UFC 88: Where It Takes Us From Here
September 7, 2008
With the KO of the UFC legend, Rashad Looks to have captured himself a title shot, according to Yahoo:
“Me, Lorenzo and Joe Silva decided tonight that Rashad would get the next shot,†said UFC president Dana White at the news conference after UFC 88 at the Phillips Arena in Atlanta.
In the same week where Dana said no one wanted to see Brock VS Kongo, that he learned what not to do from boxing, that he was in the business of putting on fights that people wanted to see, he basically decided after the Rashad fight to put on a fight that no one is clamoring to see. The obvious marketing hook for a Forrest vs Evans fight will be the competitive angle, but that doesn’t always translate to the UFC’s PPV buying public (see Anderson Silva’s PPV numbers). How you put on a Rashad vs Forrest fight and try to trumpet the legitimacy horn and seemingly in the same breath hail a Brock vs Randy title match up for box office reasons strains credulity, at least to those that seek credulity in their MMA. The decision seems more of a monument to sentiments Dana expressed in his discussion with Kevin Iole on the WEC, where his reasoning for the moves to ppv and cutting weight classes was “we know what were doing here.” Booking Evans vs Griffin shows either a strong belief in Griffin’s ability to draw on his own or the UFC’s unerring view that they have the ability to sell ice cubes to Eskimos. Judging from their PPV numbers this year, they may be able to sell those ice cubes by the truckload.
Booking Rashad for New Year’s could possibly set up Forrest’s first two title defenses against Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida, or in the event that he loses, you have set up a Rashad VS Lyoto title fight that will test the UFC’s marketing skills to the max. If Forrest is able to get through those two, it will most likely be in a fashion that has bowling shoe tendencies, ie ugly, but Forrest could have the accumulated goodwill with the UFC audience to come out of those fights unscathed marketing-wise. Making the rash decision to go ahead and give Rashad the title shot is booking the UFC into a corner not just for New Year’s show but a year to 18 months down the road.
Smart money would book Lyoto vs Rashad and eliminate one of those two from title contention. That fight is not going to be a main or a semi main, so put it on a card that has better selling points. The best location for the fight would be a third down the card slot on New Year’s. Nog vs Mir, Griffin vs Wandy, and Evans vs Machida would be ideal. This would nix a Wandy vs Rampage bout set up for November, but could open up the possibility of maybe Rampage vs Shogun 2, either in November or for the Super Bowl card, preferably the SB card which needs a strong semi-main. Brock vs Randy will sell on the strength of that match-up alone and doesn’t need the help. Rampage vs Forrest 2 is a fight that would be attractive if not for the PR nightmare of pushing Rampage for a title shot while under indictment for felonies. Rampage will be in a holding pattern until he is able to see if his “Twinkies defense” (or is it the Throwdown Energy Drink defense?) is going to get him off and back on the road to UFC gold.
And whither Chuck? While I’m not wishing for Chuck to call it a career, the Evans KO was eerily reminiscent of the Gonzaga headkick to CroCop, signaling the death of a legend but not a career per se. While Chuck may go forth with his fighting career, the mythology surrounding the Iceman may have been laid to rest with this fight. In his last 4 fights he has been KO’ed (Rampage), out game-planned (Jardine), been unable to finish (the Wandy win), and viciously KO’ed (Evans). Chuck may be fated to finish out his career in much the same mode that Roy Jones Jr. is in now, wandering the landscape, putting on fights that still draw a crowd but that are of little import in the grand scheme of things. Such a fate would be fulfilling to his bank account but would be an end not fitting for a man that has carried the sport on his back into near mainstream status, something akin to watching Michael Jordan finish his career in a Washington Wizards uniform.
