Not Worth the Weight

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Ultimate Fighting Championship cards keep getting weaker, with less quality and star power, seemingly every month. However, for the keen observer, there are always interesting developments to note. On the main card of UFC on ESPN 38, two fights before the main event, we witnessed Josh Parisian facing Alan Baudot; two men I expected to have been cut by the UFC long ago. Parisian was 1-2 in the UFC but really should have been 0-3, as his sole triumph was a split decision that nearly everyone thought he lost. However, even that doesn't fully do it justice, as Parisian had faced three very low-tier UFC heavyweights: Parker Porter, Roque Martinez, and Don'Tale Mayes. Porter dominated him and Mayes finished him.

From a skills perspective, Parisian doesn't do anything well. He can be dominated in the grappling by a good wrestler and beaten up on the feet by any good striker. He is also woefully out of shape, as evinced not only by his corpulent frame but his atrocious cardio. Porter, himself hardly the model for a well-conditioned athlete, being a former light heavyweight who walks around at 290 pounds and sports a prominent beer gut, was nevertheless in much better shape than Parisian, who gassed badly after the first round while Porter had plenty of energy left, battering his hapless foe over the next 10 minutes.

Parisian's opponent was even worse. Baudot was a perfect 0-3 in the UFC, and it would have been 0-4 if Rodrigo Nascimento hadn't failed a drug test. Three of those had been by stoppage, with that very same Porter being the only man Baudot survived against. We're told Baudot is a striker, which makes sense considering his wrestling is atrocious and his BJJ is white belt-level, except his kickboxing is fairly mediocre, too.

Yet here these two heavyweights were, with one controversial decision victory between them against a slew of bad losses, fighting right before the co-main. Oh, and when Parisian inevitably exploited Baudot's terrible grappling with his own below-average grappling for the finish, he got a cool $50,000 bonus.

Look, even casual fans are aware of how much the heavyweight division sucks nowadays and has for a long time. Many are even aware of why. But let's look elsewhere in the card. The last prelim featured talented but raw light heavyweight Tafon Nchukwi being knocked out by world-class kickboxer Carlos Ulberg. Nchukwi has some solid wins under his belt, having stopped William Knight before either man was in the UFC and notching decisions over Jamie Pickett and Mike Rodriguez. His grappling and striking are both a lot better than either Parisian's or Baudot's, and at 27, he has plenty of opportunity to improve, but he has now lost two in a row against tough, skilled opponents like Ulberg and undefeated Azamat Murakanov.

At the beginning of the main card, we also observed middleweight Rodolfo Vieira, one of the best BJJ practitioners of the past decade, lose a close decision to the outstanding, surging Chris Curtis, now 3-0 in the UFC against excellent opposition. While Vieira is a world-class grappler, he also showed vastly improved striking in his previous outing against Dustin Stoltzfus, beating him up badly on the feet for the first two rounds before submitting him in the final stanza. Hell, despite being relatively new to this aspect of martial arts, Vieira is already a much better striker than Parisian or Baudot are. It just wasn't quite enough against Curtis, who is also one of the best fighters I can think of at nullifying grappling, as Brendan Allen learned the hard way. Not coincidentally, Curtis spent most of his pre-UFC career at welterweight, including a three-fight losing streak in Professional Fighters League, before moving up to 185 pounds. Two years later, the former regional journeyman is a ranked UFC contender, despite being much smaller than all of his opponents.

So the question is obvious. Rather than stagnating in more talented divisions, why don't Nchukwi and Vieira compete at heavyweight? Nchukwi cuts a lot of weight to make 205 and Vieira won multiple championships in BJJ at heavyweight. Yes, they would be undersized, with each being 6 feet tall, but it's not as if we haven't recently seen a 5-foot-11 light heavyweight with a mere 73-inch reach, who arguably could have cut to middleweight go back up to heavyweight at 39, well past his prime, and knock out a man widely promoted as “the greatest heavyweight ever” in the very first round.

At the very least, Nchukwi and Vieira would be placed higher up on the card and defeat the Josh Parisians and Alan Baudots of the division with ease. Even better, neither man would have to kill themselves shedding weight, which is far better for their long-term health. It would also likely improve their cardio, a relative weak point for the pair.

For those scoffing at middleweights having success at heavyweight, consider that longtime 185-pound champion Gegard Mousasi is undefeated at heavyweight, which includes utterly destroying Mark Hunt in 79 seconds right before Hunt came to the UFC and became a top contender at 265. Consider as well that Dan Henderson knocked out arguably the greatest heavyweight ever, Fedor Emelianenko.

So again, why don't they do this? I believe there are two interrelated reasons. The dominant mindset in MMA is to cut as much weight as humanly possible to have a size advantage over one's opponent. It's simply unthinkable and deeply uncomfortable for Vieira and Nchukwi to go into a fight knowing they're the significantly smaller man. Furthermore, most fighters aspire to be world champions rather than narrowing their expectations. Thus, instead of considering how they would fare against the lower and middle tiers of the UFC heavyweight divisions, Vieira and Nchukwi are worried about how they would match up against Francis Ngannou or Ciryl Gane.

This reasoning, while perfectly understandable, is an area of major inefficiency. Vieira, Nchukwi and a great many other light heavyweights and middleweights would have more successful careers overall if they fought at heavyweight. To give one tantalizing example, instead of losing to opponents who can out-grapple him or expose his chin, what if Johnny Walker were to move up to heavyweight? Not only would he be facing opponents less skilled than Corey Anderson, Nikita Krylov, Thiago Santos or Jamahal Hill, but his chin would be sturdier from cutting less weight, he would still enjoy an advantage in height and reach over virtually everyone, he would be harder to take down for the same reason—not to mention the shortage of good wrestlers at 265—and his blazing speed and athleticism would be harder for opponents to deal with. I believe that eventually, this opportunity will be seized upon by fighters and their teams, but how long it will take before it happens is anyone's guess.