UFC Top 15: Part One

Instead of being excited for a huge UFC event this weekend, the California Governor and Disney pussyfooted around, and unfortunately forced Dana White's hand. UFC 249 became just the fourth pay-per view event in company history to be canceled. It joins the infamous list below.

UFC 233 - The planned January 26, 2019 event was cancelled after it's planned main event of Henry Cejudo and TJ Dillashaw was earmarked instead for the promotion's debut on ESPN+ that same month. In lieu of a replacement main event, the show was scrapped.

UFC 176 - The show, scheduled for August 2, 2014 was cancelled after Jose Aldo suffered an injury less than a month before the show.

UFC 151 - This show set the precedent of pay-per view events being cancelled due to a suitable main event. Scheduled for September 2, 2012 with a main event of Jon Jones and Dan Henderson was cancelled on August 23rd. After getting injured, Hendo had to pull out of the title match, and Jon Jones refused to fight Chael Sonnen on short notice. The Sonnen fight eventually happened at UFC 159.

But don't you dare be sour, since it gave me time to reflect on my almost eleven year fandom of the sport of mixed martial arts. As we head into a freshly announced May 9th card that may or may not be the milestone UFC 250, I'm going to look back at the top 15 UFC events from UFC 100-248. This three week countdown will hopefully lead us into the May 9th supershow.

My list favors events of the past five years of the sport. The rise of Women's MMA has allowed the UFC to stack shows with multiple title fights, which was almost unheard of in the early 2010s. Going through some events, I was even surprised to see how many Pay Per Views went off without a title on the line.

15) UFC 229 -October 6th, 2018

UFC 229 was the culmination of one of the ugliest feuds in UFC history. Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov hatred for each other bubbled over after the now infamous UFC 223 press conference in Brooklyn, where Conor threw a dolly through a bus window to go after Khabib and his team. In McGregor's first fight back in the Octagon after almost two years, the Irishman looked rusty and was handily beaten by Khabib, eventually submitting in 3:03 of the fourth round. The fight itself took an immediate backseat to the post fight brawl, similar to Strikeforce Nashville incident, when Khabib attacked McGregor's teammate Dillon Danis. This caused all hell to break loose, and is still one of the most unforgettable moments in UFC history.

In the co-main event of this show, Tony Ferguson defeated Anthony Pettis due to a corner stoppage after the second round. That set up another potential for the Khabib-Tony superfight that had to get cancelled once again this month. On the undercard, the Black Beast won on a last second knockout and dropped the famous "My balls was hot" line during a post-fight interview with Rogan. Future light heavyweight challenger Dominick Reyes defeated OSP as well.

14) UFC 167 - November 16, 2013

UFC 167 will be remembered as the night the GOAT almost lost his welterweight crown. GSP was in the midst of his legendary 10 consecutive title defenses, and won a controversial decision over up and comer Johny Hendricks. In the shocking post-fight press conference, St Pierre gave his intentions that he would be walking away from the sport, and officially relinquished the belt on December 13th. Georges has only fought once since this event, defeating Michael Bisping for the middleweight title at UFC 217.

Johny Hendricks went on to defeat Robbie Lawler at UFC 171 to win the title in another controversial decision, and lost the immediate rematch at UFC 181. Hendricks would go on to lose five of his next seven fights and be cut by the UFC.

In the undercard, Rashad Evans knocked out Chael Sonnen in the first round. Robbie Lawler defeated Rory MacDonald by decision which eventually set up the war they'd have in the rematch. Future welterweight champ, Tyron Woodley, had his 3rd fight in the UFC knocking out Josh Koscheck.

13) UFC 202 - August 20, 2016

After suffering his first lost in the UFC to Nate Diaz at UFC 196, McGregor and Diaz had an insane brawl that is remembered as one of the best fights in the sports' history. Both warriors landed over 150 strikes over the course of five rounds, in which every judge gave Conor rounds 1, 2, and 4. The third round saw Diaz come close to finishing McGregor after getting him up against the cage and landing blow after blow. I hope we see a completion of this trilogy.

