It is happening again: late on Friday, the UFC announced that Jiri Prochazka and Carlos Ulberg will headline UFC 327 for the light heavyweight title.
This marks the fifth time in a span of just over a year that a UFC title has been vacated. It began when Ilia Topuria went up to lightweight, vacating the featherweight belt in the process. Jon Jones was next to follow when he retired, ending his heavyweight reign. Lastly, Islam Makhachev and Weili Zhang left lightweight and strawweight at the same time.
In all but one of these cases, a new champion had to be crowned. The heavyweight abdication did not immediately lead to an interim title fight, as Tom Aspinall was instead promoted. Alas, the severity of the eye injuries he suffered against Ciryl Gane has caused chaos, with Alex Pereira moving up for a future interim title fight.
That has left 205 needing a new champion for the fourth time in this decade. It is problematic, not just in that division but elsewhere, and poses a few questions worth asking: why is this happening, and what happens because of it?
To understand this current situation, it helps to understand the past.
Champion moving up in weight is nothing new. The first time it happened was more than 17 years ago, when then-lightweight champion BJ Penn returned to welterweight to try unseating Georges St. Pierre. It was well-deserved at the time – “The Prodigy” had seemingly cleaned out his division, and the only real challenge lay 15 pounds north.
It did not end well, as Penn lost the first three rounds before his coaches decided to end the fight themselves after the fourth. Still, the result had proven something – that such an endeavor was foolish. It would not be repeated until 2016, when Conor McGregor challenged Eddie Alvarez at lightweight while still featherweight champion.
Alas, McGregor’s ensuing victory had dire consequences in the long term. He was forced to vacate the featherweight title because of inactivity, but that did not stop others from trying their luck. Two years later, Daniel Cormier and Amanda Nunes became “champ=champs” as well, but they did not have to vacate their other title.
In 2019, then-bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw attempted the reverse, moving down to flyweight against Henry Cejudo in Dana White’s quest to “kill” the division post-Demetrious Johnson. Like Penn’s initial historic attempt, it did not go well. Dillashaw was knocked in just over 32 seconds, then he failed a drugtest. Ironically, Cejudo himself would leave flyweight to successfully vie for the vacated bantamweight belt.
Those events, however, pale in comparison to the year-long chain mentioned in the introduction.
What has happened there is that whoever is the next to hold the belt has to feel a sense of illegitimacy. Lightweight has had no such problems so far, as Topuria destroyed Charles Oliveira and should be a prohibitive favorite against Justin Gaethje, though Arman Tsarukyan still looms large.
At 145, Alexander Volkanovski has somewhat redeemed himself with consecutive defeats of Diego Lopes, but the memories of his loss to Topuria still linger somewhere in his mind. At 205, either Prochazka has a bittersweet return to glory, knowing that only circumstances have put him back on top, or Ulberg wipes the slate clean.
The other two instances, however? Not so much.
The heavyweight situation has been well documented, but strawweight has had the worst of it. Mackenzie Dern is by no means a bad fighter, but she is considered the least legitimate of the current champions given both her past struggles and Zhang’s legacy. Her division has also received a massive diminution to the stature of its fights.
Tatiana Suarez, Zhang’s last strawweight opponent, was demoted to the prelims in her first fight post-title shot and is expected to suffer the indignity again against Loopy Godinez. Amanda Lemos would have been on the prelims against Gillian Robertson in December if not for a weigh-in mishap, and that treatment might happen in two weeks’ time anyway.
Both fights would be Apex main events in another universe, but as it stands, they, and the division in general, might go the way of “Mighty Mouse”. In other words, as Karl Bainbridge says time and again: how will fans be expected to care for the women if they have no pedestal?
Of course, the main reason for this phenomenon stems back from money – or rather, the UFC’s need for plenty of it in the short-term.
The Paramount deal is one of the biggest undertakings the company has ever done. For the first time, there are no PPVs. With the stream of cash from that avenue gone, the promotion has to look for other ways to generate income.
Dominant reigns in one division are good for meritocracy, but apparently also bad for business. Thus, champions like Pereira are being pressured more than ever to move up and provide a boost to subscription sales. What it does, however, is leave behind a trail of successors who lack legitimacy…
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