3. @bconcrete
"Leon Edwards did not deserve the title shot he got for Leon/Usman II"
Hello ladies, gentlemen, friends, and other. I come before you today to share one of my most strongly held opinions in all of MMA.
We all remember this moment:
Many celebrate it as a great moment for the UFC. I do not. I mourn it. Why? Because this is the exact moment that the once great Welterweight division officially became the WelterWAITS. It's not a conclusion or a coronation. It's the start of a goddamn horror movie that we are all still living.
View attachment 549
My unpopular opinion:
Leon Edwards and his whiny, bitch-ass diva-ness are responsible for the current impacted colon of a division we all must suffer with. HE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN IN THAT SECOND USMAN FIGHT IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!
Everyone likes to point to his 11 fight unbeaten streak as the reason why he was there, but let's look closer at that streak. Here are the fighters we would consider having "name value" on that resume: Belal, Nate, RDA, Cowboy, and Luque. Of those 5, 3 are LWs that moved up, were at least six years older than him, and were reaching the very tail of their prime (best case) when they fought. Of the remaining two, Luque and Belal, he beat Luque five and a half years before the title shot and Belal was a no contest. This is not a strong resume for a title shot. The reamining list of people that make up his vaunted resume? Dominic Waters, Albert Tumenov, Bryan Barberena, Peter Sobotta, Gunnar Nelson. And that's it. . That’s the resume for a championship fight apparently. Thinner than Mary-Kate Olson sponsored truck stop toilet paper.
To recap, Lenny was given a title shot for:
- Beating three older, puffed up LWs that were on the last gasps of their prime
- Beating five low-to-mid tier WW’s
- Eyepoking Belal
- Beating Luque five years before his title shot
"But [redacted]! It's still 11 wins! That's plenty to have a title shot in the UFC!"
First, go fuck yourself. Second, it was TEN wins, he had a no contest before nearly blinding Belal (which would have been a far better outcome for the division in retrospect, but I digress), so it's an UNBEATEN streak. Finally, let’s look at
how he won on this streak. Of those ten fights that got him a title shot, he had… two finishes.
Two (2). Seven decisions. One no-contest. That is a record of fight performance that is as flat as Hank Hill’s ass.
"Ok fine, you don't need to curse at me, sure, his resume is weak, and not exciting but he was still the top candidate in the division for the shot!"
Was he though? (Also, still go fuck yourself, quit questioning me, this is my passion project) There was a guy IN THAT SAME DIVISION who went
10-1 over that four-year period with NINE stoppages. His only loss during that run was the last great Wonderboy performance in a pretty exciting fight. Who was that guy?
Vicente Luque. Yes, he had previously lost to Lenny. FOUR YEARS EARLIER before rattling off that MUCH more impressive streak than the skidmark of a streak fucking Lenny wouldn't shut up about.
Instead of fighting Usman, it should have been AT LEAST a #1 Contender's match in a rematch against Luque, if not giving Luque the title shot outright because Lenny is whiny diva bitch. The case makes itself: 11-0-1 with two finishes over five and a half years vs 10-1 with nine finishes over four years. I still think you can make a very good argument for giving Luque the shot outright, but some have accused me of bias on this take.
So why didn't that happen? Because one guy said shit like this:
https://mmajunkie.usatoday.com/2021...t-without-putting-down-strategic-leon-edwards
And the other guy kept running his cock-holster and saying shit like this:
https://www.mmafighting.com/2021/3/...chance-came-up-short-i-deserve-the-title-shot
So at the end of the day, Dana got tired of listening to Lenny's bitch ass whining, put him in there with Usman, and inadvertently exposed the whole fucking division to Patient fucking Zero of Diva-itis. Now the whole division thinks the blueprint is to sit on your ranking until you can carefully curate your resume, bitch your tits off, and wait for a title shot.
And let's not forget, Lenny lost the goddamn belt to Belal, somehow the only human more boring and unlikable than he is! Ugh. ANYWAYS. You can say
"Yeah {redacted}, but Lenny probably beats Luque and gets a shot at Usman anyways and we're still in this spot."
To that I say
why aren't you still fucking yourself we can Sliding Doors anything we want. That's definitely a possibility. But as LENNY HIMSELF proved over 24 boring as fuck minutes punctuated with 5 explosive seconds, you never know for sure. I could also argue that Lenny loses and decides to cut his dick off and use it as a microphone to sing show tunes on the subway.