Personally, this was a memorable night for me. After seeing NXT Takeover in Brooklyn, I got back to Manhattan in time for the main event. Watching McGregor fight in an Irish bar a few blocks away from MSG was an awesome experience.

Fireworks were going off on the undercard, with every fight ending in a stoppage. Rumble Johnson defeated Glover Teixeira in :13 seconds in the co-main event. Donald Cerrone, Mike Perry, and Tim Means all won by TKO in this event.

12) UFC 165 - September 21, 2013

In his 6th light heavyweight title defense, Jon Jones and Alexander Gustaffson had one of the most exciting title fights in UFC history. The two men traded 244 significant strikes, which broke the record for a title fight. Jones' mettle was tested as the Swede became one of the first fighters to stand and trade with Bones, and even win two of the first three rounds. A spinning elbow in the fourth round sparked enough momentum in the championship rounds for Jones to retain the belt.

In the co-main event, Rena Barao knocked out Eddie Wineland with a vicious spinning head kick :35 into the second round to retain the interim bantamweight title. The card also featured future champ Khabib's fifth fight in the UFC defeating Pat Healy.

11) UFC 232 - December 29, 2018

In a card that was shrouded in controversy, after having to move from Vegas to Inglewood, CA on less than week's notice. Jon Jones tested for a minor amount of turinabol is his system, the Nevada State Athletic Commission wouldn't sanction his fight, so instead of cancelling his main event, Dana and the UFC just moved it.

In the rematch of UFC 165, Jones defeated Gustaffson in 2:02 of the third round landing a takedown and finishing Gustaffson with strikes from the top position. Unlike their first fight, Jone kept his distance from the Swede, and was much more calculating.

The co-main event featured Amanda Nunes stopping Cris Cyborg's twenty-fight (and 13 year) win streak in just :51. This fight cemented Nunes' female GOAT status, knocking off Cyborg, Ronda Rousey, and Valentina Shevchenko in a 24 month period.

On Tuesday night, Dana White gave MMA fans hope again, announcing a May 9th return to action. I'm cautiously optimistic about this, since I doubt the Baldfather would want to eat his shorts again after having to cancel the April 18th show. Crossing my fingers that we'll be getting fights at least once a week for the near future, since the UFC needs to fulfill 42 events this events this year. WWE opened the door for the UFC to hold events in Florida, with Governor Ron DeSantis announcing sporting events as essential business.

According to ESPN, the planned full fight card includes:

Tony Ferguson vs. Justin Gaethje -- Interim lightweight championship
Henry Cejudo (c) vs. Dominick Cruz -- Bantamweight championship
Amanda Nunes (c) vs. Felecia Spencer -- Women's featherweight championship
Francis Ngannou vs. Jairzinho Rozenstruik
Jeremy Stephens vs. Calvin Kattar

Donald Cerrone vs. Anthony Pettis
Greg Hardy vs. Yorgan De Castro
Alexei Oleinik vs. Fabricio Werdum
Carla Esparza vs. Michelle Waterson
Ronaldo Souza vs. Uriah Hall
Vicente Luque vs. Niko Price

In addition to that good news, WWE Money in the Bank is confirmed to be on May 10th. The MITB Ladder matches will be taking a different turn this year, as Superstars have to climb the "Corporate Ladder" fighting from the ground floor to the roof of WWE HQ in Connecticut. The positive reaction of the Boneyard and Firefly Funhouse Wrestlemania matches opened the door for more cinematic wrestling. AEW also confirmed the Double or Nothing PPV will go on as scheduled as an empty arena event on May 23rd. Hopefully team sports won't be too far behind.

Cuncel da UFC and Wrestlemania Review

After weeks of speculation, the plug was pulled on UFC 249 by Mickey fucking Mouse. Dana White held up his end of the bet,  putting an amazing fight card together and was ready to go next Saturday from Tachi Palace, a Native American casino in California. News broke Thursday night that executives at Disney, which own ESPN, forced the organization’s hand in postponing all events. The New York Times reported that the California Governor, Gavin Newsom, pleaded with Disney to get the show canceled.

