As promised, I did not watch UFC 326. I am officially burned out when it comes to UFC. I have been taking a peek at other promotions but just like if I was to eat my favorite food every single day, I just got tired of UFC.
UFC has become easier to loathe than your favorite meal because of the fact that they have been rigging fights to get the fan favorites into the spotlight rather than put who is most worthy in there and another problem is that grapplers and wrestlers are winning a lot of matches in very boring fashion.
As much as I dislike the mere existance of the BMF belt, we were always promised a real throwdown of striking performance in all of those and this is what we had gotten in all of the BMF events up to now. That all changed yesterday though when we saw Max Holloway defend his belt against Charles Olivira
See how these two guys are about to give one another a hug after the 25 minutes of ring time are over? Well if you had the misfortune of watching this live or even worse paying the $500 it took to get a seat to see it live, that was basically what the entire 25 minutes of the fight was as well.
The first maybe 30 seconds of the fight took place standing with both fighters landing some good punches and kicks the likes of which fans enjoy seeing and have come to expect from BMF matches. Then, Charles, perhaps feeling as though this was a losing prospect for him, shot for a takedown, and succeeded in doing so.
What happened after that would end up being a preview of what 90% of the rest of the match was going to look like: Oliveira with his legs wrapped in a triangle slowly attempting to position for a submission.
Look, I know this sport, I participated in this sport, I understand that grappling and BJJ is a big part of the keys to victory. I also understand that this is extremely boring for the average person to be subjected to watching. This is the reason why the Daegestani fighters, who hold the titles in several of the weight classes, cannot pull a big crowd and don't really have a large fanbase (this is subjective of course, go ahead and disagree with me if you want.)
While BMF fights are stupid anyway because to call a person the "baddest" of anything when neither person is capable of winning their own weight division is a farce. But but but! The whole thing about the BMF title is that in the past it has been basically guaranteed to be an absolute slugfest and it sort of appeared in the past that the fighters involved were going to strive for a higher level of excitement designed to really please the fans That was not the case at all this time.
For damn near all of the 25 minutes, we were subjected to a submission artist who you cannot get off your back who is going after a guy who is well known for not being able to be submitted from the back. It was a stalemate that just never ended and the crowd in attendance was not pleased as the boos started to rain down anytime Oliveira went for another takedown and ultimately succeeded, then proceeded to lie there for the next 4 minutes and 30 seconds barely damaging Holloway at all.
"Listen to all the casuals booing this amazing fight!"
-Joe Rogan
Daniel Cormier had similar things to say about the fans rejecting this sort of fight format as well and I get that it is their jobs to be the hype-men for whatever fight is going on, but I also don't think it is very wise to attack your own fanbase. That hasn't worked out so well for a lot of people in the past.
Nate Diaz is attributed with sort of being the idea behind the BMF belt in the first place and while I am quite certain he was not at all as eloquent as this when he said it, the idea was this.
The BMF would do away with wrestlers “finding loopholes” to win on points, and discourage tumbleweed contenders
No scorecard reliance, no soft game plans, just real fighters and real fights. That was meant to be the real essence of the BMF and even though I was never a fan of the BMF being a thing, it would have been nice if Oliveira would have stuck to this format. He was very clearly, especially after round 3 where it was evident he was up on points, trying to win on points. His attempts at genuine submission faded in rounds 4 and 5 where it was starting to look more and more like a hold-the-other-guy-on-the-ground hugging-contest.
This was so frowned upon in BMF titles matches in the past that there has only ever been a SINGLE takedown in all of the BMF fights up to now. This was done by Jorge Masvidal and he would later apologize for having done it saying that it was just "pure instinct."
Charles Oliveira spent the ENTIRE bout looking to shoot to the ground.
There are no special rules against this. The rules of a the BMF bouts are the same as all other UFC bouts but this was not in the spirit of BMF-dom if you will. Nate Diaz let his ire be known while the fight was taking place in his usual lovely way.
This pic tells more of a story than just Nate's brash comments. It shows how Max is definitely smiling here and several times when they were on the ground both guys were smiling and clearly talking to one another. This is not what this fight is supposed to be about and while there are going to be some purists out there that are going to defend the wrestling and BJJ style, including Joe Rogan who is likely obligated by contract to do so, you can't tell me that was an exciting fight. It was not.