Bold Predictions for UFC on Fox 15: Machida, Rockhold or Jacare? Who's No. 1?
Even as it limps down the home stretch, UFC on Fox 15 remains the best MMA card of the month.
Yoel Romero is out, owing to a knee injury, but the UFC's second foray of the year into network television still promises to be a rollicking good time. Luke Rockhold and Lyoto Machida fight for presumed No. 1 contender status in the middleweight division, Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza promises to roll over short-notice replacement Chris Camozzi, and Cub Swanson meets Max Holloway in an interesting featherweight matchup.
With preliminary fights moving from Fox Sports 1 to the network, UFC fans will also be able to cut out any superfluous channel surfing. Just set it and forget it for the full four hours.
As usual in the case of a fight card as good as this one, bold predictions are required. Luckily for all involved, Bleacher Report Lead Writers Chad Dundas (that's me) and Jonathan Snowden have them to spare.
Read on to find out who wins, who loses and how it all goes down.
Prediction: Lyoto Machida Still Has What It Takes
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Jonathan
There are a lot of reasons to give up on former UFC champion Lyoto Machida—or give up, at least, on the proposition that he's still a world-class fighter.
Thirty-six of them if you want to be specific.
That's how many years Machida has walked this planet. He's spent roughly a third of that time as a professional prizefighter, jumping immediately into the deep end against a collection of the top fighters on the planet and leading them on a merry chase for more than a decade.
None of that is particularly good news if you're a fan who still holds out dreams of the "Machida era" getting one glorious postscript to make up for a fairy tale that ended way too soon. Athletes simply don't get better as they see 40 on the horizon. Reflexes slow, desire dwindles and the body doesn't shake off the kind of abuse a fighter is forced to endure.
Despite that rare burst of rationality, there's something about Machida that makes me believe. Maybe I'm just being a sucker for nostalgia, letting emotions overpower my brain. Maybe Luke Rockhold is going to force me to write an article suggesting ever so obliquely that he call it quits.
But I don't think so. Last year, Machida gave the champion the fight of his life. I hope Chris Weidman is ready for round six.
Chad
I don’t think it qualifies you as a “sucker” to believe in Machida here, Jon. Not at all. Despite his advancing age—he actually turns 37 at the end of next month...eeek!—The Dragon has been mighty good since dropping to middleweight in the fall of 2013. His aforementioned loss to Weidman was a 2014 Fight of the Year candidate, and aside from that, he’s streaked to 3-0 (albeit against middling competition).
The most interesting thing, in fact, about Rockhold-Machida is that it will provide a good litmus test for both guys as elite 185-pounders. Rockhold is 12-1 since making his Strikeforce debut in 2008, but he hasn’t faced a ton of what you might consider truly top-shelf competition.
Sorry, 2014-Version-of-Michael-Bisping, that includes you.
Likewise, his only UFC loss—a devastating head-kick knockout by a souped-up Vitor Belfort—is equally hard to draw much from because, you know, testosterone replacement therapy.
In any case, I feel your pain here, because A) I have no real idea who will win this fight, but B) I’m leaning toward Rockhold, who is the slight betting favorite, for reasons of size, mobility and, yes, youth. But that could just be my heart messing with me.
So, cool, I’ll agree with you for the moment—Machida takes it. Know in advance, though, that mostly I’m just saying that because I think it positively impacts Jacare Souza ...
Prediction: Jacare Souza Turns a No-Win into a Win-Win Situation
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Chad
Let’s assume for a moment that Jon is right and Machida gets his hand raised in the UFC on Fox 15 main event. Could the biggest beneficiary of such an outcome be Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza? I’ll say yes and then just sit here with my fingers crossed, because right now, Jacare could use some good news.
The 35-year-old Brazilian jiu jitsu ace’s hopes of earning No. 1 contender status took a blow over the weekend when Yoel Romero dropped out of their fight with a knee injury. The UFC didn’t do him any favors—at least not matchmaking-wise—by booking Chris Camozzi as a replacement, either.
Souza has already decimated Camozzi once, and doing it a second time isn’t likely to blow anybody’s hair back. That gives Rockhold the inside lane toward grabbing the brass ring. At his advanced age, it’s also the sort of setback Souza can’t really afford.
But...
But...
If Machida defeats Rockhold, Souza wastes Camozzi, and Weidman retains his title against Belfort at UFC 189? Well, then UFC matchmakers would only really have two choices: Book Weidman-Machida II or...
Against all odds, Jacare is your No. 1 contender.
Boom!
Jonathan
Jacare Souza, it seems, has never quite captured the fancy of UFC decision-makers. Despite being a submission master built like a literal square who also happens to hit like a horse, he's remained just another guy in a sport full of guys.
Jacare's entire UFC career has been spent in the promotional dead zone, the secondary attraction on cable television shows sold on the power of a single fight. In his single main event appearance, he just barely squeaked out a win over the competition on Spike TV.
Nothing they've done has made me think they have a particular interest in Jacare, despite four wins in a row. In fact, the idea UFC would prefer a Jacare title shot over a Machida one seems like lunacy to me.
