Jr. are clowns, The UFC’s obsession with interim titles, the dissolution of TJ Dillashaw vs. Demetrious Johnson, and much more! Grab some grub and strap in, folks! It’s time for another round of, 411 Fact or Fiction MMA!

TALE OF THE TAPE
RED CORNER
“Handsome” Dan Plunkett
Contributor, 411 MMA Zone
6-9-1

VS

BLUE CORNER
Alex “Little Mac” Rella
Contributor, 411 MMA Zone
6-8-1

The whole Tyron Woodley-Mayweather thing is most likely nothing more than a publicity stunt.

Dan Plunkett: FACT That definitely appears to be the case. Floyd Mayweather is 41-years-old and has safer ways to make truckloads of money than fighting in MMA. He is not the type of fighter you’d think would want to go out of his way to test himself.

Perhaps Woodley and Mayweather are making plans to get in the gym together, but the reason behind it is more likely to keep Mayweather’s name in the headlines, rather than making a substantial effort to cross over into MMA.

Alex Rella: FACT I have yet to care enough to click on any article that has discussed Mayweather having an MMA fight. It’s just not happening. Mayweather is not going to risk having a black mark on his legacy by getting destroyed in the UFC at this point. And he would absolutely without a doubt get destroyed. I believe Mayweather is simply terrified of being irrelevant in his retirement. He’s been at the top of the sport for years and he likes people talking about him, so he is now putting out fake information about training in MMA to generate buzz. If he were to comeback because he misses fighting or for financial reasons, it would be in boxing and it would most definitely be a very winnable fight for him.

It would be a shame if Bibiano Fernandes and Martin Nguyen never fight in the UFC.

Dan Plunkett: FICTION Not so long ago I would have answered fact, but I’m content with Fernandes sticking out the rest of his career in ONE Championship. There was a point six years ago when Fernandes nearly joined the UFC, and that would have been a great time to do it. He was in his prime and could have made it far in the Octagon. Today, Fernandes is a few days away from turning 38. At bantamweight, speed matters, and fighters nearing 40 don’t hang around near the top of the division. (Note: Bantamweight’s upper limit is 143.3 lbs. in ONE, which has a strict weight cutting policy. Prior to ONE realigning its weight classes to combat extreme weight cutting, Fernandes competed in the normal bantamweight limits.)

The time for Fernandes to make the jump to UFC has passed, and that’s okay because he’s developed quite a career for himself at ONE. He has more than twice as many successful title defenses (7) as the next closest champion in ONE’s short history. It would have been nice to see him against the UFC’s upper echelon, but it’s hard to fault Fernandes for the decision he made in free agency; ONE has worked out quite well for him.
On the other side of the coin, it would be a shame for Martin Nguyen to fall outside the UFC for his entire career. The 29-year old is a double champion (lightweight and featherweight) that was aiming to (and almost did) make himself a triple champion against Fernandes. He’s got power that carried him to double gold, and it would be interesting to watch him in the UFC.

Alex Rella: FICTION I honestly couldn’t care less if neither makes it to the UFC. Fernandes had his chance to join the UFC in 2012, but he opted to stay in Asia. He has every right to do what is best for him and his family, but he’s been a big fish in a small pond his whole career. So I personally don’t consider him one of the best bantamweights/featherweights of all time like others do. To be fair, I don’t watch ONE FC on a regular basis, but I haven’t heard of most of his opponents in recent years. His toughest opponents were losses to Urijah Faber and Kid Yamamoto early in his career. His biggest wins were against Joachim Hansen and an inexperienced Joe Warren. I don’t care at all that he’ll never fight in the UFC. And no offense to Martin Nguyen, but I doubt Dana White is getting a lot of fans asking to see him fight in the UFC.

Charles Oliveira should stay at lightweight for the sake of his health; he never shook up the feather division, anyways.

Dan Plunkett: 100% FACT Oliveira missed weight four times trying to get down to featherweight. Once he missed it so bad that his fight had to be contested at lightweight. Naturally, Oliveira has a greater number of strong UFC performances at featherweight than he does at lightweight because he has several more fights in that weight class (at least, he does if you count the times he missed weight) compared to lightweight. However, he never made it past a certain level, which I would partially attribute to his strenuous weight cut.

He is out-muscled at lightweight, but his numerous misses trying to get to featherweight have shown the cut is just too much for him. It’s worth noting that Oliveira’s return to the lightweight division last year brought one of the best performances of his career when he submitted Will Brooks in the first round.

Alex Rella: FACT Charles Oliveira should never attempt to compete at featherweight again. Whether it be because his body truly can’t handle it or because he was lazy in his weight cuts, Oliveira needs to stay at lightweight. He missed weight four times and had to pull out of a fifth fight altogether because of weight cutting issues. Most fighters would have just been cut from the UFC. No matter what he says, he should just focus on fighting at 155. He’s a dangerous fighter and could be in the top 15 rankings in any weight class he’s in.

