What mattered most at UFC on ESPN 8 in Jacksonville, Fla.? Here are a few post-fight musings …
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1. MMA unbiased in its cruelty
It seemed like such a fairytale moment for Walt Harris. In his first fight since the kidnapping and tragic death of his stepdaughter, Aniah Blanchard, last October, Harris got off to a perfect start. He dropped Alistair Overeem and nearly got a quick knockout win in their main event on Saturday night, but then the tables turned.
Some referees might have stopped the fight in Harris’ favor during that first-round barrage. On another night, perhaps Overeem goes out with the punches, as his chin is by no means his primary asset. But that’s not what transpired, and instead, Overeem charged back, dropped Harris in the second round then methodically chipped away until he got a TKO.
It was an example of how quickly the tide can shift in MMA. Emotions and personal experiences mean nothing inside the octagon when the fists are flying. Just when it seemed a heartfelt moment was coming, a heartbreak was served in its place.
This loss is sure to burn away at Harris’ soul. However, hopefully he can take that fire and put it to his feet as a motivator. As UFC president Dana White said post-fight, Harris is a winner for merely showing up under these trying circumstances, and the loss on his record is somewhat inconsequential to his triumph of the human spirit.
2. Happy birthday, Alistair Overeem!
Despite being somewhat forced into a villain role due to Harris’ situation coming into the fight, Alistair Overeem handled himself with class from beginning to end, and he has to be quite happy with how the week unfolded.
It was a critical moment for Overeem coming off a knockout loss to Jairzinho Rozenstruik last December. His hopes to make a final push toward the title sat entirely on the result vs. Harris, and he managed to overcome some serious early adversity to claim the win.
Overeem’s even-keel approach did well for him. His hand was raised just minutes before his 40th birthday, and while that’s certainly on the latter end of the age scale for a high-level fighter, “The Reem” still appears to have a lot of drive.
Playing the bad guy to Harris’ comeback fight couldn’t have been enjoyable. Overeem was a consummate professional, though, and is once again a player in the heavyweight division.
3. Judging leaves something to be desired
The judging on Saturday night wasn’t great, and it raises some interesting questions about how an empty-arena environment will impacting how fights are viewed.
Multiple fighters have a solid case that they were wronged on the scorecards: Angela Hill against Claudia Gadelha in the co-main event, Edson Barboza against Dan Ige in the featured bout just prior, and Marlon Vera against Song Yadong.
None of the decisions were absolutely egregious. I scored all those fights 29-28, but each were in the favor of the person who came out of the octagon a loser.
Conventional wisdom would indicate that, in these unique times, the scoring should improve, not stay the same or arguably get worse. With no fans in attendance, the amount of distraction for the decision-makers drops. They get a cleaner experience of watching a fight, but do louder corners become more influential?
We don’t know the answer to this questions for certain. That’s because most judges are not allowed to offer public details of why they scored a fight the way they did. That leaves the fighters, managers, fans, and media left scratching their heads, and there were multiple instances of this over the three-event stretch.
4. Edson Barboza’s frustration
Of all the fighters who were the victim of a poor decision, Edson Barboza probably got the worst of it, largely because of how significant a setback it is for him in his featherweight debut.
By no means was it a blowout for Barboza. His opponent, Dan Ige, was in his face and game for all three rounds, but close fights can still have clear winners, and it seemed Barboza’s work in the first couple rounds were the difference maker.
The judges didn’t agree, though, and now the Brazilian falls to 1-4 in his past five fights. Beating Ige would’ve put him on the right track to get a big fight in his new division, but now Barboza will have to work his way back up. At 34, that’s no easy climb, and that has to be deeply frustrating.
5. UFC not out of the woods yet
Pushing all the coronavirus-related stuff to the side for a second, it was quite nice to have fighting back in our lives over this past week. Between UFC 249, UFC on ESPN+ 29 and UFC on ESPN 8, the promotion put on 33 fights in an eight-day stretch, all in the midst of a pandemic.
Much of the past several weeks have been spent debating whether this determination by the UFC to be the first sport back was ambitious or foolish. At this moment, it looks like a success.
We won’t know without certainty for at least two weeks, though. Yes, the UFC seemingly took instant action in removing Ronaldo Souza and his team from the environment the moment he was COVID-19 positive, but it’s possible he wasn’t forced into isolation until after something was spread. If it was, then serious problems could be on the horizon.
If the UFC walks away from this without its hands dirty, then this week will probably go down in the books as one of the bigger accomplishments in the organization’s history.
