Issue 073

March 2011

It didn’t take long for mixed martial arts’ lighter-weight fighters to make an impact on the Ultimate Fighting Championship. While the official merger between the UFC and its sister promotion, World Extreme Cagefighting, didn’t take place until the conclusion of the WEC’s final event, WEC 53: Henderson vs Pettis, on December 16th, a handful of the promotion’s fighters made their Octagon debut two weeks earlier at The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale in Las Vegas. The results were astounding.

With featherweights and bantamweights competing for the first time in the UFC cage, the lighter-weight fighters took home the night’s ‘Fight of the Night’ and ‘Knockout of the Night’ bonuses. Had135lb’er Nick Pace not missed weight prior to his tapout win over Will Campuzano, his created-on-the-fly ‘Pace choke’ would unquestionably have earned a clean sweep of the bonuses with a ‘Submission of the Night’ honor. In short, the ex-WEC fighters did exactly what they had been doing for the previous two years: consistently delivering the most action-packed fights in the sport. Now, there’s one more division on its way to the UFC: the flyweights.

While an exact date for the Octagon debut of the 125lb class has yet to be announced, UFC president Dana White recently said his promotion was planning on unveiling the new division “sooner than people think.” When that date comes, an entire league of fighters who have largely been ignored by promoters in the US will get their chance to compete on the sport’s biggest stage, and new stars will be born. But who will take center stage? Which fighter will step to the forefront of the division and become the face of the flyweights – the Urijah Faber or Miguel Torres of the 125lb division?

Current bantamweight contenders Joseph Benavidez and Demetrious Johnson appear to be looking to drop to a more natural weight of 125lb once the division is introduced, and their previous appearances in the WEC certainly give them a leg-up on newcomers to the promotion. Familiar names like Antonio Banuelos and Charlie Valencia may be on that boat as well. But the majority of the talent in the division will likely be imported from a variety of fight promotions around the globe. And while hardcore fans might salivate at the potential for the UFC to sign such top talent as Brazilian phenom Jussier Da Silva, Cuban Olympic wrestling medalist Alexis Vila and Thai native Rambaa Somdet – not to mention American flyweights such as John Dodson, Ulysses Gomez, Danny Martinez, Darrell Montague, Josh Rave and Pat Runez – the causal fan is completely unaware of just about everyone in the 125lb division. Add in the inevitable Japanese imports, and the public is going to be in desperate need of a formal introduction. What better way to do that than to call on the roots of the UFC itself with a winner-takes-all tournament?

The beauty of mixed martial arts tournaments has been obvious since UFC 1. By earning three wins in one night, Royce Gracie became an instant star in the combat sports community. And while the days of single-night tournaments in MMA have largely passed, a star-studded bracket scheduled over the course of several months’ worth of events could prove a fitting debut for the flyweight division. The now-defunct Japanese Pride organization used this concept with great success, beginning in 2000 with an open weight Grand Prix and later with tournaments in the heavyweight, middleweight, welterweight and lightweight divisions. Grand Prix champions such as Mark Coleman, Fedor Emelianenko, Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic, Takanori Gomi, Dan Henderson, Kazuo Misaki, Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua and Wanderlei Silva all cemented their legacies with tournament victories.

In more recent times, Bellator Fighting Championships has used the tournament model to introduce the world to such rising stars as Eddie Alvarez, Ben Askren, Zoila Frausto, Hector Lombard and Joe Warren. While the UFC has certainly proven it has no reason to lift business plans from its competitors, as the originators of modern MMA the world’s biggest promotion certainly would be excused from any ‘copycat’ accusations. And don’t bury the fights on any non-televised preliminary cards. Choose eight of the best flyweights in the world and match them up in a single elimination tournament. Put the four first-round matches on free television and mix in a headliner worthy of a UFC Fight Night event. Let the winners return two months later for the semifinals, and schedule the finals another two months after that. By the time the eight have whittled their way down to two, surely the buzz surrounding the performances would be enough to feature the flyweight tournament final – which would also serve as the UFC’s first 125lb tournament title fight – as the co-main event of a major UFC pay-per-view.

A champion is crowned, rivalries are born and the UFC instantly creates recognizable faces in a division that has been ignored for far too long. To the sport’s biggest organization, I say bring on the even-more-little guys – but do it up big. 

By John Morgan, former Fighters Only World MMA Awards 'Journalist of the Year'