AMADI: UFC's lack of new stars in lower weight-classes a self-inflicted problem

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

This past Saturday night Dominick Cruz successfully defended his UFC Bantamweight Title for the second time. Cruz's unanimous decision victory over Demetrious Johnson also marked his fourth consecutive title defense overall, his sixth consecutive victory over a top 10 fighter, and cemented his status as one of MMA's pound-for-pound elite. �However, as long as the UFC sees fit to treat the lower weight classes as a novelty, the accomplishments of fighters like Cruz will go largely unnoticed.

Despite sensationalist headlines to contrary, the idea that fans have made up their minds about the lower weight classes is absurd. While you can make the argument that the WEC didn't light the world on fire with their live gates, TV ratings, or pay-per-view buys, producing MMA content without the letters "UFC" is a proven recipe for failure. The fact is, UFC 132: Cruz vs. Faber was the first and only pay-per-view event headlined by a fight below 155 pounds in the UFC, and it performed better than a number of other events this year.

All the problems the UFC has creating stars below 155 pounds are self-inflicted. Prior to the UFC on Versus 6 card, the last ten UFC events have only featured three fights below 155 pounds on main cards. The last challenger to the UFC Bantamweight Championship, Demetrious Johnson, had a grand total of zero fights on UFC main cards. Beyond Kenny Florian, the most likely next contender for the UFC Featherweight Championship is Chad Mendes, a man with a grand total of zero fights on UFC main cards.

Not only is it an injustice that some of the greatest bantamweights and featherweights in the world are relegated to Facebook duty while heavyweights suck the life out of main cards, it also takes all of the meaning out of title fights that the UFC is eventually going to have to promote.

Because of the ratio of meatheads to non-meatheads within the MMA community, it's easy to imagine a group of inebriated cretins not being able to get over the fact that Demetrious Johnson is small or that Dominick Cruz doesn't hit very hard. But there is no way around the fact that to this point, there hasn't been a whole lot of context to lighter weight fights.

You wouldn't know it by looking at a fighter like Dominick Cruz, but fighters at the lower weight classes aren't just a bunch of speedsters looking to win on points. During the course of this season's bantamweight tournament over at Bellator, fans witnessed a series of brutal flying knee knockouts capped off by Alexis Villa almost knocking Joe Warren's head off his shoulders. Over in the UFC there are plenty of dynamic finishers below 155 like Renan Barao, Brad Picket, Scott Jorgensen, Rani Yahya, Miguel Torres, Urijah Faber, and of course Jose Aldo.

As exciting as the WEC was, it's important to remember that it wasn't always the home for lighter weight fighters. They didn't phase out the heavier weight classes until late in its life cycle, and even then they didn't even have a stable bantamweight division until 2008.

Featherweights and bantamweights are new commodities for mixed martial arts as a whole, and if the UFC wants to increase the profile of the divisions they have to give fans more of a sense of who fighters are and not just how fast they move.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter @JasonAmadi. Unless you're small, in which case don't bother.

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/amadis_take/article_10726.shtml

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