Machida was a star birthed in an era back when UFC still had the time and inclination to differentiate between fighters. He'll always be a bigger star than Jacare, no matter how many wins the latter racks up on Fox Sports 1.
No, the Camozzi fight more likely gives the UFC a reprieve, an excuse to deny him the title shot they will begrudgingly be forced to offer soon enough. The UFC has a Rafael dos Anjos down at lightweight. I doubt they are in any rush for a middleweight version.
Prediction: The UFC Continues Its Struggles with Women's MMA
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Jonathan
When Paige VanZant meets Felice Herrig at UFC on Fox 15, the two will open the main card. At first glance, that feels like progress.
No, it's not the main event. And, yes, the gender gap in MMA is still more like a chasm. But for the newly minted women's strawweight division, just making it onto main billing is a big deal.
The UFC, by deed if not word, has made it clear that this division exists on a plane well below its established marquee weight classes. There have been 16 official fights in the division's history. Eleven of them have been on the preliminary portion of the card. Seven of them have been contested on UFC Fight Pass, the streaming service/repository for fights no one really wants to see.
Seven!
That makes it hard to complain when a fight sees the light of day like this one, by some small miracle, has. Yet there's something slightly icky about the decision here. One gets the sense that VanZant and Herrig are being promoted based on their sex appeal more than their athletic prowess.
The truth is, we have no idea how good VanZant is. The last time I saw her, she was chopped up by a buzzsaw named Tecia Torres. The same Tecia Torres who ran roughshod over Herrig as well. And unfortunately, the same Tecia Torres who has hardly been front and center in the promotion's marketing plan for the division.
There are two distinct classes of women fighters. There are models and quasi-models and then there is everybody else. And that's got to change.
While better fighters linger on the prelims, the woman who has made a name posing in her underwear on every social media platform known to man and the young sensation known best for her Maxim photo shoot are rewarded with a rare gift. It brings us back to the eternal question that plagues MMA and perhaps always will: Is this sport, or is it spectacle?
Chad
Yeah, I’m with you. I’m 100 percent with you. The UFC must do a better job promoting its female athletes.
I also understand the struggle for equal representation is going to be a long, uphill fight, so maybe subconsciously I’m trying to choose my battles. I’m having a hard time getting worked up over this particular gaffe.
The UFC isn’t fooling anybody here. Electing to lead off the main card of a network broadcast with VanZant vs. Herrig is such a boldfaced, business-minded ploy to grab eyeballs that I’m surprised you’re not more into it, Jon. That’s usually your jam.
I agree that I’d love to see Torres in this spot. I’d love to see Jessica Penne in this spot. Heck, I’d love to see Torres vs. Penne in this spot. But I’m also not surprised we’re getting VanZant vs. Herrig instead.
The UFC’s strawweight division is all of four months old, and it’s no revelation the fight company hasn’t figured out the proper way to promote it yet. It might take them years. They might never really get it. After all, this is an organization where one of the top executives still swaggers around calling women “honey” and “sweetheart” like the T-shirt-and-Adidas version of Don Draper.
As long as that’s the normal state of things, the expectation that the UFC will make sober, progressive decisions based on who is the best women’s fighter might always be wishful thinking.
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Prediction: Prelims on Fox Score Surprising Ratings, Become a Regular Thing
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Chad
The UFC has an impressive block of programming on Fox this weekend. This is the first time (I think) that one of its prelim cards has been moved off Fox Sports 1 in favor of airing on the regular ol’ Fox network. That means from 6 p.m.-10 p.m. ET, it’ll be all UFC all the time on “big” Fox.
That could go one of two ways, obviously. Sometimes, four straight hours of UFC can turn into a painful slog, but I think this weekend the double dip will work in the company’s favor. With a little luck, matchups like Aljamain Sterling vs. Takeya Mizugaki and Patrick Cummins vs. Ovince Saint Preux won't suck all the air out of the room, and instead, these prelims will actually be a pleasing aperitif to the main card.
Considering some fairly weak timeslot competition on other networks—Family Feud is still on, really?—I’ll go out on a limb and say these prelim fights garner better-than-expected ratings and that the bigwigs at Fox invite them back for a return engagement sometime in the near future.
Jonathan
If true, this would be a decidedly revolting development. The Fox shows work best as two concentrated hours of awesomeness, the sport putting its best foot forward for a casual audience still trying us on for fit.
Those two hours can be carefully handcrafted to display mixed marital arts at its best, featuring athletic, skilled fighters who look like the kind of professional athlete you'd expect to see on network television. The Fox fan is not ready for four hours of UFC in a single block.
Heck, I'm not sure I'm ready for that anymore.
Yes, this is a particularly compelling undercard. But we all know that won't always be the case. A compelling undercard is a rare gift, like a music video on MTV or a Chael Sonnen truism.
More than ever, it's important for promotions to differentiate their best product from the dregs. The last thing the UFC wants is someone to stumble onto a dreadful preliminary fight and think, because it is on Fox, that it truly represents what this sport is all about.
The UFC is still building a relationship with the casual fan. Anthropomorphized, the company is still carefully combing its hair and wearing a tie to meet her folks. Let's hide the Trans Am and the barbed wire tattoos until after we've already slipped the ring on her finger.
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