The 5 Most Overhyped Fighters in MMA Today
MMA is a very “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately” kind of game.
Win a few fights and people start talking like you’re the best to ever do it. Lose a few and you got from GOAT to goat almost overnight.
Some of that may have to do with the nature of the sport, where a handful of fights might take up years of an athlete’s career. When those fights comprise a streak, good or bad, it can feel like a bigger sample size than it is simply because the days on the calendar are so much more daunting than the minutes inside the cage when someone is adding them up.
To that end, it doesn’t take a lot for a fighter to become overhyped or undervalued in MMA. People will start considering how long someone has seemed relevant and pump their tires more than they should, or they’ll think of how long someone has been sliding and assign a comparable degree of negative value.
Regardless of which way the wind is blowing on a fighter’s career, either such reaction is usually overblown.
For the purposes of this exercise though, we’re looking only at the overhyped. The guys and gals of MMA who are being propped up by fans and pundits as being special for any number of reasons—skill, win streaks, time at the top, general influence in the sport, whatever else people argue when they hype someone up.
These are the five fighters who are the most overhyped right now.
Michael “Venom” Page
1 of 5
The lone Bellator entry on this list, Page has long left fans wanting more. A rangy welterweight contender, the Brit has never lost in MMA, kickboxing or boxing but many who have seen him in action and seen his competition might be quick to suggest his record has more to do with his competition than anything else.
Flashy and slick, he’s spent five years in Bellator working over badly outclassed opponents and often providing highlight reel finishes. Still, there hasn’t been much substance beyond the style as he hasn’t even been willing to meet rival Paul Daley—an opponent he would be rightfully favored against—in the cage as of this writing.
Some chalk it up to the perception that Page is still a prospect, but in reality he’s a 31-year-old fighter with nearly 20 pro fights spread across three different sports. At this point he’s little more than the producer of some cool gifs, and that’s placed him squarely in the territory of being overhyped.
Colby Covington
2 of 5
For a man holding UFC gold in the Oval Office, Colby Covington’s record doesn’t show like that of a guy who ascended to the top of the sport on merit. Throw in the sheer amount of talk about him—largely as a result of his MAGA gimmick and irritating Twitter behavior—and it skews things even further out of whack.
But Covington is, above all else, overhyped.
Though he’s the UFC interim welterweight champion (for a few more weeks), he’s the owner of a decision-heavy resume that lacks a signature win. His performance against Demian Maia was the closest he’s gotten to one, but Maia was weeks from his 40th birthday when it happened and looked like a recent beating from Tyron Woodley had left him gunshy.
Beyond that, Covington beat Rafael dos Anjos in very convincing success to earn his interim title, but the cheapened nature of such belts in the modern UFC may have done more to hurt his stock than to help it.
Covington is a good fighter on an upward trajectory in the welterweight division, but there is a disproportionate amount of talk about him and hype surrounding him and most of it has little to do with his ability in the cage. You’d have to call him overhyped at this point.
Paige VanZant
3 of 5
One of the UFC’s favorite faces to get out there in promotional material, VanZant is the exact type of individual to put on a poster or in a commercial: Attractive, bubbly demeanor that plays well in media, and a capable performer when the cage door shuts.
But let’s not make any mistakes here: She is not an star by measure of athletic merit at this point in her career.
While she has the full support of the promotion’s hype train behind her, the reality is that VanZant is 4-3 in the UFC and might well be more known for her resounding success on Dancing with the Stars than for anything she ever accomplished in the octagon.
She is as tough as any athlete on the roster and has consistently provided exciting, entertaining performances, but the notion that she’s anything more than a UFC marketing dream and serviceable talent would have to be incorrect at this point in her career.
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Israel Adesanya
4 of 5
Another flashy kickboxer who’s seen the cart come before the horse in terms of hype and results is Israel Adesanya, a skilled young fighter that the UFC has pushed to the moon almost from the day he arrived.
There’s plenty of reason to see why, too. At his best he invokes memories of Anderson Silva in his prime, swiftly and violently stalking his prey and chasing a finish. But he’s also shown sizeable holes in his game, narrowly bettering journeyman Marvin Vettori a couple of fights back thanks to major struggles in the grappling and fight management departments.
He has since righted the ship with a convincing win over stalwart Brad Tavares, but it should never be said that Adesanya is a lock to be the next big thing in MMA. He’s nearing 30-years-old and won’t have much time left to get a lot better, so until he puts up a few more wins he’s hype above all else.
Nate Diaz
5 of 5
This one is not going to be a popular choice. In fact, it’s going to be so, so unpopular. But we’ve reached a point in the history of MMA where we all may need to accept a certain reality: Nathan Donald Diaz has become overhyped.
Now, let’s be clear: We all love Nate Diaz. He is an absolute delight to watch, both in and out of the cage. His interviews and press conference appearances are as entertaining as anything the UFC puts on pay-per-view in 2018, and one he’s locked in the cage he’s one of a handful of fighters that will deliver fireworks with certainty.
But he’s also not fought in two years, and sits at only 3-4 in his last seven fights. The main reason he’s become a countercultural MMA icon is because he stopped the sport’s biggest star, Conor McGregor, in nine minutes and then talked trash to him for six months before losing their rematch (albeit closely).
Before the McGregor odyssey, Diaz was a respected workhorse that most fans appreciated and some truly loved. No one was propping him up as the face of the sport though, and that’s kind of been forgotten in the latter stages of his career.
Granted, arguably no one deserves the love and adulation more than Diaz, who got it all the hard way, but one can’t help but think he’s overhyped when looking at it objectively.
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