By E. Marcel Pourtout, Editor
Music to listen to: Black History Month (Josh Homme Remix) by Death from Above 1979
Things we learned from UFC 178”
-A balanced card makes for a good card. There have been complaints about the lack of quality cards that the UFC has put together in the past six months. Many factors have come into play. We’ve seen Jon Jones, Cain Velasquez, Junior Dos Santos, Chris Weidman, Vitor Belfort, Jose Aldo, Renan Barao and other top-flight fighters miss scheduled bouts because of injury or outside-the-cage issues. Losing those caliber of guys will hurt any fight card.
We’ve also seen the Fight Pass have a full effect on the dilution of cards. The UFC has thrown two separate fight cards on the same day which would have been unheard of two years ago, maybe even one. If you merged those two cards on the same day into one, that would help the cause but the economic realities of 2014 will see that not happen in the near future.
However, we received a traditional, high-quality UFC card. There was a title fight (Demetrious Johnson/Chris Cariaso), two feature bouts with potential top contender implications (Conor McGregor/Dustin Poirier and Donald Cerrone/Eddie Alvarez), respectable mid card battle (Yoel Romero/Tim Kennedy) and known names (Dominick Cruz, Cat Zingano). That was a card worthy of pay-per-view status and my analysis of seeing others reactions show that it was received well.
-Johnson is a top five pound for pound fighter in the world with win over Cariaso. We’ll have The Sports Inquirer’s MMA Power Rankings, out next week but in our early analysis, Johnson will surely be in our top-five, maybe even higher, in the pound-for-pound section.
While Cariaso isn’t a top-five flyweight, he’s still a quality opponent that Johnson dismantled easily. We saw Johnson use his stand-up to perfection in the first round before earning a submission in the second round with a kimura lock.
If Johnson gets one or two more wins at flyweight, it may be time to move up.
-I have one foot into the McGregor band wagon but not both. I’m not a fan of the antics, trash talking and general over cockiness of an unproven fighter which is what I thought McGregor was heading into his bout against Poirier. I understand that this is a business and you have to generate hype for an event but McGregor was a little much heading into last Saturday.
However, if you can back up your arrogance with a first round demolition of a top fighter in your weight class, I have to stand back and give respect.
McGregor did just that in a first-round TKO of Poirier. The Irishman’s standup was strong, using a unique head movement style that’s not common in MMA, moving in and out of hitting lanes for Poirier.
Debate has begun about McGregor being next in line for a title shot against the winner of Aldo/Chad Mendes. I still think McGregor is still outside of the top-five with Aldo, Mendes, Cub Swanson, Ricardo Lamas, Frankie Edgar and Dennis Bermudez all ahead of him so a title shot isn’t in the books for now.
If McGregor gets one more in to build his profile up, I think we can see his first title match coming in the summer of 2015 in an outdoor stadium in his home country of Ireland.
He can be the most marketable athlete the UFC has had since Chuck Liddell. McGregor is White, Irish, young (26 years old) talks confidently and can actually fight. Combat sports have always found success promoting that package since their existence.
-Cruz victory showed I can turn over a new leaf on a fighter. Before last Saturday, I was never a fan of Cruz. I respected the heck out of his talent and his right as a champion. However, his bland personality, unpleasing fighting style (to me) and other factors didn’t make him interesting to me. However, Cruz’s dismantling of Takeya Mizugaki by first-round TKO made me a fan. We haven’t seen that aggression from Cruz in a long time even when he was healthy. I loved that he pushed the pace throughout.
I’m also a sucker for a comeback story and Cruz has an extremely compelling one. Coming back from two major knee surgeries, a torn groin and other injuries, that was his first fight in three years. Even I felt emotional seeing Cruz get caught up in the moment after the win on Saturday and I’m a cynical bastard when it comes to sports.
The bantamweight division also got some needed top-flight depth. Cruz will get a shot to take back his title from current belt holder T.J. Dillashaw in a bout that I can’t wait to see. Speaking of matches I’m salivating over just thinking about…
-I want to see the Cerrone vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov so badly. The two have been scheduled to fight each other but injury to Khabib prevented it. Cerrone just got past Eddie Alvarez and looks ready for a title shot. Let these two slug it out with the winner getting the winner of Anthony Pettis/Gil Melendez (sorry Rafael dos Anjos).
-Alvarez isn’t going anywhere. Losing to Cerrone isn’t an embarrassment. I actually picked Cerrone to win the fight so the result wasn’t surprising. Alvarez is still a top-10 lightweight in the division and has a multitude of options for future opponents. Furthermore, he probably received high compensation for the bout, most likely more than he ever got at Bellator.
I don’t think Alvarez’s loss hurts the perception of Bellator because the thoughts on that promotion have already been set.
-Zingano vs. Ronda Rousey sets up to be first women’s super fight in UFC history. With apologies to Sports Inquirer fan and follower Miesha Tate, the second-best fighter in the women’s bantamweight division is Zingano.
Similar to Cruz, Zingano has had a rough time outside the cage with a knee injury and family death. However, her win over Amanda Nunes last Saturday showed that Colorado-native is ready for a title shot. Zingano has dominance from the top position on the ground, something that Rousey hasn’t had to deal with much in her previous bouts, and a legit submission game which will present the champion with some challenges.
Finally, anyone who can execute a perfect DDT/snap suplex during an MMA fight is a winner in my book which Zigano did against Nunes.
Two undefeated fighters who have compelling storylines that fans can get into means a superfight in my book.
-Romero should have been disciplined for extra stoppage time against Kennedy before round three of the fight but not disqualified. When watching the fight live, I thought that Romero got extra time and should have been penalized but not disqualified. A one-point deduction for stalling would have been sufficient.
The fight doctor did put too much gel on Romero’s cut which is one of the oldest cheating tricks in the book. However, the fight doctors are hired by the UFC so I don’t think ethically that one of them would cheat in this situation.
Romero should have been forced to stand up while the cut was attended to which is on referee John McCarthy unless there’s a rule against him enforcing this.
Despite all of that, Romero still earned the TKO in the third round with Kennedy having a chance to get the win himself.
My solution would be for there not to be a no contest but a rematch scheduled for the near future.
Those are my thoughts, what are yours?
The Sports Inquirer 
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