What we know for sure is the good guy was passed over for being too nice, the bad guy was rewarded for being a whiny punk bitch, and the whole division is now about as far a cry as you can imagine from these glorious days:
Man, fuck Lenny and all those who have emulated his blueprint since. He wasn't the first to do it, but he was the worst and I'll never forgive him.
webble: Did you forget that one of your judges was a Brit when coming up with this topic??? Hmmmm??? If he didn’t deserve it fine but he did and he won. You needed to have a strong argument to change my mind of this one so nope, I’ll be generous with a 2/10
GoodCat: Okay, interesting take. I'm not sure I'm 100% on board with you on it, but not a bad pick at all. The whole time I was reading I was waiting for you to get to the part where you gave examples of who should have had the title shot instead of him. And while you did get to it finally, it was only 1 guy and it just so happened to be the guy that Leon beat lol. To me, that kinda speaks to how thin the division was at that point that you couldn't use any other fighters that would have even been considered for the title shot over him. 6.5/10
Brick: Not bad. At first I thought your point might go down in flames, because with a win streak like that a shot is often inevitable. Also, the fact that he WON the title shot is the strongest evidence possible that he deserved it; it showed the matchmakers knew what they were doing, and you did not. However, you salvage some points for a couple of reasons. Including an alternative deserving fighter was clutch; otherwise your argument is just like “I don’t want Lenny but don’t ask me who else it should have been.” You were able to answer that. Plus, the write-up was entertaining in general. 7.5/10
cmvideo75: Ha. This one cracked me up. I kind of agree with the opinion but I don't think that many people care. Especially now as an on-going 'issue'. Plus an 11 fight winning streak is tough to argue against no matter who is on that list. This argument relied on shitting on 5 other name fighters that he beat. But I do like the passion this contestant came at it with though. I'm just looking for an overwhelming popular opinion and this is just too specific. 5/10
Total:21
4. @TheIronSheik
No Fat Chicks?
MMA Slams the Door on the Average American Woman
What was once a taboo subject amongst the remnants of our puritan roots - i.e. women fighting each other - is now a mere conversation starter around water coolers across offices across the country. Names like Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano have become big time names amongst fight enthusiasts and movie goers alike - proving the topic of women fighting like men is no longer a distasteful, unladylike spectacle but rather a cultural phenonemon that is only gaining popularity.
Young girls can idolize their favorite female fighter and say I want to do that too and, given the status of their heroines, it seems within reach. The pinnacle of fighting, the UFC, the absolute most one can aspire to as a mixed martial artist.
However, there's a problem for these young girls.
The UFC has turned it's back on most American women.
The UFC, the preeminent fighting promotion that was the springboard to Rousey's and Carano's undeniable notoriety, only offers four weight classes for women - the heaviest topping out at 145 pounds.
The average American woman of fighting age weighs 170 pounds.
Should a woman not be a "featherweight", she could never compete in the UFC.
In a past interview with Rolling Stone, Dana White stated that there simply isn't a talent pool amongst women weighing more than 145 pounds. "I don't know what to tell you other than we haven't had any [fat chicks] come knocking." [Implied bias added].
Mathematically, this makes no sense.
The Olympics don't fair much better. Women heavyweight wrestlers top out at approximately 167 pounds (76kg) and women boxers are capped as middleweights at 165 (75kg). Still, this leaves out half of American women.
The Olympic Committee doesn't explicitly state their reasoning but to their credit, the mean average weight of women internationally is likely a lot lower than it is in the United States so an argument could be made that this in the spirit of international competitiveness. The Olympics is ran by committee after all.
Dana White has no such problem. A fighter weighs what they weigh and he promotes them as he sees fit.
So why no women fighters over 145 pounds?
Monaye, 23, of Henderson, Nevada - mere minutes away from Las Vegas, the home of the UFC - wants to be a fighter, but instead, is on probation. The widely adored story of the UFC fighter finding his way to the Octagon by virtue of a tough life fighting in the streets is not available to Monaye. Instead, she's 5' 10", weighs 220 pounds, and was recently charged with battery against a peace officer because she suspected that he had farted in her general vicinity.
