UFC 122: 5 Pros and Cons of Sharing a Date with Pacquiao Vs. Margarito
As many of you are aware, UFC 122 is fast approaching.
The event is headlined by a middleweight title eliminator when Yushin Okami meets Nate Marquardt for the UFC Middleweight Championship.
Now on the same night, Filipino Congressman Emmanuel D. Pacquiao, the man we recognize as the pound-for-pound best boxer in the world, will welcome back "The Tijuana Tornado" Antonio Margarito for the vacant WBC Super Welterweight title, which could make an unprecedented eighth world title for Pacquiao.
Is this move by the UFC to have a Spike TV card from Oberhausen, Germany, go head-to-head with a major boxing title fight the correct one?
Maybe and maybe not.
Let's check out both sides of this question.
Pro 1: Exciting Fights Featuring Established Fighters
1 of 11
Take a look at the UFC 122 card for a second.
Besides Marquardt vs. Okami, Dennis Siver vs. Andre Winner and Peter Sobotta vs. Amir Sadollah, we have Goran Reljic moving up to Light Heavyweight to face Krzysztof Soszynski and a Middleweight bout of Jorge Rivera vs Alessio Sakara to co-headline the main card.
On the undercard, members of The Minority Report (Kyle Noke and TUF 11 finalist Kris "Savage" McCray) are in action, and also in action are Vladimir Matyushenko, Seth Petruzelli, Duana Ludwig and the debuting Pascal Krauss.
Either way you look at it, you've got established stars on the card who bring their own brand of excitement to the Octagon every time.
The Pacquiao-Margarito card only has Pacquiao vs. Margarito and Kelly "The Ghost" Pavlik facing Brian Vera, but of the established names, that's about it.
And it does pain me to say that, only because I'm from Texas.
Otherwise, not really.
Con 1: Is the Card Enough To Match the Pacquiao-Margarito Bout?
2 of 11
Obviously, everyone makes a big one out of a Manny Pacquiao fight, even the Joshua Clottey fight—which was the last time Pac-Man fought.
Remember when Clottey "was just happy to be there" against Manny?
Well, either way, people are going to want to see Manny Pacquiao fight Antonio Margarito for their own reasons, just as people will have their own reasons to watch UFC 122 on Spike.
The question is, with the only major players on the card being the main-eventers and POSSIBLY Siver, can this card deliver enough fireworks and enough overall excitement to make the Pacquiao vs. Margarito bout seem like "just another boxing fight?"
It'll be tough, of course, because you don't have a Vitor Belfort on the card, nor do you have anyone besides the main eventers that have been developed enough as a big deal in their division to be showcased as an exciting attraction anywhere outside the U.S.
In other words, you don't have yourself a Carlos Condit or a Chris Lytle or anyone of the like on the card—not a person who is a future title threat and also possesses the qualities of a man who is an international attraction.
All of the "excitement magnets" that the UFC has—the Lytles, Condits, the Clay Guidas and so forth—are all either just coming off of a win and on a precautionary suspension from action or the ink is drying on them fighting on a post-122 fight card.
In order for this to not be a problem, this Germany card will have to turn out somewhat akin to the way UFC 95 turned out, when all but the main event of the evening ended with a finish, thereby leaving enough airtime to show the majority of the night's preliminary bouts.
It doesn't have to end exactly like UFC 95 did, but it will have to be an action-packed night in order for it to make people shrug off the events of the Pacquiao vs. Margarito bout.
Pro 2: Not Much Thrill Behind Pacquiao Vs. Margarito
3 of 11
The way I look at it, if you really are making the choice to watch Pacquiao-Margarito over UFC 122, then chances are you're doing so for one of three reasons:
1. You never miss any Pacquiao fight. That is how much you love and respect the dude as a fighter.
2. Reason No. 1 coupled with a loss of respect for Margarito, despite whether he truly did know about the bad wraps or not, which has then increased your desire to see Margarito get his ass handed to him.
3. For your own reason and with your own logic, you want to see if the suspension has caused Margarito to catch some major ring rust coming into this fight with Pacquiao. In other words, you want to see if Margarito really can be the man to beat Pacquiao in his first fight back...yes, beat Pacquiao like everyone else said they would.
The reality: Those three reasons might be the only reasons why one might watch Pacquiao-Margarito.
Otherwise, there's not much thrill behind a fight that many boxing fans feel should really be Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr.
UFC 122 at least has German mixed martial artists fighting at home, two TUF 11 fighters making their post-TUF 11 debuts and above the plethora of other exciting happenings, a middleweight title eliminator that will see the winner face the man who walks out of UFC 122 as UFC Middleweight Champion.
.jpg?w=256)
Con 2: Not Much Hype Behind UFC 122...Deja Vu From UFC 120?
4 of 11
As the name of this slide says, there is a question in my mind and I'm sure in the minds of some if this event is going to show any deja-vu from UFC 120.
What do I mean?
Well, let's take ourselves back to two weeks ago.
We'd just been three weeks removed from UFC 119. If you missed it, it was an OK event, not really the best or the worst, and we were fast approaching UFC 120.
