The Bottom Line: Gut Punches

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Any fight with a winner, by nature, is also going to have a loser. However, sometimes victory resonates much more than defeat and vice versa. When Anthony Pettis hit The Showtime Kick to win the World Extreme Cagefighting title, the fact that it was Benson Henderson on the receiving end was a decidedly secondary consideration. Ardent MMA fans might remember the only two twister submissions in Ultimate Fighting Championship history were by Chan Sung Jung and Bryce Mitchell, but it’s less likely they would be able to name Leonard Garcia and Matt Sayles as the opponents.

UFC 281 on Saturday at Madison Square Garden in New York was noteworthy in a number of ways. It was full of violent finishes, with first-round knockouts coming at a record-setting pace. It had two title changes. Renato Carneiro managed to get the F word out uncensored on ESPN three different times in one interview, overwhelming the censor with volume like Max Holloway at his best. Yet it was also a night where the losers were often the stories much more so than the winners.

This was most apparent with Frankie Edgar, who suffered a brutal knockout in front of family, friends and supporters in his retirement bout. Chris Gutierrez, fresh off the most high-profile victory of his career, was more apologetic than celebratory in the aftermath. It was hard not to read the room given how quiet things got after Edgar was flattened with a knee. He was the focus going into the fight, and he was the focus going out even in defeat.

There is a perpetual challenge associated with matchmaking for aging legends. Any promotion would love to use its older stars to help provide star power to its up-and-coming prospects. The problem? So often fans are so invested in the fighter they have known for years that they just disengage emotionally when they are defeated. As a result, the fighters who beat them often get much less out of it than promoters would hope. Edgar-Gutierrez was a classic example of this dynamic.

Daniel Cormier perfectly described the typical story of aging MMA legends. On the way out, they tend to go out on their back to opponents who haven’t accomplished anything close to what they have achieved. As Cormier noted, that’s just the nature of the sport. You may not like it, but there’s no getting around it. It happened to the stars of the previous generations, and it will happen to future generations of fighters for as long as professional fighting for sport remains a part of our society.

The UFC 281 main event also felt much more like a story about the loser than about the winner. A big part of that is the MMA community feels more connected to Israel Adesanya than Alex Pereira. Fans have known him longer, and he has the charisma and the persona. Moreover, the story of the fight was about Adesanya. He was the one looking to avenge two past losses, and it looked late like he was going to do just that. It felt like the natural conclusion of the story. Then it all came crashing down, not unlike the last time Adesanya fought Pereira in Glory.

Adesanya will likely have one last shot at redemption versus Pereira. That story, combined with the exciting nature of their UFC 281 bout, will make it a big marquee fight. If Adesanya can finally pull out the win, the length of the quest will make the final victory all the more satisfying. If, on the other hand, Pereira wins again, it’s no longer Adesanya’s story, and it may never be again.

The most heartbreaking loss of all may have been Michael Chandler. Throughout his UFC career, Chandler has delivered thrilling bout after thrilling bout, but he has now come out on the losing end more often than he has won. His fight against Dustin Poirier was likely the hardest yet, just because of how well he fought.

Chandler’s fights are often rollercoasters, but the first round of his battle with Poirier had particularly fast rises and drops even by those standards. Chandler was having great success early, landing impactful punches that Poirier was having trouble dealing with. It looked like Chandler’s round before he got overly aggressive in a way that didn’t respect the Louisianan’s power, and Poirier made him pay with a brutal counter that turned the tide of the fight and led to three-time Bellator MMA champion having to be saved by the bell at the end of the period.

There are fighters in Chandler’s position that would have gone out in the second round looking to get one back on Poirier. Chandler to his credit made the smarter tactical move and instead grounded Poirier with an impressive takedown and controlled the American Top Team star for nearly the entirety of the round. It was the adjustment of a fighter that didn’t want to just have an exciting fight but wanted badly to win it. When he went back to the same strategy in the third and had Poirier up for another emphatic slam at the start of the round, it was not hard to imagine the fight slipping away from “The Diamond” and Chandler securing the biggest win of his career. Instead, Poirier made a slick reversal, and soon enough, he had Chandler’s back and was locking in a fight-ending submission. Poirier, as always, was a survivor, but Chandler had come so close to pulling off the big one.

This was Chandler’s third fight at Madison Square Garden. The first time, he suffered a fluke injury against Brent Primus and lost his Bellator lightweight title. The second time, he had an all-time classic against Justin Gaethje but fell short on the scorecards. He fell short again in his latest assignment at the iconic venue. It had to have been a brutal night psychologically, and he was far from alone on that count.