UFC: Is It Too Soon to Introduce the Flyweight Division in 2011?

When Dana White first hinted at adding the flyweight division late last year, I was interested in seeing how it would affect their popularity in Asia. The flyweight division has a good amount of Asian fighters and could open up the region to future events.

White then told reporters prior to UFC 131 that the flyweight would be added by the end of the year. This is when I began having mixed feeling on the matter. Part of me was glad that Dana was keeping true to his word and bringing the weight class to the UFC sooner than expected.

But seeing how the bantamweight and featherweight divisions have fared in their first year in the UFC, my opinions have somewhat shifted.

I mean sure, Dominic Cruz and Urijah Faber's Bantamweight Championship thriller capped off one of the most exciting UFC cards in recent memory. Like Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo's title defense against Mark Hominick in April, it clear that the championship fights pack enough excitement to do well as a main event.

The rest of these divisions, however, is a different story.

Outside of title fights, the new weight classes have only cracked PPV main cards three times -- that's not the way to promote new divisions.

In the first card of 2011, Jose Aldo was scheduled to defend his title against Josh Grispi in the co-main event. But after Aldo pulled out, Grispi's new bout was relegated to the televised prelims. His loss proved this to be the right move, but that's beside the point.

The same rule applies to the two most anticipated non-title bantamweight and featherweight fights this summer (Chad Mendes-Rani Yahya and Joseph Benavidez-Eddie Wineland), which currently won't even make the main card of their respective events.

The exception to this rule has been bantamweight Urijah Faber. "The California Kid" has already had two fights in the UFC, one being the co-main event at UFC 128, the other being last weekend's main event.

He's easily the most marketable fighter from the WEC, but the fact that he doesn't hold a belt is a less than ideal situation for the UFC. To casual fans, it looks like Faber is the lone draw in weak divisions, when in reality, he's surrounded by good fighters who have been poorly promoted.

So how do they fix this and make sure the flyweight division doesn't suffer the same stagnated promotion? Well the UFC seems hesitant to put a lower weight class on PPV main cards, so for starters, they could put more bantamweight and featherweight fights on televised cards (UFC Live, Fight Night, etc.).  

Dana entertained a few ideas for the flyweight division after the UFC 131 pre-fight press conference, including a grand-prix format tournament. That would be a great way to introduce fans to fighters that have only been seen by the most hardcore MMA junkies.

It's also been speculated that bantamweights Joseph Benavidez and Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson would drop down to 125 pounds and be the first to compete for the UFC Flyweight Championship. But with both fighters struggling to crack a PPV main event, that only seems realistic as a co-main event or on a televised card -- and the latter definitely isn't happening.

The UFC is the cream of the crop when it comes to MMA, but they might be moving a little too fast here. With fight fans still being fully introduced to Jose Aldo and Dominick Cruz, it doesn't seem practical to toss possible UFC flyweights like Ian McCall and Darrell Montague into the mix as well with little to no promotion.

There's still time to get more new names out there, but even for the most popular MMA organization, integrating the flyweight division in the next five months will be no small task.