Before fight week, there was really zero hype for the event.
Only on fight week were there any bits of pre-fight interviews, pre-fight talk or anything that gave an indication of UFC 120 being anytime soon.
The event itself was a night of mostly decisions on the main card, sans the KO of the night from Carlos Condit in his bout with Dan Hardy.
Last week, the UFC wasted no time in giving us UFC 121, which equally had no hype until the start of fight week. The hype technically started long before UFC 119, which is when the commercials started, but it nonetheless was perceived as a success minus Jake Shields' debut for the promotion, which ended in a rather lackluster split decision win over Martin Kampmann.
UFC 122 will take place on November 13th and will be free on Spike, and I guess a Spike TV card isn't really the type of card you'd expect to be hyped up with a Countdown or anything.
Still, UFC 123 will air on pay-per-view the following Saturday evening, and that too will have no hype aside from the commercials that have been running recently, but there's a pretty slim chance that we see the same general reception as we did for the weekends of UFC 120 and UFC 121.
Time will tell if we'll see the same reactions to the next two UFC events as we did the last two or not, but for right now, UFC 122's hype train seems as good as derailed.
Pro 3: Two Contenders in the Headliner
5 of 11
Nate Marquardt has always been seen as a perennial middleweight title contender, and now he gets a chance to prove to the world that he's still in the mix at 185.
Yushin Okami has been seen recently as something of a dark horse in the middleweight division, losing to guys like Chael Sonnen, yet beating impressive rising contenders like Black House family member Mark Munoz.
Now the two collide for the first time ever, and with a shot at either a rematch with Anderson Silva or a bout with Vitor Belfort looming in the distance, you can expect that these two are going to pull out all the stops and leave it all in the cage for a shot at the champ.
If this is the one fight on the card that goes to some form of a draw, I will not be the least bit surprised.
Con 3: Since When Was Okami a No. 1 Contender?
6 of 11
One of the reasons why people look at UFC 122 as a subpar card is the fact that some feel a win over Mark Munoz, while impressive in its fashion, did little to fully justify the choice to make Nate Marquardt the next opponent for Yushin Okami, and on top of that make the fight a No. 1 contender's bout.
Thus, the questions have arisen about this card as far as validity.
Is it a valid choice to make Yushin Okami fight for a No. 1 contender's spot against a man who is always seen as a contender to the belt?
Other than the Munoz win and possibly the win over Lucio Linhares, who has he beaten in the past that warrants this fight as being a bout to decide the next contender to the 185-pound belt?
Possibly Nate Marquardt, if Okami can beat him at UFC 122, but the last time Okami had a shot to get a crack at the belt, he lost to Rich Franklin.
Perhaps history won't repeat itself come November 13th.
Pro 4: We Don't Know Much, If Anything, About the Pacquiao-Margarito Undercard
7 of 11
This one speaks for itself.
If you've seen the 24/7 special on HBO, you know what Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito have done to prepare for their fight, but otherwise, you'd have to follow boxing as if it were a religion in order to know who is fighting on the undercard of that event.
As far as I know, only Kelly Pavlik is fighting Brian Vera on the undercard of that event.
Otherwise, the main attraction is Pacquiao-Margarito, and with the length they give to the main attraction on boxing cards, I wouldn't be surprised if Pacquiao went the full 15 minutes with Margarito.
Either way, it's tough to say that the undercard of that event will be better than that of the UFC 122 main and preliminary card when we don't know too much about it.
Con 4: We Don't Know Much, If Anything, About the Pacquiao-Margarito Undercard
8 of 11
As much as it's good about not knowing the undercard of Pacquiao-Margarito, there's also the possibility that the main card of UFC 122 winds up being somehow forgettable.
Yeah, yeah, I know. It's weird to think that UFC and "forgettable" can be used.
Tell that to the UFC history books. UFC 33 really did happen, lest we all forget.
UFC 120 was the UFC's most recent Spike TV card, and yet it didn't do very well in some folks' minds because of a number of things, including the fact that three Brits walked out winners and also the truth of the most hyped fight on the card being the Dan Hardy-Carlos Condit fight.
If it was that big a deal of a fight, shouldn't that have just been the main event?
Well, in any case, we're getting closer to the event as we speak, but we may be hitting the same problem with UFC 122.
The only difference between 120 and 122 is that while Marquardt-Okami isn't getting any mass hype like it probably should, the hype around UFC 122 isn't surrounding the Dennis Siver-Andre Winner fight or the Amir Sadollah-Peter Sobotta fight.
I don't even know that really any fight on the card has really been hyped up, although people have expressed their opinions on the Marquardt-Okami fight.
Still, the main event may not be enough to draw out the perception of UFC 122 surpassing the Pacquiao-Margarito bout in terms of overall production value and performance.
Everyone out there is going to have to do their damnedest to keep the excitement going all throughout the event, or a lot more people are going to learn a lot more names in the world of boxing.
Pro 5: A Much Wider Audience To Gain from This Event
9 of 11
You know it. I know it. Everybody else in the MMA community knows it.
