MMA: February Has Become the Polar Opposite of January

You can probably relate to the idea of "robbing Peter to pay Paul."

Given how tough the past decade has been for many people around the world, most of us have done such a robbery at some point in our lives.

It’s so prominent that it has its own definition at Urban Dictionary:

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To take something from one source and use it towards another.

Many folks believe that this metaphor has its origin in 16th-century England, when part of the estate of Saint Peter's Cathedral in Westminster was appropriated to pay for repairs to Saint Paul's in London.

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The same problems we have now existed in England during the 16th century, at least if the Internet is to be believed. And who’d ever challenge the credibility of the Internet?

You know what else is funny? Those same problems in making ends meet that have been part of the human experience for hundreds of years exist in the MMA sphere as well.

Look no further than February 2015 and its slate of bouts for proof of that. The month ahead was supposed to offer up some intriguing tilts in both the UFC and Bellator, but injuries and circumstances have largely robbed the sport of most of what was scheduled.

Matt Brown and Tarec Saffiedine were supposed to fight and had it scrapped, Chris Weidman can’t defend his title at the end of the month, and the Bellator 134 card ended up being overhauled when things went awry.

Instead, the month will provide Benson Henderson opposite Brandon Thatch in a fight no one asked for and probably even fewer will watch, Ronda Rousey headlining a pay-per-view on her own for the first time since 2013, and King Mo Lawal returning to heavyweight to fight Cheick Kongo (which is overshadowing Bellator's actual main event between Emanuel Newton and Liam McGeary).

The sport has been left robbing Peter to pay Paul. Coming off of the best month MMA has had in who knows how long, it was inevitable that there would be a backlash. It’s impossible to pull off shows at the level of UFC 182, 183 and the pair of Fox outings seen in January without a relative heap of garbage coming behind them.

There simply isn’t the talent available to maintain a schedule the way mixed martial arts has come to be scheduled. More weeks than not, there are fights, often multiple shows on a single weekend, and for promoters to stack a series of events, they have to offer lower quality at some point down the line.

February is that point down the line.

Bellator is free from the problem of oversaturation, more crippled by injuries than by any conscious decision to start the calendar strongly and suffer the detriments later. That said, it would be worse if the promotion was still stubbornly married to the tournament format, where the expectation would be a show every week for a couple of months straight, quality be damned.

The UFC has created its situation knowingly. To give the world Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier and Nick Diaz vs. Anderson Silva within weeks of one another, bolstered by Anthony Johnson demolishing Alexander Gustafsson and Conor McGregor pushing himself into stardom, the company had to accept a month like February.

And that’s fine. The UFC bought lots of goodwill with those bouts and the excitement around them.

It all comes down to this notion that promoters in the sport will occasionally have to rob Peter to pay Paul. The game is too young to have the talent pool for weekly shows, so this is the way it has to be. It’s surely more fun to endure a month like the one ahead knowing that the one that just passed was so enjoyable.

But boy, it’s going to be a long month.

Follow me on Twitter @matthewjryder!