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UFC: Why Does Every Fight Have to Mean Something?

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I just want to watch entertaining fights.

Whether or not they’re particularly relevant to the title picture is secondary – maybe even tertiary – for me on my personal “things that get me excited about a fight” checklist.

I was really looking forward to seeing Tim Means step into the cage again on Saturday. Now Means, who sports an 18-3-1 mark overall with consecutive wins in the UFC, isn’t going to crack anyone’s top 25 list. In all honesty, he’s probably not cracking anyone’s list unless you’re running down the top 100 lightweights in the sport today, because the 28-year-old who has won back-to-back fights against Bernardo “Trekko” Magalhaes and Justin “J-Bomb” Salas could fall anywhere between 40 and 100 in the grand scheme of things, depending on who you asked.

I could care less.

In his first UFC appearance, Means showed solid striking, and his size for the division – he’s 6’2″ with big, long limbs – intrigued me. He controlled every moment of his debut against Magalhaes, taking home a unanimous decision win with scores of 30-27, 30-26, and 30-26. Those two 10-8s were warranted too, and had me looking forward to his next fight. Roughly four-months later, Means returned to the cage and battered Salas, dropping him right out of the gate, and not letting up until the fight was waved off just 66 seconds into the contest.

I didn’t care that Means’ next fight was against UFC newcomer Abel Trujillo, a 9-4 member of “The Blackzilians” who has won four straight against mediocre regional competition; I just wanted to see this dude fight again because so far, I’ve been impressed and entertained, and that’s what I’m looking for most out of fights.

There are plenty of times where the stylistic clash between two middle-of-the-road competitors moves a fighter higher on the list of bouts I’m looking forward to seeing than one that could determine the next #1 contender in some divisions. I don’t care if they’re big names, small names, or (with all due respect) no-names – I want to see fights that entertain me and intrigue me. If they carry some kind of relevance, that’s gravy.

Holding this position seems to put me in the minority among fight fans and media members. Maybe I’m wrong, but the overwhelming consensus I’ve gotten from all the complaints this summer is that big names and “meaningful fights” are of critical importance to the majority. Johny Hendricks battling Martin Kampmann to determine the #1 contender in the welterweight division? So great. Jake Ellenberger versus Jay Hieron? Far less “meaningful” and therefore far less interesting to the masses, even though they’re both ranked in the top 20 in the division.

Two of the best fights from the first half of the year in the UFC were bouts that didn’t carry any real title implications or a great deal of relevancy in their respective divisions, but Louis Gaudinot’s back-and-forth win over John Lineker in May, and Eddie Yagin’s bloody battle with Mark Hominick at UFC 145 were great fights that I would have skipped if I only cared about the “meaningful” and “relevant” fights. I’d also have to pass on a number of bouts on the UFC 152 and Fuel TV 5 cards coming up in September, since there are quite a few bouts that have nothing to do with establishing a pecking order in the various divisions.

But they’re fun match-ups that should result in an entertaining fight, and sometimes that’s all you need. I don’t care that Duane Ludwig and Che Mills are jostling for position in the welterweight division; they’re two very dangerous strikers who are going to meet in the center of the cage and try to pick each other apart with precise kickboxing, and that’s awesome. Igor Pokrajac welcoming Vinny Magalhaes back to the UFC doesn’t exactly have an impact on the light heavyweight division, but you’re damn right I’m looking forward to seeing if “The Duke” can continue his winning ways or if an older, more mature version of the former TUF finalist can finally earn his first UFC victory.

You know what other fights had no relevance to their divisional title picture at the time but were still all kinds of bonkers? Sam Stout versus Spencer Fisher I & II. Stout was making his debut in the first contest, and Fisher was filling in on short notice. Stout won, lost to Kenny Florian, fought twice under the TKO banner in Montreal, and came back to battle Fisher for a second time, losing that one to level the series at one win each. They were awesome, though pretty much meaningless in terms of the lightweight division.

In all honesty, there aren’t a lot of preliminary card fights that ever mean much prior to an event, but that changes pretty frequently by the time the night is over.

The opening bout of the last FOX show didn’t seem like anything really important on paper; it was just a couple flyweights making the debuts. Then John Moraga went out and dominated Ulysses Gomez, establishing himself as a guy to watch in the developing flyweight division in less than four minutes. The same goes for Nik Lentz’ featherweight debut a week later too.

Like I said yesterday, part of the reason there aren’t more stars is because people aren’t paying enough attention to guys on the way up. They’d rather complain about the “bloated roster” and meaningless fights than enjoy “Cisco” Rivera blistering Alex Soto or Andrew Craig stop “Sapo” Natal with eight seconds left in the second after the Brazilian had controlled the action throughout and clowned the big Texan a little. Neither of those guys may turn into superstars, but they’ve got serious “Chris Lytle potential” and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn’t want more guys like “Lights Out” rounding out fight cards week after week after week.

Let’s be honest with each other: there weren’t many of Lytle’s fights that were “meaningful” in terms of the rankings, but I’ll be damned if anyone wanted to miss seeing him scrap.

We need to get back to that.

We need to get back to checking out the preliminary card to see if the new guy who has gone 6-0 in just four months and is stepping up to fight Andre Gusmao on short notice at UFC 87 is legit or not? We need to get back to caring about the cool stylistic pairing early in the card that doesn’t carry any weight in the division but should still be pretty fun.

We need to get back to just wanting to see entertaining scraps regardless of whether they mean something or not.

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Keep up with the latest from Keyboard Kimura by joining the Facebook page.

If you’re on Twitter, be sure to follow me (@spencerkyte) for even more MMA talk… and all kinds of randomness too.



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