Weight Just a Minute

I hope you will excuse the play on words, but the recent trend of everyone thinking about changing weight classes has finally gotten to me. It seems like every champion who can manage a single title defense or challenger who hits a rough streak of luck is either thinking about changing weight classes or being encouraged to by fans and media members alike.

The latest recipients of this treatment? Jose Aldo and Urijah Faber.

You may recall that just a couple of days ago, these two young men were involved in a singular event with two very different outcomes. Aldo, already being crowned an almost unbeatable champion by many before the fight, seemed to ascend to the rank of demi-god upon his utter destruction of Faber. Faber, meanwhile, watched his own chances of regaining the rank of deity slip further and further away, as he fell one notch closer to the ever-inaccurate perception of “tomato can” in the eyes of many…or if you prefer, “has-been”. Gatekeeper, maybe?

Of course, all of this is silly. Aldo is no more unbeatable than Faber was, and Faber is certainly nowhere near the level of “gatekeeper”. Faber is a very talented guy who happened to have a lot of trouble in the cage with another talented guy. Before we get too excited, though, let’s not take too much away from a fight that was ultimately decided by one man’s inability to defend or counter leg-kicks. Suffice to say that even if a rematch had the same ultimate result, it would not look the way that Saturday night’s fight did.

It seems like no matter how many times those in the MMA world repeat the age-old mantra, “styles make fights”, most still do not understand. Faber had no shot to win on Saturday night because he clearly did not plan well enough for what took place. He either didn’t have the skill set to carry forth with his strategy or was taken by surprise by what Aldo was doing. Perhaps both. In any case, it seems like 2010 is as good a year as any for MMA fans to accept a couple of simple truths:

1. When one fighter beats another, it doesn’t make him automatically “better”.

This may sound crazy, but it’s true. I’m not even saying that Jose Aldo specifically isn’t a better fighter than Urijah Faber, really. However, it is time for MMA fans and pundits alike to start giving credit to the unpredictability of such a dynamic sport as mixed martial arts. If Faber had landed one of his crazy hooks early in the fight and rocked Aldo, would that make him a better overall fighter than Aldo? Furthermore, does Ben Henderson’s quick finishing of Donald Cerrone mean that he is far better than his rival now, whereas when they first met (and he won by split decision), he was “barely better”?

Of course not. Any fighter can beat any fighter on any given night. Aldo beat Faber soundly. If they meet again, he may win again. However, he may lose, and this is something fans should not forget. At the top of the MMA food chain, no fighter would beat another one hundred times out of one hundred, unless we’re looking at just a really poor style match-up for one or the other. It’s only natural to want to think that the fights that you just paid $44.95 to see have given you some indication of truth- a solution to the age-old question of “who’s better?”- but it’s more honest to admit to yourself that you only usually learn who was better that night.

This is not even to mention that sometimes one fighter just has another’s number (for instance, Dennis Hallman when it comes to Matt Hughes), even if the other is clearly the far better overall competitor.

2. When one fighter beats another, it doesn’t mean he would automatically beat the other fighter’s previous opponents.

If you have watched MMA for any length of time, you already should know that sometimes, the sport just does not make sense. The practice of “MMAth”, as it is often called, is a sure-fire sign of someone being new to following the sport. In other words, only a fool believes that because because Ron Mercer beat Tim Sylvia, Tim Sylvia beat Brandon Vera, Brandon Vera beat Frank Mir, and Frank Mir beat Brock Lesnar that somehow Mercer would stand a chance against Lesnar.

What does this all have to do with weight classes? Well, go to any number of popular MMA sites and you will see discussion about whether Urijah Faber should change weight classes. People are even wondering if he should go to lightweight, for God’s sake. Yes, Urijah, you seem to be having trouble, so head to the weight class with Ben Henderson, BJ Penn, Frankie Edgar and so many others, all while giving up a little extra weight.

In the case of Aldo, people are already starting to wonder if he could take the bantamweight and lightweight belts. Seriously? The guy has one title defense of his current belt. Are we calling that “cleaning out a division” these days, then?

Furthermore, it’s worth pointing out that the number one determinant of what weight class a fighter competes in should be that fighter’s best weight, and not whether he has gotten bored with the current competition or there’s another really scary guy who happens to fight at that same weight.

All of this switching between weight classes has gotten far out of hand, and it all comes down to people not accepting the two facts that I laid out earlier. People think Urijah Faber needs to change classes because he will never have a chance to beat Aldo, and they think Aldo needs to look for a new challenge because when he beat Mike Brown and Faber, he somehow also defeated everyone that they ever beat, leaving little left to do.

What used to be an exception is now somehow the rule, and it shouldn’t be. Every now and then you will get a situation like with Rich Franklin and Anderson Silva. Silva clearly is not dropping the middleweight strap anytime soon, and Franklin, for whatever reason, just can’t beat him. However, that’s a much different situation than what we have in the featherweight division, and it’s a situation that is much more rare than what many may think.

There’s a lot more for both of these guys to do still within the confines of the featherweight division. Let’s give them a chance to sort things out before we go trying to do it for them.

E-Mail Jon Hartley

Tags: Anderson Silva, Jose Aldo, Mike Brown, Rich Franklin, UFC, Urijah Faber, WEC, WEC 48