The Bottom Line: When the Sizzle Fizzles

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media.

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One of the great things about MMA is how quickly things can turn. A show can be filled with dull fights, and all of a sudden, one explosive moment brings the crowd to its feet and it’s all excitement from there on. The flipside of that, unfortunately, is that sometimes a show can go from thrilling to disappointing in a hurry. That’s unfortunately what happened at UFC 282 on Saturday in Las Vegas. After a card filled with nothing but finishes, things fell apart in different ways with the top two fights.

Prior to that, UFC 282 was a classic card. It produced all finishes, and it’s hard to even say whose performance stood out the most. Was it Raul Rosas Jr., the barely 18-year-old who looked completely at home in front of 18,000 fans at the T-Mobile Arena, making quick work of Jay Perrin on the ground? Was it Jairzinho Rozenstruik, who showcased his prodigious power once more by setting up a 23-second knockout with a jab? For my money it was Ilia Topuria, who bludgeoned Bryce Mitchell with strikes and then took away the submission specialist’s undefeated professional record with a submission of his own. There was no shortage of candidates for best performance depending on your tastes.

We then arrived to the co-feature, where Paddy Pimblett was to continue his rise to stardom against Jared Gordon. It had already been a rough week for Pimblett, as he was widely criticized and mocked for attacking reporter Ariel Helwani in a podcast with UFC President Dana White. The move was perceived as a sycophantic pander directed at pleasing White—particularly when Helwani provided further context into Pimblett’s management’s attempts to get paid for doing an interview with the well-known reporter that Pimblett himself requested.

Things went from bad to worse for Pimblett with his performance against Gordon. Jay Pettry, Ben Duffy and Tyler Treese from this site all scored the fight 30-27 for Gordon. That was my scorecard, as well. I’m reluctant to label MMA decisions robberies, but this one qualifies for me. The fight stats weren’t wildly lopsided, but Gordon was consistently landing the harder shots and controlling the action. The first and third rounds weren’t particularly close in my book.

Receiving a gift decision in a fight you didn’t fare well in against a 2-to-1 underdog is bad enough, but Pimblett’s reaction was just as bad. His blithe dismissal of the competitiveness of the fight combined with his awkward attempts at humor made him come across as delusional and unlikable. That’s no small problem for Pimblett, who was never an uber prospect but whose appeal came in significant part from his personality. The gregarious and fun lad with the mop top gave way to the protected corporate favorite. That’s pretty much the last thing the Ultimate Fighting Championship wanted when it gave Pimblett his most high-profile position to date.

At least with Pimblett-Gordon, the problem with the fight was straightforward: What it did to the rising star Pimblett. The main event presented problems on multiple fronts. First, it compounded the complaints about judging, which is never a positive for any combat sport. The vast majority of observers again disagreed with the judges’ verdict, and even Jan Blachowicz seemed to think Magomed Ankalaev was the winner.

In this case, I had no problem with any of the three scorecards. The first three rounds all could be scored for Blachowicz, although the first and third were close. The final two rounds were clearly for Ankalaev, with a good case for a 10-8 final round. That’s exactly what the scores reflected. It’s a classic example of the flaws of a 10 point must system, not of incompetent judges. Still, even if you were fine with the scores, they still presented significant problems. That’s because Blachowicz-Ankalaev was a deathly dull fight that called for a sequel about as much as the first season of the XFL, or the second season of the XFL, for that matter.

It’s always bad when a pay-per-view concludes with the crowd as flat as it was for the light heavyweight title fight at UFC 282. The audience could barely muster any energy to voice its disapproval with the decision. The notion of that fight happening again was painful. The UFC got out of that problem by basically pretending Blachowicz-Ankalaev never happened and making Glover Teixeira-Jamahal Hill for the vacant title next month.

In so doing, UFC got itself out of one problem but simultaneously created another, making an outright farce out of what was once its most prestigious championship. Jiri Prochazka vacating the light heavyweight title was always a little suspect given the purported timeline of his return. At the least, he should have had more time to see if he could return to defend his title in the next six to eight months. That the title fight was between the No. 3 and No. 4 contenders was also questionable, but any notion that they were the most deserving contenders was thrown out the window when they fought to a draw, then were just ushered aside for the No. 2 and No. 7 contenders to fight for the title to which they never resolved their claim.

The whole series of events comes across as the UFC using titles as props to help move pay-per-views rather than as earned symbols of divisional supremacy. The UFC had this problem about a half decade back but had done a strong job reinfusing prestige into its championships. This is a major setback in that effort. Combined with all the other issues that sprung from the conclusion of UFC 282, White was surely wishing at the end of the night that he could rewind the clock back just a few fights when the event couldn’t have been going much better.