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Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Mailbag: What now for Tom Aspinall and the UFC's heavyweight division?
What should happen now in the UFC's heavyweight division, with Jon Jones officially out and Tom Aspinall promoted to undisputed champ? Would it have been better for Jones to fight and even lose than to go out like … this? And should Charles Oliveira really be that big of an underdog against Ilia Topuria at UFC 317? All that and more in this week's mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @benfowlkesmma or @ @NeedXtoseePosts: Is the nightmare scenario now, Tommy Gas Hands manages to lose to Gane, or whoever is next? Advertisement No, the nightmare scenario was what we just lived through. The UFC's heavyweight champ flatly refuses to fight the interim champ, while the UFC CEO keeps insisting he'll come around and it'll all work out fine eventually. That was a colossal waste of everybody's time. Most importantly, it was a waste of Tom Aspinall's time, and it's a real shame to see a fighter lose basically an entire year of his prime waiting around for other people to get it together. That said, I can't act like I'd be super pumped for Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane right now. Regardless of who wins, it just feels … mediocre. I feel more or less the same about basically every possible contender in the top five of the division. Every one of them seems like a plan B (or worse), and also it's heavyweight so who knows, they could mess around and win. The two best ideas I can see for Aspinall's first title defense are Francis Ngannou and Alex Pereira, in that order. If the UFC could get Ngannou back for that fight it would instantly solve all the problems at heavyweight. He's still the lineal champ, after all. He has a more legitimate claim to the title than Jon Jones ever did. If you could book Aspinall vs. Ngannou, it wouldn't matter who won. The UFC would have a genuine heavyweight champ, and an exciting one. Advertisement And please, I don't want to hear any of this crap about how Ngannou would need to present himself humbly or mend fences with White in order to come back. The UFC should be begging him to come back. It needs him more than he needs it, and anyway he did nothing wrong. A fighter actually knowing his worth — and getting it, after standing up for himself — should be something we cheer as fans. The other option, Pereira, is less appealing but still workable. He's one of the few fighters out there with actual star power, even after that loss to Magomed Ankalaev. If he went up in weight we'd have the historic three-division champ possibility to get excited about. Plus it would just be a fun fight from a stylistic perspective. Still much better than any of the current heavyweight backup options, if you ask me (and you did). @beastin364: I'm looking at UFC 317 odds and see Do Bronx as a +330 dog. That seems way off to me. Is it me who's crazy or the sports books? I absolutely see why he'd be an underdog against Ilia Topuria, who's done nothing but look miles ahead of absolutely everybody he's faced. But I was expecting something in the +200 range here. Just the size difference alone, especially with a guy like Charles Oliveira who has such a great ground game, should be enough to make us wonder. Advertisement If Topuria gets to do his stuff — which is to say, fight at boxing range and back Oliveira into the fence, where he can string together combinations in close — he wins easily. But 'Do Bronx' is a sneaky good wrestler and a terror on the mat. That extra size could make a big difference if he ends up on top and Topuria can't move him. @AaronWHoward: What do you think of the UFC bringing Sedriques Dumas back this weekend after his recent headlines For those unaware of the recent headlines, Dumas was arrested for home invasion and battery of his ex-girlfriend, who is also the mother of his child. It's not the first time he's been arrested for something like that, either. This latest incident happened just a couple weeks after his last UFC fight, a loss to Michal Oleksiejczuk in April. There's been no official word yet on exactly why he was pulled out of this fight less than a week out, but on Monday his attorney reportedly filed a motion to modify the bond agreement that kept him limited to a 100-mile radius of his home while on GPS monitoring, so it's likely that the two things are related. Advertisement Mostly what I want to know is how we even got here. I don't always love how the UFC treats fighters like 95% are just interchangeable parts, but shouldn't the one upside be that you can drop guys like this without losing anything? If he can't stay out of handcuffs long enough to show up for fights, and if the thing he keeps getting arrested for is the thing White once said was 'something you don't come back from,' what are we even doing? It's bad enough when the UFC puts up with stuff like this from champs or top contenders. But from some win-one-lose-one mid-card guy like Dumas? That's just baffling. In a perfect