Opinion: Why the UFC is Irrationally Blowing It Bypassing Ryan Bader
Ryan DuWayne Bader, you don't need me to defend you. You're a perennial top-10 light heavyweight MMA fighter. But, the world is getting silly and you should know that I'm in your corner. Me and common sense both.
UFC boss Dana White took to Fox Sports 1's “UFC Tonight” on Wednesday evening to offer his usual combination of political rhetoric (“This never would've have happened with a union!”) and newsy morsels. Among them, a curveball: contrary to what anyone with half a brain would have rightly expected, Ryan Bader was not the next man on deck for new UFC light heavyweight champion (with asterisk) Daniel Cormier, but rather, Alexander Gustafsson.
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What? What the hell happened to Bader?
This brand of capricious matchmaking is not beyond the pale for the
UFC. As spectators, we are accustomed to deserved challengers, like
Jon Fitches of yesteryear, getting put on freeze in favor of
preferred challengers and in general, the propensity for Zuffa to
throw together whatever they think is business-savvy, so long as
they can make a prima facie case that it's rational. We
watched Jon Jones
fight Vitor
Belfort and Chael Sonnen
back to back. We remember; we aren't morons.
Title shots in the UFC have been a curious topic as late, indicated best in Dana White's refusal to publicly name Luke Rockhold as the next middleweight challenger to Chris Weidman, even though the entire MMA world is clamoring for the fight and it is entirely too obvious. I'm sympathetic to the concrete idea that the UFC must constantly balance the often conflicting notions of sporting legitimacy and profitable entertainment. In historical honesty, Zuffa has more often than not done a respectable-if-imperfect job at this.
In spite of my earlier slam on Chael Sonnen's illegitimate UFC light heavyweight title challenge, his two middleweight title bids against Anderson Silva were smartly architected by the UFC, matching Sonnen with achieved, worthy opposition, but opposition that was still stylistically preferential to him. Sonnen still had to win the fights. Conor McGregor's 145-pound resume might not top Frankie Edgar's, but his demolitions of Max Holloway, Diego Brandao, Dustin Poirier and Dennis Siver still represent a fantastic four-fight winning streak, and the “Notorious” one's personality is going to help author the biggest sub-lightweight fight, perhaps even sub-welterweight fight in MMA history. It's not equitable, but it's still rational.
Alexander Gustafsson being giftwrapped another title shot does not pass the same acid test. The marginal benefit that Gustafsson offers as a challenger versus Bader is not clear in any way. Gustafsson is a wonderful fighter that I (and I think the majority of the MMA populace) want to see challenge for a UFC title again, but his second title bid shouldn't be mired in politics and irrationality. This is Ryan Bader's title shot.
Bader's four-fight winning streak in its entirety has come since September 2013, when Gustafsson battled Jon Jones at UFC 165 in Toronto. In that time span, Bader has soundly handled Anthony Perosh, Rafael Cavalcante, Ovince St. Preux and Phil Davis. They have been workmanlike victories rather than violent spectacles, but it's not as though Gustafsson offers a recently-brilliant alternative. The sharp-punching Swede is 1-1 since facing Jones, knocking out showcase opponent Jimi Manuwa in March of last year before getting thwomped by Anthony Johnson this past January.
It seems easy to suggest that Gustafsson deserves favor over Bader because Gustafsson was a hair away from taking the title from Jones at UFC 165 and gave the sport's top fighter his toughest challenge to date. It's also hypocritical and short-sighted: Gustafsson had a fantastic winning streak when he challenged Jones, but no one took him seriously as a title threat. Fans and media openly mocked the “Greatness Within Reach” tagline for the fight, musing that the company couldn't think of any other way to sell Gustafsson's chances against Jones, other than to say he had long arms. This is, of course, why we have fighters duke it out in a cage, rather than settling fights on paper or in a computer.
Cormier-Bader was already booked for this coming weekend, to headline the UFC Fight Night card in New Orleans. Both of these men have already trained for each other, and that was before the surprising and engrossing interplay between the two at the UFC 187 postfight press conference, when the newly-minted champ defiantly held court on the mic while Bader invaded the room with threats and challenges, pro-wrestling style. Those two happenings alone give Cormier-Bader more firepower than a Cormier-Gustafsson bout.
