UFC 332 set a promotional record for knockouts.| 📷: JeffBottari/Zuffa/Getty
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For all the criticism UFC332 received, it ended up being a banger of a card. It produced11 knockouts, an Ultimate Fighting Championship record, including sevenconsecutive first-round finishes, another promotional record.Violence was the name of the game, leaving viewers who craved itsatiated. Of course, it also left Dana White rubbing the results inthe faces of detractors who complained about the card.
As much as White’s gloating annoys me in these situations — thiswasn’t the first time a maligned card proved entertaining, and itwon’t be the last — he isn’t necessarily wrong to say “told youso.” It was one of the most entertaining cards from top to bottomthat I can recall in recent memory. Ultimately, that’s what the UFCis all about. Yes, it’s a sport, but fans spend their hard-earnedmoney to be entertained.
UFC 332’s record knockouts didn’t silence the critics
Of course, that wasn’t the complaint from the naysayers, myselfincluded. It was the quality of the card, measured against thestandard the UFC itself had established with its previous numberedevents. There weren’t many names familiar to casual fans who hadonly recently taken an interest in the sport. Rafael dosAnjos may be a former champion, but he lost his title more thana decade ago. DeivesonFigueiredo is also a former champion — less than four yearsago, he was the flyweight kingpin — but he looks absolutely washed.I don’t mean to disrespect NataliaSilva or Cong Wang,but neither appears to have the “it” factor that makes stars. Silvais now champion, but she’s not a star, not by a long shot.
I understand that extenuating circumstances partly explain thecard’s low quality and that not all events will meet the samestandard. Some will inevitably be below average. The bigger issuewas that the UFC seemed to feel it didn’t need to stretch itself toproduce an acceptable lineup. To me, the promotion took the easyway out, setting the card up for violence rather than competitivefights.
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Did UFC 332’s matchmaking favor knockouts overcompetition?
Make no mistake, the potential for violence on this card wasparticularly high once all the pieces fell into place. It didn’tlook like a happy accident; it looked like the product ofdeliberate matchmaking.
For instance, durability doesn’t last forever. Pound on a rock longenough with a hammer, and it will eventually crack. That analogyhas its limits when applied to fighters, but the accumulatedpunishment these veterans have taken raises questions about howmuch more they can withstand. There were three fighters 40 or olderon the card; all three were stopped. Figueiredo may not be 40 yet,but he’ll turn 39 in December and has taken considerable punishmentover the past couple of years. He had previously lost by TKO toBrandonMoreno, but another stoppage felt inevitable if his recentstruggles continued.
To be fair to the UFC, most of those contests didn’t look likeintentional squash matches. Court McGeedrew Eric Nolan,who had yet to win in the UFC. Dos Anjos looked good againstAlexanderHernandez until he didn’t. King Greenwas … well, he was King Green, and there was good and bad in hisoverall performance against EstebanRibovics. Those fights were relatively competitive, but Ithought the veterans were at considerable risk of being stopped.That also doesn’t erase the several matchups that looked likeobvious mismatches.
Payton Talbott, Deiveson Figueiredo & the UFC’s prospectstrategy
Given that PaytonTalbott easily outpointed a game HenryCejudo in his previous appearance, Figueiredo looked like asizable step down. With Talbott still ascending as a fighter, itwas hard to envision anything other than a glorified squash match… which is exactly what it became. DamianPinas also appeared to get a step down, going from CesarAlmeida to AndreyPulyaev. Highly touted AnthonyWint was booked on less than a month’s notice to face anewcomer with far less hype, LucasArmand. Those three fights lasted a combined 3 minutes, 47seconds — less than a single round of action.
I can’t fault the UFC for using that strategy. With otherpromotions competing for prospects, it has an incentive to signthem before they’re ready for tougher competition and give themmanageable opponents while they develop. Why not make thatdevelopment time entertaining? Build hype around the youngsters.Give the viewing audience something it is likely to get excitedabout. The result was a card most fans will remember fondly, evenif the main event ended up being as flat as many feared.
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Could UFC 332 change how Dana White builds future cards?
Given that the UFC brand is now a bigger star than any individualfighter — assuming ConorMcGregor is no longer a viable exception — I expect similarmatchmaking to compensate for numbered events whose lineups leavefans complaining. I doubt the Madison Square Garden cards will getthat treatment, but I could see it happening in Cincinnati orDenver. A Brazilian card also seems like a prime candidate. Inother words, a location whose appeal alone wouldn’t be a majorselling point when recruiting free agents in the major teamsports.
I don’t expect the UFC to acknowledge such a strategy. Thepromotion will continue to say it has the best fighters in theworld and that, as long as fans are entertained, it’s doing itsjob. At the most basic level, that argument is correct. Nuance canadd gray to a black-and-white situation, but I don’t expect the UFCto supply it. As much as I want to complain, it’s a damn goodapproach. Don’t expect it to work as well as it did at UFC 332 —that’s a best-case scenario — but look closer at the next numberedevent you find underwhelming. It may be primed for severalfinishes.
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