world, the UFC wouldn't book him unless/until he's cleared, just due to ethical concerns. In a less perfect world, the bad publicity that would come with booking a fighter while he still has an ankle monitor and a pending charge would make it not worth it. But even in this deeply imperfect world, a fighter of his caliber just can't be worth this fight week headache, can it? @MMAGoddess: What would have been worse for Jon Jones' legacy? Pulling the shenanigans he just pulled, or losing in the cage against Tom? Losing is something we can understand. Especially in this context. Jones, the aging great, goes in there and gets knocked out by Aspinall, a bigger, younger man on the way up? There's no shame in that. We've seen it before and we know that's usually how it goes. But spending his last few years in the sport picking his spots, then bouncing the instant there's a real challenge? That's a bad look. Combine it with allegations of yet another vehicular misadventure — one that is shockingly similar to the kind of stuff he's been doing for years now — and this embarrassing exit actually feels strangely perfect for him. Advertisement You know what's really wild? This incident happened back in February. So all this time that Jones has been telling us how he's living his best life, monetizing this incredible personal brand he's built while enjoying his immense personal growth, he knew he had this thing still hanging over his head. And yeah, he appeared to admit in an unhinged tweet storm that it was him on the phone in that body cam video telling the cops he can have them killed, because he's apparently intent on making his lawyer's job as difficult as possible. All of this is part of Jones' legacy. By going out (for now) like this, he only cements it in people's minds that this kind of thing was always part of his story — and it really, truly was. Can you imagine the alternate universe where he stays out of trouble and the worst thing we could say about him was that he lost one (1) fight to a bigger, younger opponent at the end of his career? There's no way that isn't a better reality for him. @justlikelasagna: I myself am not looking to take any trips abroad currently, but isn't it at least kind of nice that the UFC goes to places no other organization would consider. NBA NFL etc. sure it's for $ but the local fans get a huge treat. That is definitely a positive way to think of it. I mean, attending a UFC event is typically pretty expensive, so it's not exactly charity work the company is doing out in places like Azerbaiijin, but still. It is nice for those fans to get a chance to see an event in their own backyard. It would also be nice for those fans in places where the local government doesn't pay up to bring the UFC to town. @702_dylan: Thoughts on "custom" fight shorts being made for some fighters? Should it be champs only? Main events on PPVs? Other criteria? Advertisement Why not every fighter who competes in the UFC? It's weird to me that we think having your own shorts is such a treasured privilege that should only be available to the best of the best. All these people are fighting in the top organization in this sport. They're on ESPN (streaming or otherwise). They're supposed to be the elite athletes in this sport, right? It doesn't seem like it should be so impossible to provide them each with one pair of shorts made just for them. @IkeFeldman: Who wins Ngannou vs Aspinall? And prime v prime fantasy fight who wins: Chuck Liddell vs Alex Pereira? In a battle between two big heavyweight knockout artists, I have to favor the younger man, so I'll take Aspinall. And while we can debate exactly when Liddell's and Pereira's respective primes were, I'll take Pereira there. He's a bigger and better athlete than Liddell ever was, and a more skilled striker overall. We also forget sometimes just how much better overall MMA fighters are now than they were even just 15 or 20 years ago. It's like asking if Babe Ruth would still be cranking homers if he had to face Greg Maddux or Randy Johnson. Deep in our hearts we all know he'd watch those pitches go by him and assume it was the work of the devil. @BlaowPlaow: If you could not decrease the schedule demands of the current UFC model, how would you go about improving the product? Advertisement Most suggestions I see center around reducing roster size and quantity of fight cards. While I agree we would benefit, I don't see this as a realistic option. You're right that it's not an option that anyone at TKO is even considering. So my suggestion would be to inject more fun into the product. Try some different stuff. Let the personalities shine a bit more. Right now one of the UFC's biggest strengths is also a weakness, and that's the well-oiled machine of its live event production. This promotion has been doing exactly this for so long that everyone there could do it in their sleep. And sometimes it feels like they are. It's almost robotic, just churning out fight content and then moving on to the next one. With fight sports especially, people are there to see a show as much as a sport. But a lot of times when you're watching the UFC on TV now, it just feels like you're watching a sausage factory churn out more sausage.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mailbag: Did Merab Dvalishvili make a mistake revealing his toe injury ahead of UFC 316?
