Last weekend saw UFC middleweight champion Izzy Adesanya lose his belt as well as his first match at middleweight. His opponent was a man who had beaten him before, albeit in his previous profession as a kickboxer, a man by the name of Alex Pereira. When this match up was first announced I was a little skeptical considering that Pereira to that point in his career only had a handful of MMA fights and I think only one top ten win in the UFC. That being said I can definitely understand why they made the fight considering that he’s one of the few men that have beaten Izzy before and the fact that Izzy had already beaten many of the top middleweights already. So from a marketing standpoint I can see how this fight could be the easiest one to sell, but the aftermath shows that this strategy was somewhat short sighted.
Pereira of course ended up defeating Adesanya via a fifth round TKO and winning the Title. Now the question is how does this screw over Izzy or the UFC? Well before this fight Adesanya was easily one of if not the biggest star currently in the UFC, so setting him up with the guy who is most likely to beat him immediately puts Izzy and the UFC in a tough spot. However, again the interest and pay-per view buys the match up draws makes it worth it. Not to mention it’s just a fun match up to watch. The real problem comes into view when you look at the current state middleweight division as a whole. The reigning champion just lost to a guy with less than ten fights in his career and most of the top middleweight contenders are high level grapplers that would likely be favored to win against a relatively novice grappler in the new champ Pereira.
My point in all this is who is Pereira going to defend his title against first? A top contender who’s likely to beat him? An immediate rematch against Izzy? Both scenarios present problems: if he loses the title in his first title defense then where does that leave Izzy? In contrast if Izzy loses again in the rematch he’s in a similarly perplexing situation. If he loses to Pereira twice in a row then they can’t very well keep giving him rematches and he probably wouldn’t get to be first in line to fight for the title if Pereira loses to someone else. This leaves the UFC in a situation where there biggest star is going to lose some shine and the middleweight division is possibly going to be in a turbulent period. Now my point isn’t that this was the wrong fight to make. As soon as Pereira entered the UFC it was obvious he would have to fight Adesanya eventually. However the problem with this fight was when it took place, this fight should have been made once Pereira was able to beat at least one top five opponent with high level grappling skills. Because Pereira losing immediately after winning the title is just going to make Adesanya and the UFC look bad. Of course I’m not saying he will lose I’m just saying it’s a tricky spot the UFC didn’t have to put themselves in.
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