"This [expletive] cop comes into my [expletive] Denny's and rips a dirty [expletive] fart five [expletive] feet away from me. I was like hell [no] you [expletive]." Monaye told this reporter when she agreed to a phone call. "So I beat the [expletive] out of him."
Monaye's Parole Officer, Steven, who was also on the call, made his thoughts known about the need for Monaye to have an outlet for what has been a pattern of misplaced aggression that has never had an outlet.
"This most recent battery charge is the second she's had on her adult record. There's a lot of near misses here too. It's a shame that she couldn't put this to use somewhere other than a Denny's or the parking lot outside OshKosh B'Gosh."
Davon, 26, Monaye's cousin, has no doubt that she would fare well in the UFC. "Oh she DEFINITELY has what it takes." He told this reporter in response to an email inquiry. "One time she made me pick up the gum I had spit in the street outside her house with my bare ass in the middle of summer. She made my eight year old daughter watch while I did it. I got second degree burns from the asphalt."
When asked if she thought she could make it in the UFC, Monaye replied affirmatively. "Hell [expletive] yeah I could."
So why doesn't Monaye get a shot? An arbitrary weight limit that lacks any logical connection to the average American woman?
This makes no sense.
Dana White's evasive answer to this question is mathematically improbable, which is just his way of saying the quiet part [no fat chicks] out loud.
It's the last remaining remnant of the puritan roots we've travelled so far away from. It's the last barrier to young women of all weight classes pursuing their MMA dreams as they watch their female heroes in the octagon and on the big screen. It's the reason why Monaye is banned from all Denny's locations in the Las Vegas Metropolitan area and Davon's daughter can no longer look him in the eye.
The madness needs to end here.
Women need not be featherweights to chase their dreams of heavyweight success.
We need to tell Dana White: Let the fat chicks fight.
webble: This is another good choice of topic however there are flaws in the writers argument. He focuses in on the average American female being 170lb, that sounded a lot to me at 5ft 6 and 142lb so I went to look up the average height of an American woman – 5ft 4! I then looked up the BMI for that combination – 29.2!!! that’s Obese. The problem isn’t that there aren’t weight classes the problem is that the average American woman is overweight and wouldn’t be able to train to the standard required from mma and once they did they would lose weight and be in a lower weight class. I accept there are exceptions but as Dana said probably not enough to warrant a weight class. Good choice of topic but I don’t agree sorry 5/10
GoodCat: Man, Monaye's story really lingered with me for quite a while. I like the humor you brough to the topic, so I'm gonna give a couple bonus points for that. The argument itself, though, isn't a super strong one. I don't have time to look up any real statistics, but I'm sure of all the "average" 170 pound women out there, tons and tons of them are out of shape and nowhere near the ability to fight. That's why you see women like Gabi Garcia having to take these 1 off fights because there aren't enough in shape women of that size to fill out a full division. The fact you've had Cyborg and Megan Anderson having to cut huge amounts of weight just to be able to fight in a 145 pound division speaks to that. They'd both probably be much better fighting at 155 or even 165, but there's literally no one else around. And if you did start letting "fat chicks" start fighting, we'd be seeing a bunch of female Roy Nelsons gas out and flop all over each other within the first round. 6/10
Brick: You went for it with a risky heavy-satire post. But you failed. First of all, logically, if a woman is walking around at 170 you feel she is “excluded,” but actually at that walking-around weight she should be fighting at 145 anyway, so the door is wide open. Plus, this is an entertainment product, and we see enough fat chicks everywhere in this country without having to watch them in sports instead of couple of hotties throwing down, so you didn’t really address if this would be entertaining at all, which may have helped your point. And is this a “strong” MMA issue that people care about? Absolutely not. Even Dana, in your own write-up, says there doesn’t appear to be much if any interest from larger women anyway. 3/10
cmvideo75: What? I literally don't know anyone who is talking about this. We are on an MMA site every day for years and this is never a topic. Maybe a few blips whenever Cyborg pops up but that's it. No one I know cares at all about this or has any opinion. So I don't think 'fat chicks shouldn't fight' is the overwhelming popular opinion among MMA fans... because that is what you are arguing against... which might be Dana White's opinion but definitely not MMA fans. 1/10
Total:15