How concerned should we be about Merab Dvalishvili's toe injury ahead of the Sean O'Malley rematch at UFC 316? What upcoming fight should we protect at all costs? And what's the walkout song you never want to hear again? All that and more in this week's mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @benfowlkesmma or @ @NeedXtoseePosts: With Merab posting a video of his injury (again) and continuing his videos, Is there a sillier little guy in the UFC? Advertisement A while back I asked Merab Dvalishvili about his approach to social media and the thing he seemed most adamant about was that he didn't want it to be the same boring crap that most fighters do on there. You've probably seen what he's talking about. It's all gym selfies or pictures of boringly nutritious dinners or half-hearted sponsor shoutouts. One day the fighter is posting pics of his training partners with some 'iron sharpens iron' caption. Then three weeks later, after he loses his fight, he's on there telling us how he suffered a punctured lung in sparring (but of course he's not making excuses). To be clear, Merab is also doing many of those same things on his Instagram. But he's also doing a fair amount of Just Messing Around. He has his little skits with the Sean O'Malley lookalike (who at this point is like a regular on a long-running sitcom, whether he likes it or not). He has stuff that is at least recognizable as attempts at humor. And when he hurts his toe on somebody's head, sure, he's going to tell us that in the most good-natured way possible. Advertisement I see it as Merab staying true to his own vision, which I respect. I also see it as some stuff I'd want to pay attention to if I'm O'Malley. If they end up in a clinch against the fence, you think that toe isn't getting stomped? I'd just about guarantee it. There is such a thing as being too open and accessible on social media, especially in this sport. @Kib_KC: Would you rather: Max wins an all-out war, or Dustin wins via gilly This is one fight where I'm firmly in the 'I just hope both teams have fun' camp. One of the reasons I like this booking so much is because we could conceivably be happy with a bunch of different outcomes. If Dustin Poirier wins (especially via his first career guillotine choke) and rides off into the sunset, awesome. If Max Holloway gets one back against a friendly rival he's been battling in the UFC since they were both fresh-faced kids, also cool. As long as we get a good fight with a clear conclusion, it'll be a success. Advertisement But if you force me to pick a side, I have to go with Poirier in this one. Seeing him exit the sport with a win in front of his home crowd would be a real feel-good moment. My only fear is that, sometimes when fighters win that retirement fight, it convinces them that they shouldn't be retiring after all. @jaypettry: If you were to wrap one currently scheduled fight in bubble wrap and guarantee it happens, which one would it be? Dricus du Plessis vs. Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319. I would have chosen Ilia Topuria vs. Islam Makhachev if the UFC hadn't found a way to avoid giving fans what they actually want there. Instead I'll take this legitimately fascinating middleweight title fight, and for two main reasons. The first is that, style-wise, this feels pretty bonkers. Will "DDP" get to launch his awkwardly effective herky-jerky offense on yet another top 185-pounder? Or will Chimaev take him down and grind him into a fine paste before he can even get going? There are just so many weird ways for these fighters to mix up their styles and skills together, and I can't wait to see what it actually looks like. Advertisement The second reason is that, whether we want to admit it or not, du Plessis now stands on the precipice of middleweight greatness. If he wins this fight he'll have victories over almost everyone who's mattered at middleweight for the last five-plus years. He finished Israel Adesanya and Robert Whittaker. He beat Sean Strickland twice. He's undefeated in the UFC. Now he could add a win over the guy we've been hearing about as the heir apparent seemingly forever. I ask you honestly, is there a better middleweight run this side of Anderson Silva? "DDP" could cement his status as one of the all-time greats at 185 pounds here. And I don't think we're anywhere close to being emotionally prepared for that possibility. @grave_ko: After everything thats happened since Jon went to heavyweight and even disregarding personal issues, does the steroids and the ducking both Francis and Tom do enough to fully tarnish Jon Jones legacy that he can no longer be considered a GOAT candidate? Thanks guys. It's always tricky trying to have to legacy conversation while a fighter's career is … technically … kind of … sort of still going. Even right after somebody