The UFC's big mission, aside from getting the best fighters in the world, is to expand the UFC brand name across as many countries around the world as they can.
They had a rough time getting the event in the UK when they first decided to go overseas, UFC 99 almost didn't happen in Germany, and the UFC hasn't been to Brazil or Japan since the pre-Zuffa days of the UFC.
Even still, that they have managed to get another pay-per-view in Germany for UFC 122 is nothing short of pretty damn impressive.
The case with European UFC events and the like is that it draws to a wider crowd than just what you'd find in the states.
By actually going to other countries and having their events there, they attract a much larger population of viewers—ones that actually have a fighter to call their own—than they would with an American crowd that hasn't really seen some of these guys in action and therefore doesn't have a clear clue as to who they are.
Hopefully learning from UFC 120 in England, the UFC knows they can't bank on Siver, Sobotta and Krauss winning their fights in order for the event to be a major success, although that would certainly help gain them more support from the German fans if those three won.
So what did they do?
They stacked the card with guys who may otherwise not seem too appealing, but they are well-established to where they can easily be considered international sensations that could draw a large crowd no matter where they fought, who they fought or if there was any sort of stipulation behind the fight (i.e. a title shot).
Again, it would help if two out of the three Germans won their fights, but in order to gain any fans from Deutschland, a win for all three isn't exactly necessary.
Con 5: Who Cares Where the Fight Is If Pacquiao Is Fighting?
10 of 11
Pacquiao is a lot of things, but one thing he is more than anything is a man who lives up to his name as being The Pride of The Philippines.
He already put the the Philippines on the map when he first debuted on the boxing scene, but when he ran for—and won—a seat in his home country's congress, that's when he became the only boxer in recent memory that could say he literally fought for his people.
As the congressional matter relates to his fight against Margarito, one thing that the World Boxing promotions don't have to worry about—which the UFC may have to worry about come November 13th—is the fact that Pacquiao has evolved from a promising newcomer to one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in boxing.
Couple that in with his fighting style and his congressional status, and he becomes the one man who can sell out an arena for a fight no matter who he's fighting or where he's fighting.
On the UFC 122 card, the closest things to a guy like that are Marquardt and Okami, but that's really about it (unless you count Krzyszstof Soszynski, who is Polish and always gets the crowd excited, regardless of whether he wins or loses).
While many recognizable faces and a few fresh talents comprise this card, there doesn't seem to be anyone besides the main eventers that stand out from the rest of the herd.
Though the talent is there, some feel they seem to be there just so the UFC can say "we put them on a card."
Pacquiao isn't fighting Margarito just so the HBO Boxing folks can say "Pacquiao fought Margarito once."
He's fighting to win an unprecedented eighth world title from a man who many feel is something of a pariah.
Marquardt and Okami are fighting in a bout to decide the new contender to the middleweight throne, but Marquardt doesn't have a congressional seat on behalf of the state of Colorado and Okami doesn't hold any type of office in Japan, so the shot at either the dream fight with Vitor Belfort or the rematch with Anderson Silva is really all they have going for themselves here.
Plus, UFC 122 is free on Spike, and when a free card on Spike airs on the same day as a Manny Pacquiao fight, doesn't it seem like the obvious choice to watch the one you have to pay for over the one headlined by two middleweight fighters on a card featuring young, hungry and yet not-quite-fully-established fighters?
UFC 122: Worth Watching or Worth Missing?
11 of 11
Looking at the card of UFC 122 and then glancing at what has been set for the Pacquiao-Margarito card, is this upcoming UFC event one worth missing?
Well, if for some reason either Marquardt or Okami comes in overweight to this fight, then the contendership stipulation should legally be null and void, and in that event, maybe one can take a quick glance away from the event to watch something else.
In reality, though, what UFC event is really THAT much worth missing?
I mean, in the same way that MMA fans rely on MMA-Core and MMATKO for the fights they don't get to see on pay-per-view or HDNet or so on, boxing fans and even some MMA fans who have no problem with boxing have such sites as Boxing Dump and Boxing-Core, so anyone who doesn't like missing UFC events at all yet doesn't want to miss Pacquiao's fight can just watch UFC 122 and wait for the fights to surface online.
If all else fails, stream Pacquiao-Margarito from your computer while you watch UFC 122.
Either way, the UFC card on Spike, as much as it may seem like a card that's "just there" aside from the main event, is a card that has the potential to be exciting and of good quality for an event that will be aired on Spike.
Besides, we may not know a lot about every fighter on the UFC 122 card, but we at least know more about them than we do about any of the fighters aside from the headliners on the Pacquiao-Margarito undercard.
I say this is one fight you can't miss.
Dale De Souza is a Man on Fire—or as the regulars of MMA writing call it, an “Analyst”—for Bleacher Report MMA, as well as a contributor to Sprawl-N-Brawl MMA, RealSportsNet, Sports Haze and Hit The Ropes MMA.
Also be sure to check out more of him on the official Agree To Disagree Facebook Page.
.jpg?w=480)
.jpg?w=600 "NFL Strength of Schedules 👀")