This just flat out sucks. Caving to outside pressure so easily, I wish we can go back to the old days before the UFC got in bed with these big corporations, when MMA truly didn’t give a fuck. The virus that has only left us professional wrestling seems to be improving and even my guy  President Trump wants sports to lead the country’s push into coming back. Dana White’s brash attitude that I love, made him and the UFC an easy target by the mainstream media. Hopefully he learned that sometimes it’s better to fly under the radar like Vince McMahon and Tony Khan have done during this time. 

It’s hard to even speculate about anything at this time. Dana says that UFC Fight Island is still under construction and without any government intervention I can see ESPN being fine with letting events run there. In an interview with Bret Okamoto, White said he still wants to be the first sport to return to a normal schedule, and expects his island to be ready in a month. White also said the UFC will fulfill its contracted 42 events with ESPN this year. I’m sure there will be a lot more to this story to come. 

The next event on the sports calendar that looks to be a go is the NFL Draft. However, I’m already anticipating Joe Douglas is going to continue to ignore our biggest hole and not get Sam Darnold his number one receiver.  Why would we want to get CeeDee Lamb or Jerry Jeudy to replace Robby Anderson when we can be cheap and get Breshad Perriman and Josh Doctson instead. I pull my hair out thinking how we haven't drafted a first round receiver since Keyshawn and are always surprised our offense sucks. Much like Larry David’s friend Carl, after the last 24 hours I can’t take any more disappointment. 

The unprecedented circumstances around Wrestlemania 36 forced WWE to think outside the box and helped deliver a unique experience. The men and women behind the show did a great job of bringing some normalcy back and worked their asses off in a tough situation. Mania should be graded on a curve as I think history should look back fondly on this event.

Night One

This was my favorite of the two shows by a pretty wide margin. The show started slow with Alexa and Nikki winning the tag belts and Baron Corbin losing to Elias. Business picked up with a physical match between Becky Lynch and Shayna Baszler. The finish was anticlimactic after Lynch rolled through the kirifuda clutch to pin Shayna. Becky had a similar fluke finish against Rousey last year at Mania, so I think there is more to come with this story.

Sammy Zayn retained the Intercontinental Title over Daniel Bryan in a fun match that saw interference from Drew Gulak, Nakamura, and Cesaro. The 3 Man ladder match between John Morrison, Jey Uso, and Kofi was my favorite of the whole weekend. The match was edited together well as they took some creative liberty on some spots to take advantage of the show being pretaped.  Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens was good also, but would’ve been better if it was No DQ to begin with and didn’t have to restart it. KO got his Wrestlemania moment jumping off the giant Wrestlemania pirate flag sign and splashing through Rollins on a table for the win.

Braun Strowman got his first heavyweight title with a win against Goldberg. I’m sort of getting tired of the spamming your finish match and it especially didn’t work in an empty arena. The Boneyard match was a great main event. The Undertaker and AJ Styles shot a movie action sequence in a graveyard that saw the return of the American Badass, with new Metallica entrance music (was Fred Durst too busy?). I don’t need to see Taker in a squared circle again, but this should become his new Wrestlemania tradition.

Night Two

The second night opened with Charlotte winning the NXT Women’s title over Rhea Ripley. The match was technically sound, but I don’t think a regular match should be going over 15 minutes in an empty arena. I still don’t understand why Aleister Black and Bobby Lashley got added to the main card except to just have 8 matches on each night. Otis finally got the girl after beating Dolph Ziggler. This has been one of the more entertaining storylines in the company and Mandy and Otis finally kissing would have gotten a huge pop.

I’m torn on the Last Man Standing match between Edge and Orton. It was the best match of night two, but it seems to drag on a little too much as they brawled all over the Performance Center. WWE has a crutch with these matches where you do a big spot and wait 9 seconds for the guy to get back up. After 36 minutes Edge won with some poetic justice hitting Orton with a con-chair-to. The Street Profits and Bayley retained their respective belts in pretty forgettable matches.