retires, we don't necessarily know for sure what the full picture might look like. We need some time and distance to assess these things. Advertisement Thing is, you can undercut almost any fighter's accomplishments if you really want to. Georges St-Pierre? He was a decision specialist who bailed on the division just when good fighters were starting to show up. Fedor Emelianenko? Fought nothing but tomato cans in an organization devoted to his continued success. Anderson Silva? Well, I have nothing right now but give me a few days and I'm sure I'll come up with something. Point is, even if you have a legit claim to GOAT status on paper, it doesn't guarantee people will give you full credit later on. This is especially true if you exit on a very sour note. Consider that there are probably plenty of 'pandemic fans' — people who only got into this sport when the UFC was one of the few shows going during the spring of 2020 — who don't get what the big deal is about Jon Jones. He's only won two fights since then, the last of which came against a semi-retired 42-year-old firefighter. If he retires without fighting Tom Aspinall, that will be one of the main things they remember about him. @PhotoAmy33: What's the walkout song you hope you never have to hear again? Advertisement 'Roar' by Katy Perry. No disrespect to Miesha Tate for choosing this, but what the hell. It's an assault on the eardrums by one of the most blandly vapid pop stars of the past two decades, and you think that's going to get a crowd fired up to see you fight? Honorable mention, since it's not technically a walkout song: That terrible dubstep remix of 'Hotel California' that the UFC's house DJ used to play at every event. There's a song where both concept and execution are an affront to humanity. People have been jailed for less. @johnwmerva: Has MMA really passed, or hit, its high water mark? It just seems that the UFC is in decline or putting in no effort, ONE is really a Muay Thai org and PFL/Bellator are out. Where's the sport actually going to go to now if no-one's really pushing its development? It's in a lull, but that doesn't mean it will stay there. If you look at the history of fight sports, from the bare-knuckle days of the London Prize Ring to now, you'll see that it always moves in waves. A popular or controversial fighter appears, drives interest, and then declines or departs. Fan interest waxes and wanes. It's how it always goes, and right now we appear to be in a waning phase. Advertisement The only thing that really worries me about it is that the UFC and its parent company are still raking in revenue despite the lull. They've done such a good job of, as TKO executive Ari Emanuel once put it, 'taking the lumpiness out of the business,' that the company still gets paid a ton of money even if no one is watching. So where's the incentive to really get fans excited, or to do a good job of building and promoting new stars? That's what I worry about. If the suits in the boardroom see that they can put this thing in cruise control and still bathe in cash, they don't have much reason to try harder.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mailbag: Is the Valentina Shevchenko superfight the only thing left for UFC champ Zhang Weili?
What's next after Zhang Weili's dominant title defense at UFC 312? Will Dominick Cruz's retirement be the kind that actually sticks? And how might having friends high up in the U.S. government shape the future of combat sports for the UFC's parent company? All that and more in this week's mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @BenFowlkesMMA or @ Weili vs Valentina at 125lb is the move right? — Now Boarding Flight 209 (@jmprobus) February 11, 2025 @jmprodus: Weili v s Valentina at 125lb is the move right? It definitely is, and for the simple reason that neither of them has anything else remotely interesting to do at the moment. Seriously, who could Zhang Weili fight now? She's beaten four of the top five women in the current UFC strawweight rankings, with lopsided wins over both the top two fighters in her past two outings. As for Valentina Shevchenko? She got her belt back from Alexa Grasso and is now looking at a pretty uninspiring field of potential challengers. I mean, I guess you could make Shevchenko vs. Manon Fiorot next, and that would be just fine. But it would also not be anything better than just fine. A champ vs. champ superfight, on the other hand, is always a big deal. It's instantly a big deal, and there's really nothing else for either of them that we could say the same about. Usually the big challenge in making this type of fight is convincing the smaller fighter to leave behind a division she's dominated to take the risk against a larger champion. But then here's Zhang, who seems pretty into the idea. So why not? This is a chance to make a really big fight in the women's divisions, and that's something the UFC hasn't had much of lately. Now is the time, so let's hope it happens. Am I a bad person for"Dom, enjoy your retirement, but Aldo will be there when you're rested"Speaking of Dom I'm convinced