To my mind, yes, Gustafsson is likely a sterner stylistic test for Cormier. He's a stout defensive wrestler, has a notable reach advantage and has a predatory striking arsenal. Gustafsson is a solid candidate to work sprawl-and-brawl tactics on Cormier, while Bader is more likely to be outwrestled and worn out, without the ability to effectively land his powerful right hand. Again, this is why fights actually happen. If I had told you prior to Bader's fight with Tito Ortiz that Ortiz would land the best punch of his career, basically knock Bader out, then guillotine him unconscious in less than two minutes, you'd have laughed me out of the room. This is MMA, a beautifully upset-laden sport, where surreal outcomes do occur. Daniel Cormier might mash Ryan Bader worse than he would Alexander Gustafsson, but that doesn't void Bader's claim to a title shot. He deserves his day in court and even if he's likely to be convicted, Bader deserves his opportunity to have a say in whether or not he's championship material.
This whole conversation might be moot if Gustafsson was a highly-magnetic drawing card for the UFC, but he's not. Cormier-Gustafsson isn't going to take place in Stockholm and draw 30,000 people after they just watched their countryman get clobbered by “Rumble” in January at an ungodly hour in the morning. Jones-Gustafsson, despite its unanimous 2013 “Fight of the Year” status, did just over 300,000 pay-per-view buys and that's the only PPV that “The Mauler” has been featured on since UFC 141 in December 2011. Gustafsson is an awesome talent and a fighter who I think still has untapped potential, but he is not Conor McGregor or Chael Sonnen. Regardless of where, when and on what platform this fight ends up happening, Cormier will be the party, if any, that brings eyeballs to screens and asses to seats. More importantly, Gustafsson offers no real marketing or financial upside over the fighter who clearly deserves it.
I'm not ignorant to the idea that Bader isn't the most appealing fighter the UFC can throw into a challenging role. He's thoughtful and inviting with the media, but he's not a trash-talking one-liner machine. He's well-rounded, but he is primarily a wrestle-first grinder. He's got one of the most impressive physiques in MMA, but unfortunately, fans stopped thinking beach muscles were a big deal a decade ago. None of that changes the fact he is one of the best light heavyweights on the planet, he has done more than other contemporaries towards earning a title shot and offers a fresh opponent to a challenger that a) he was already set to face and b) already engaged in a pro-wrestling promo. This should be a no-brainer, but instead, it's brainless.
Cormier-Gustafsson will be the 15th time in UFC history that a fighter coming off of a loss vies for a title in the Octagon, but more pressingly, it's the sixth time it has happened in the last two years. Keep in mind, most fights that fit that bill are former champions getting immediate rematches, like Anderson Silva-Chris Weidman 2, or injuries forcing the company's hand, a la Ronda Rousey-Miesha Tate 2. That does not apply here; Gustafsson was simply chosen over Bader. Worse, Rashad Evans is in the media talking about wanting a fight with Bader. How does the company go from ripping Bader out of a title shot to putting him with a comebacking Evans, whose style is almost assuredly going to lead to a nearly unwatchable fight? It's not sensible.
Ten years ago this week, Zuffa had to shuffle the late Justin Eilers, fresh off of doing the Ric Flair flop against Paul Buentello, into a UFC heavyweight title fight against Andrei Arlovski. It might be the most undeserved Zuffa title shot ever in a meritocratic sense. But, it was done because a) Frank Mir was still hurt from his motorcycle accident, b) the UFC couldn't reach terms with Mirko Filipovic, c) Paul Buentello, despite fighting at UFC 53 eventually, was not medically cleared when the fight was announced and d) former UFC champ Ricco Rodriguez left the promotion high and dry after agreeing to the fight. Eilers was their fifth option at a time when MMA's heavyweight division was even more moribund and the UFC's heavyweight division was especially pathetic.
Cormier-Gustafsson is not a lamb to the slaughter, as “The Mauler” has an infinitely better chance at raising UFC gold than Eilers ever did. However, Eilers was a necessary evil, a body to play a role, a desperate fix in an even more desperate time. The UFC had a one-dog race for a title shot and declared the winner an entrant that nobody even imagined was in the contest. It isn't a catastrophic decision, but a plainly dumb one, since it flies in the face of all logic, including Zuffa's own in-house logic about how best to award title shots.
Jon Jones is still the best fighter on Earth and still the legitimate light heavyweight champion. In a way, the entire 205-pound division, especially its championship narratives, is a necessary evil right now. When choosing between necessary evils toward a productive end, one needs to ask themselves which choice offers the greatest potential positive while doing the least harm. If Gustafsson is vanquished by Cormier, he'll be 1-3 in his last four and will have failed in two UFC title failures, creating a grim vision of the future for a damn talented 28-year-old.
What's the point; what's the rush? Ryan Bader is right here, waiting. He will probably never be UFC champion, but if that's the case, it should be on account of Daniel Cormier slamming him all over the Octagon, not a pre-emptive defeat by his own promoter in a moment of myopic irrationality.
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