Forgettable is not a way I’d describe the Firefly Funhouse Match with John Cena and Bray Wyatt. Doing some research and watching it a second time, I understood the concept a little better and what they were trying to achieve. Check this out if you’re looking to see a more in depth explanation.    This was a journey through John Cena's subconscious.  The match is never really a match, instead scenes that tell the story of Cena's career. From his debut against Kurt Angle to Thuganomics, to Vince’s desire to make him another Hulk Hogan babyface. However, in this story when Cena beat Wyatt at Wrestlemania 30 he turned heel like when Hogan joined the NWO. That’s when The Fiend appears and wins with the mandible claw. When Cena cut his promo on Smackdown saying he’s putting an end to "the most overrated, overhyped superstar in WWE history", he was talking about himself and not Wyatt. I wouldn’t say this was “such good shit” like the Vince puppet but it was different and made you think.

The main event saw Drew McIntyre go over Brock in the usual Brock match. Having Paul Heyman at ringside adds so much to this style match and Brock’s selling is great when he’s putting someone over. I’m still not convinced McIntyre is the guy but it’ll be interesting to see some change in the main event picture.

WWE is taping another marathon session this weekend, starting with Friday’s Smackdown. It’s unknown if this will cover all TV leading to Money in the Bank on May 10th. The Raw after Wrestlemania was pretty weak, but I give them a pass since it was the last thing they taped several weeks ago. Hopefully the time off and the reaction to the more cinematic matches got Vince’s wheels turning and we get some good stuff in the coming weeks. It was also confirmed AEW has plenty of stuff in the can to keep churning out Dynamite through the end of May. It’s still unclear if they’re planning to have Double or Nothing continue as an empty arena PPV. In a world where all other sports are cancelled even bad pro wrestling is better than nothing.

Wrestlemania 36 Preview

This will be Showcase of the Immortals we will never forget. With everyone stuck in their houses, Vince McMahon and the WWE will give everyone a great distraction with two nights of Wrestlemania. Under these difficult circumstances, my expectations are lower than usual, but I'm also intrigued by what WWE will do to make this show feel special. I know I'll be getting some takeout from B-Dubs and drinking some Steveweisers on my couch the next two nights.

The two-night extravaganza is loaded with 16 matches, but WWE hasn't revealed which matches would take place on each night yet.  I'll give a quick break down and prediction of the ten matches I'm most interested in.

1) Edge def Randy Orton - Last Man Standing Match

This has been the best program of Wrestlemania season, with both guys cutting great promos. I’ve always been an Edgehead and I’m excited for his first singles match back in the squared circle. A motivated Randy Orton is capable of putting together a great match as well. I can see this match being similar to the Shawn Michaels-HHH match from Summerslam 2002, where Edge wins but Orton attacks him after the match to keep the feud alive.


2) Kofi Kingston def Usos and Morrison (c) - Smackdown Tag Team Championship Ladder Match

There’s a history of classic ladder matches at Wrestlemania and I think this has a chance to steal the show. The match changed from a tag team to a 3-way singles match for the titles after The Miz became ill before the taping. I think Kofi can use a big singles win after being mostly ignored since losing the strap to Brock.

3) The Fiend def John Cena - Firefly Funhouse Match

This is a match that I'm looking forward to because it was filmed off location, at Bray Wyatt's creepy Pee Wee's Playhouse. Hopefully WWE learned from the mistakes of Bray and Orton's House of Horror match, and can use the cinematic post-production to enhance the match. Luckily, they found famous actor John Cena to compete while Fast Nine is on hiatus. I'm sure we'll see appearances from all of The Fiend's puppet friends as well.

4) Undertaker def AJ Styles - Boneyard Match

The Boneyard allows this match to get out of the Performance Center and into a presumed graveyard, for what sounds like a modern day Buried Alive match. The bells and whistles will help hide the Undertaker’s weaknesses and accentuate his positives. This should be a fun brawl. I've enjoyed this feud with AJ and Undertaker doing some worked shoot promos, including Styles calling Undertaker by his real name "Mark", gasp.

5) Brock Lesnar (c) def Drew McIntyre - World Heavyweight Championship

Drew McIntyre earned his title shot after winning the 2020 Royal Rumble, being the man to toss Brock over the top rope after he eliminated 13 men. This just doesn't seem like a Wrestlemania title match to me. Drew worked his ass off after being released from WWE in 2014, but he still doesn't move the needle for me. Maybe this is a biased pick, but I'm hoping the Beast Incarnate retains.