Keith Peterson DID smell of alcohol & cigs but it was from hand sanitizer gel, as it start of the pandemic and it stunk then due to supply issues! — Conor (@NeedXtoseePosts) February 11, 2025 @NeedXtoseePosts: Am I a bad person for "Dom, enjoy your retirement, but Aldo will be there when you're rested" Speaking of Dom I'm convinced Keith Peterson DID smell of alcohol & cigs but it was from hand sanitizer gel, as it start of the pandemic and it stunk then due to supply issues! That is a very generous interpretation of Dominick Cruz's comments about referee Keith Peterson. I can't say you're wrong. I can only say that Cruz was so mad about the stoppage (which was entirely justifiable under the circumstances, by the way) that he wasn't necessarily limiting himself to olfactory facts in the moment. As for your prediction that he'll come out of retirement for a battle between WEC legends of a certain age, I can't rule it out. But when a guy retires because his body simply can't get through a training camp and make it to fight night in one piece, that's not so much a decision that can be easily reversed as it is an admission of cold, hard realities. The spirit is willing. We know this. The flesh is almost 40 — and as you'll recall, it struggled to stay healthy even in Cruz's prime. If you were Dana and needed a few (regulatory) favors from Big Don, what would you ask? On that I suppose the bigger Q is do you expect any changes in the power balances of boxing / MMA during this Presidency? — Nick Jolly (@nickj812) February 12, 2025 @nickj812: If you were Dana and needed a few (regulatory) favors from Big Don, what would you ask? On that I suppose the bigger Q is do you expect any changes in the power balances of boxing / MMA during this Presidency? I can't really think of much that the UFC could ask for that it doesn't already have. There aren't really any government restrictions on it at all. Anything it asks for from state athletic commissions, it pretty much gets. Even when the National Labor Relations Board seemed briefly willing to consider whether the UFC has been misclassifying fighters as independent contractors all these years, that too eventually got slow-played into nothing. It's boxing where I'd expect TKO Group Holdings Inc. to call in some favors. We just heard TKO CEO Ari Emanuel suggest that something might 'happen' to the Ali Act, which currently protects pro boxers from at least some exploitative business practices. He said the Ali Act has 'hurt' the sport. I find that interesting, since boxing as a sport seems to be thriving right now in a whole lot of ways. What I suspect Emanuel means is that the Ali Act has hurt the ability of one promoter to seize control of the sport and keep all the money and talent for itself. I would say that even with a friend in the White House, it would be hard to undo a federal law that's existed for nearly 25 years now. But then, I look around at the current functioning of the U.S. government and there's not much I'm prepared to say couldn't happen. What would you add to the presentation of the apex to make it look more interesting? A ramp? — keith (@MMAFAN2019) February 12, 2025 @MMAFAN2019: What would you add to the presentation of the apex to make it look more interesting? A ramp? Whatever the WWE did when it showed up there and held a pro wrestling event that actually looked like an event, I'd do that. We know it's possible now. We've seen it. The half-empty warehouse vibe just drains away the energy on the broadcast. It sends an instant visual message to the audience that these are not fights that matter. That sucks for the fighters. They deserve better. And if the UFC can make an APEX event seem more like an actual event, it can only help interest and viewership. So let's get some people in there and get to hootin' and/or hollerin'. @ Have we reached the point in MMA where talking about it is more interesting than being about it? To wit, I listen to your podcast and read your articles, but I haven't watched a full PPV in almost five years. One thing I took away from UFC 300 is that the UFC is still very capable of putting together a full pay-per-view event of must-watch fights. There was not one bit of filler on that lineup. Every fight was meaningful in one way or another, and almost all of them were a ton of fun to watch. That tells you that the talent is there. It's just being spread pretty thin by the hectic events schedule, so loading up one fight card means leaving the cupboard a little bare for others. Take UFC 312, for example. There was an event where you definitely did not need to watch the full pay-per-view. The top two fights mattered. A scattered few on the undercard ended up being worth checking out. The rest was basically UFC Fight Night: Sydney, but dressed up as something else. So no, you don't need to sit there and watch every fight on every fight card. But there are still great fights happening almost every weekend. It's just that you have to sit through a lot of filler to get there — or circle back on Sunday morning with a cup of coffee and skip to the good stuff.
