In the UFC, nothing is certain

Dominance can only match the hype for so long
By DJ Summers

2013 is the Year of the Humble Pie for the UFC fan and media community. First, Anderson Silva gets knocked out clowning around. Then last Saturday at UFC 165, Jon Jones goes the distance against Alexander Gustaffson and ends up bloody, bruised, and decidedly non-dominant. 

Bleacher Report Photo

The fight was every bit as competitive a fight we’ve seen this year. Gustaffson, the only light heavyweight taller (at 6’ 5”) than Jon Jones (6’ 4”), used his fast hands and boxer’s footwork to neutralize Jones’ own notorious striking and was able to get on the inside and take the fight to the champion for three rounds. Between trading blows, Gustaffson became the first fighter in UFC history to take Jones himself down. Jones tried, but Gustaffson stuffed his usually successful takedown attempts.

Gustaffson tired in the fourth and fifth rounds, and Jones won a unanimous decision that the Toronto crowd booed, knowing that one judge had scored far too highly for the champion and that the Swede challenger was shortchanged.

Jon Jones is a great fighter; most organizations rank him the pound for pound greatest. He's been unbreakably dominant in the light heavyweight division since he first beat the belt off Mauricio Rua in 2011's UFC 128, setting a new record for light heavyweight title defenses.

For his part, Alexander Gustaffson was seen as an 8-1 underdog. In the usual blogger sphere/Twitterverse loop and in the UFC press buildup, it was clear that nobody expected much from the Swede, a boxer who would theoretically be mauled by Jones’ NCAA champion wrestling skills.

But like with the Anderson fight, the fight community hyped Jones’ dominance to the point of prophecy, like God had already chiseled the results into stone tablets as a footnote to the Ten Commandments. Jones himself seemed not to think training was too necessary, letting his body go flabby before his training camp and in general dismissing the notion he’d have to try.

There’s no reason to expect that Gustaffson will do better if and when the pair have a rematch. But we saw a chink in Jones’ armor for the first time, and it could be chalked up to certainty. He didn’t have quite enough respect for his opponent and broke the cardinal rule in the UFC: don’t leave the fight in the judge’s hands. There might be a takeaway there.

For the fans and media who heaved a collective sigh of relief when Jones won the decision, the same lesson applies. Prediction only goes so far, and there have been enough upsets in the history of the UFC for us to avoid the smugness and assurance of choosing a sure thing.

Jon Jones is a champion, there’s no denying that. He’s had amazing longevity and dominance for such a young fighter. He took a beating the other night and gave as good as he got, and nobody can take that victory away. Next time though, it might be wise to scale back the sculptures of the champion before we embarrass ourselves.

Mayweather-Canelo proves Boxing Matters

Doom and gloom about boxing's popularity a little premature

By D.J. Summers

Last Saturday, the world took a break from shrieking about boxing’s death and talked about how monumental the fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez would be. After Mayweather posted another technically brilliant and spectacularly boring decision win, we might realize together what overstatements both things were.

Just as predicted, hard-hitting Canelo tried to slug Mayweather’s head off his shoulders, and just as predicted, Mayweather was too fast and too smart. For 12 rounds, Money May picked at the frustrated Mexican with his jab, rolled his head behind a crouch, and refused to let his heavier opponent close enough to do any damage.

           

Isaac Brekken/AP

“I didn’t know how to get to him; it’s extremely simple,” Canelo told press.

           

The only surprising thing about the fight was that one of the judges scored it a 114-114 draw. Canelo was undefeated at 42-0, a heavy hitter, and a national treasure in boxing-wild Mexico, but the fight didn’t come anywhere near the hype.

The Twitterverse hash tagged it “The One.” People who can’t say how many pounds in a super welterweight gave their venomous opinions about Mayweather’s prowess and how Canelo didn’t have the strategy to beat him, or vice versa. From ESPN to the very lowest Facebook post, people knew it would be a fight of such raging epicness that we have no choice but to fall back at boxing’s feet, or that it was the last fight in history that would make such a buzz.

It almost hearkens us back to the Guerrero fight earlier this year. Or maybe to the De La Hoya fight in 2007, or any of the other death knells for boxing that have been broadcast in the last half-decade.

Mayweather doesn't call himself “Money” for nothing. He’s a savvy self-promoter. The highest paid athlete in the country, he made over $40 million apiece from his only two bouts of 2013.

Believe it, Money talks; He knew how to tub-thump the Canelo fight against his 2007 defeat of Oscar De La Hoya, and that the Mexican fan base would churn out their money for the record setting $75 Pay-per-view buy. Money knew that Mexican immigrants are an enormous influx of American culture and bringing their cultural passion for boxing with them, that they have a powerful urge to reclaim the Mexican boxing kingship from the man who took it away from them. He knows Mexicans are part of the reason Pay-per-view is still dominated by boxing, not UFC, despite the mixed martial arts community’s young popularity.

Money also knows the fear the boxing community has about mortality and knows how to play it. “I feel like I’m the last of my breed,” he said, leaving the world to lament the “last great American prizefighter” before realizing both statements are essentially meaningless sounds bites. Putting his own American Dream story against the upcoming Mexican hunger is too much not to pay attention to.

Mayweather also has a talent for choosing opponents we think can beat him right up until the moment they step in the ring together and realize the notion was absurd. It’s about the appearance of giving dangerous fighters a chance, and the whole world thought Canelo could beat the talk out of Mayweather until that first jab landed and Canelo chased it like a slow toddler.

Still, when Money May drums up the hype, we watch. The Mayweather-Canelo fight broke  2.2 million PPV purchases and set the new PPV record with $150 million. The live-gate for the fight set a new record of $18.6 million. Media outlets with no natural business like VICE covered the buildup.

Meanwhile, boxing’s viewership numbers have gone up the last few years. They still sit atop the HBO/Showtime/PPV hill. De la Hoya and his Golden Boy Promotions have a lucrative, highly visible Monday Night Fights on the new Fox Sports 1 channel alongside UFC events. Primetime channels like CBS Sports have ongoing contractual negotiations with Showtime fighters.

Every time an uninformed person says, “boxing is dying,” one of Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s millions of dollars gets its wings.