Does UFC 146's Success Signal a New Era for MMA's Heavyweights?
- May 27, 2012 01:29 pm
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Esther Lin, MMA Fighting
If you’d told me five or six years ago that the UFC was planning an event where the main card was nothing but heavyweight fights, I’d have told you it was probably a mafia movie-style plan to get all the heavies in one place for a decisive hit that would eradicate the division altogether.
Back then, leaning so heavily on the big men would have been unthinkable. The UFC didn’t have enough of them, and the ones it did have were mostly on the mediocre end of the scale. Remember 2006, when Tim Sylvia was the heavyweight champ? He got to the top by beating Assuerio Silva, Andrei Arlovski (twice), and Jeff Monson. That run was so impressive it prompted Randy Couture to come out of retirement as a 220-pound heavyweight just to fight him.
And yet now, in 2012, the UFC felt so confident in its big men that it asked them to carry the load for the entire UFC 146 main card. More amazingly, it actually worked. It worked better than anyone had any right to hope for, providing all the fireworks we’ve come to expect from heavyweights with none of the plodding wheeze-fests we’ve come to dread. UFC president Dana White thinks "bad s--t" happens to him every day? Outside the cage, maybe. On the police blotters? Definitely, at least recently.
But in the cage, White and the UFC caught a major break on Saturday night. The heavyweights on the UFC 146 card delivered in a big way, making me wonder if maybe White is on to something when he says that we’ve reached a new age for MMA’s biggest competitors. - 13 Comments Read More »