6) Braun Strowman def Goldberg (c) - Universal Championship

This title match has taken several backstage twists and turns. The original plan was for The Fiend to defend the title for another Roman Reigns Wrestlemania coronation. McMahon, probably fearing the Big Dog would get booed again beating hardcore fan favorite Wyatt, brought back 53 year old Goldberg to win the title in Saudi Arabia. Then, Reigns pulled out of the match over concern for his health last week, and it was rumored Braun was penciled in as a last minute replacement.

In an interview with Ariel Helwani this week, Triple H said everything would make sense from a storyline standpoint. Instead, last night on Smackdown Michael Cole just announced the change in a throwaway segment. Either WWE scrapped an angle since everyone knew, or there really wasn't a plan in the first place. I think you need to strap the rocket on Braun after having him lose in big matches too often. Also, I think don't see Goldberg being able to carry the Blue Brand much longer.

7) Shayna Baszler def Becky Lynch (c) - Raw Women's Championship

Former NXT Women's Champion and UFC fighter, Baszler gets her Wrestlemania moment after winning the Women's Elimination Chamber last month. After a weird angle where Shayna bit Becky's neck like a vampire, the two women have cut some intense promos. I’m thinking Ronda Rousey returns to help her friend Shayna win the belt on the anniversary of the event where she lost the strap to The Man.

8) Daniel Bryan def Sami Zayn (c) - Intercontinental Championship

This feels like a prototypical Wrestlemania opening match between two great workers. Daniel Bryan is back as a babyface, and I can see him carrying the Intercontinental Title for a while.

9) Rhea Ripley (c) def Charlotte Flair - NXT Women's Championship

This has been a pretty boring storyline, with Charlotte winning the Rumble and deciding to challenge the NXT Women's Champion Ripley. I can’t see Charlotte going back to NXT on a regular basis despite the battle with AEW on Wednesday nights. Both women are good in the ring, and should have an entertaining match.

10) Kevin Owens def Seth Rollins

I can see this match being the opener for the other night of Mania. I'm just ready for this feud to end. Since December it seems like the Monday Night Messiah's faction with AOP and Buddy Murphy have been wrestling KO and a random assortment of friends on every Raw. I think the babyface Owens goes over.

Rest of the Card
Sasha Banks def Bayley (c) , Tamina, Lacey Evans, Naomi - Smackdown Women's Championship
Otis def Dolph Ziggler
Aleister Black def Lashley
Street Profits (c) def Austin Theory and Angel Garza - Raw Tag Team Championship
Elias def King Corbin
Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross def The Kabuki Warriors (c) - Women's Tag Team Championship

After winning the first 2 rounds in UFC 249 vs COVID, Dana and company lost the 3rd round 10-8 and now are even, 28-28, going into the championship rounds.  In a wild five days, Khabib on an Instagram Monday said that he was stuck in Russia, and wouldn't be able to fight in the main event. 

“Staying home in quarantine and reading the reaction of people to the situation around my fight, it turns out that the whole world should be in quarantine, governments of all countries, famous people around the world urge people to follow all safety requirements in order to limit the spread of the disease, to save people, and Khabib is the only one relieved of all obligations and must demonstrate free will and train flying around the world, for the sake of fight?”

Dana White was quiet this week, just saying  Everyone knew he’s not fighting,”. Then Thursday, Khabib backtracked, saying: 

"One-hundred percent I’m gonna fight. Just give me location. Everyday I send Dana White message: ‘Hey, where’s my location?’ You know, like this is not my mistake, and you know, too many crazy stuff, too many questions. I don’t have answer. Like I understand people upset because this fight is like dream fight for fans.”

There are also rumors Justin Gaethje may step in as a last minute replacement against Tony Ferguson, or Kamaru Usman and Jorge Masvidal being a replacement main event. At this point, if Dana White put together any five fight pay per view he can charge triple the normal event price, and I'd buy it without thinking twice.