Saturday, February 9, 2008

The Fight That Needs to Happen-Couture/Fedor

If you were to take a look a any of the popular site that post world rankings for MMA, you'll see some differences in each list. Some of them have a list of Featherweights, others only have Lightweight, Welterweight, Middleweight, Light Heavyweight, and Heavyweight.

The next thing you'll notice is that on every list 1 thing if very very consistent.

Fedor Emelianenko is always ranked as the #1 Heavyweight in the world.

When you take another look and try to figure out who is #2, you see some differences. Some would say that Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira is #2. Other's would say that Randy Couture is #2. After all he still is considered to be the Heavyweight Champ of UFC.

If you've followed MMA news in the last few months, you can't help but know about the fall out that UFC and Randy Couture had a few months ago. Randy claims that UFC didn't pay him the respect that he felt he deserved and didn't express that respect in the term of financial compensation he felt he should have made.

Meanwhile, there's a side story that Randy simply left because a fight deal couldn't be arranged between him and Fedor. The UFC claims that Fedor's management made completely unrealistic demands including having several fights take place in Russia and signing 4 other Russian fighters as part of the deal. Fedor or his management claim that UFC was completely inflexible in it's negotiations and that he would have to "Sign his life away".

If you were to take the 1000's of forum posts related to this subject there are 5 main vibes:

1. This is the #1 fight that the fans feel must happen.
2. The UFC needs to do "Whatever it takes" to make this fight happen.
3. Fedor needs this fight to maintain his world ranking and stop fighting non-contenders.
4. Randy should have stuck to his commitment with UFC and fought Nogueira.
5. The UFC should recognize 2 things about making Fedor/Couture happen.
  • This would be the greatest gift they could give the fans
  • This single fight would probably double their fanbase in 60 days with no downside.

This is a fight that needs to happen.

We all know it, it's amazing how much interest there is in this fight. UFC wants to be NFL of MMA. I have to say that as a fan I'm very happy about that.
  • I want it to be simple, easy, and predictable to watch my MMA.
  • I want to watch the best fighters in the world compete every weekend for free on network TV in HD.
  • I want to have a single list of rankings that are accurate and go deeper then the top 10.
We are watching a sport grow and in it a brand that most fans think will continue to dominate as the default location for the world's best MMA fighters to compete. This is just part of the drama or teenage years (Actually this is probably pre-teen).

I suppose, as a fan, I have to come to terms that a true world champion can only be realized when many things happen. I take for granted that fighters like Anderson Silva, and Quinton Jackson are universally accepted as the true world champions in their respective weight classes. There is very little debate about this (Until we see what Hendo can do).

I have to realize that their will always be an asterisk associated with any champion that reads (In this promotion, because we made the contract happen, because his manager was willing to accept our terms, oh....and because he's actually competed....I almost forgot about that.