SWITCH!

https://twitter.com/search?q=Tyron%20Woodley&src=typd

It is ridiculous the UFC is creating an interim welterweight title for the winner of Rafael dos Anjos and Colby Covington when it appears Tyron Woodley is only four to six months away from returning to action.

Alex Rella: FACT Yea, I just don’t understand their recent obsession with interim titles. I doubt it increases PPV buyrates that much and even an average fan realizes the interim champ is only a glorified number one contender. If a champ were to be out with an injury for a year or so, then sure make an interim title. But Woodley only being out 4-6 months is indeed ridiculous. And Woodley has been an active champ as well. He won the title in July 2016 and has fought 3 times since then. It makes no sense and is actually unfair to Woodley to make an interim title while he’s on the disabled list.

Dan Plunkett: FACT I wrote about this topic in depth on Monday, so I’ll give a brief explanation here. It’s absolutely ridiculous for UFC to create another meaningless interim championship for a fight that will take place two months before the champion should be ready to return. If it comes to fruition, it will be a good fight that deserves five rounds. But UFC can make it five rounds without adding a title to it. It’s great that the title being at stake likely means more financially to the fighters, but the idea that UFC has to add a fake title to the equation to pay fighters more is absurd in itself. UFC 224 will be a weak-drawing show that won’t perform any stronger with a fake title added to the mix. The UFC should at least try to give the impression that they respect the value of their championships, but they certainly haven’t done that in the past couple of years.

The “win money” or “win bonus” should be phased out like Joe Rogan says, as it is unfair when with the many incompetent judges handing out wrong decisions.

Alex Rella: FACT Sure, why not. Some fighters already negotiate for this and I see nothing wrong with this becoming a more common occurrence. Some decisions are straight up horrible and it is unfair for a fighter to lose money because someone else didn’t do their job correctly. Plus UFC fighters are already at a disadvantage because they can’t supplement their income with sponsorship agreements because of Reebok. More guaranteed money for fighters is always a plus.

Dan Plunkett: FACT The concept of a win bonus makes sense from a promoter’s point of view. They want to give the fighters every incentive to fight their hardest for the victory. However, I don’t think most fighters are going into the third round of a close fight thinking that they need fight especially hard because they want that win bonus. These are competitors that recognize winning will help them advance their careers, and in certain circumstances save their jobs. That essentially eliminates the one argument in favor of win bonuses.

There are stronger arguments against them. As Rogan pointed out, judges get calls wrong, which can cost one fighter half of his or her purse. Similarly, in the case of draws, the promoter is not bound to pay out a win bonus to either fighter. Additionally, there is the thought that a fighter’s corner is less likely to stop a fight that is getting out of hand if half their fighter’s purse is dependent on a win.

The UFC should have TJ Dillashaw rematch Cody Garbrandt if the Demetrious Johnson fight Dillashaw is not going to happen.

Alex Rella: FACT Sigh, yea I guess so. It’s a good fight, but I just wish there was more time to build it back up. It would be better if Cody was more active before their rematch. This is a legitimate feud with real hate between the two men. Their first fight was great and a second might be even better. I just wish there was more build up. Maybe each guy had another fight before going to a rematch right away to generate more excitement. They could have Raphael Assunção fight TJ for the title before then, but their last fight was so one-sided. There’s nothing wrong with booking a rematch between TJ and Cody, I would just prefer if it came a little more down the road. The same can be said for a rematch with TJ and Dominick Cruz too.

Dan Plunkett: FICTION There are certain cases where immediate rematches make sense. For example, when there is a controversial ending (Abdul Razak Alhassan vs. Sabah Homasi), a draw (Tyron Woodley vs. Stephen Thompson), or an otherwise unusual circumstance (Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz). Dillashaw vs. Garbrandt doesn’t fall into any of those categories. It was a great fight, and they are probably the two standout bantamweights in the world. But the fight had a decisive ending, and Garbrandt has yet to get back in the cage. And while Dillashaw and Garbrandt are two of bantamweight’s biggest names, their rematch isn’t going to break the box office.

Since that fight, Raphael Assuncao, Jimmie Rivera, and Marlon Moraes have all made good cases for a title shot.
Dillashaw and Garbrandt are going to fight again, but there is no reason to force the rematch together before letting the feud breathe and allowing Garbrandt to get back to his feet.

So who won? You’ve got until midnight eastern on Tuesday to vote, so make sure you make your voice heard!

And that’s it for today but, as always, we’ll be back next week with another contest! And please, be sure to vote!

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