UFC pay per views are supposed to be the best thing ever and in many ways they are. The rest of UFC 248 was out of this world awesome except for just one thing..... the main event.
This main event in all of its boring status couldn't have possible come at a worse time because the fight that happened prior to it... i mean IMMEDIATELY before it on live television was quite possibly the best women's fight of all time.... it might have been one of the best fights, man or woman, of all time. Obviously it is hard to follow that.
It was a tough act to follow but this was an absolute embarrassment for UFC and it almost looked like a "fix" was in by the part of the competitors.
I hope you enjoy that pic above of Israel getting a punch in on Yoel because it is one of maybe 10 punches that happened during the entire 5 round fight. The first round was an example of what a super fight would look like if neither one of the people involved actually wanted to fight one-another, or really fight anyone at all. There was maybe 2 punches landed in the entire 5 minutes.
The crowd started to "boo" really early on and this didn't change for the rest of the fight or during the post-fight interviews. Both fighters made almost understandable explanations when talking to Joe Rogan after the fight about why nobody actually turned up to fight but Joe, and the crowd weren't having any of it.
This performance was so fucking poor that it makes many of us think that there might have been a pre-arranged situation between Adesanya vs. Romero. Dana White, who is I guess obligated to put the belt back on the winner of championship bouts at the end of the match quickly strapped the belt back on Adesanya and immediately walked out of the octagon.
Dana White does his best to protect his "investment" in Israel Adesnaya when he says that he "fought the fight that was brought to him" and other such crap about how the champ couldn't have done more than he did to defend his belt but in the mind of me and many other people this all sounds like damage control.
This fight was terrible and even the referee stepped in at one point to tell them that they "have to do something to earn this championship money."
They didn't do that and this ended up being the worst middleweight bout , if no the worst championship bout in an weight class, ever.
Yoel Romero was already on his way out from the sport but this should be the hand on the hammer on the nail in the coffin as far as that man's career is concerned. At no point did he actually try to win the bout and at no point did the current champion try to embarrass him for turning up to a championship with no arsenal.
For me it looks like a fix, but I don't know for sure. However, I challenge anyone to review this fight and say anything other than it was one of the worst fights that the UFC has ever had on pay-per-view.
Dana is playing cat and mouse now, but if he was honest.... i think he would say exactly what I am right now.