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By: Shawn Ennis, MMATorch Senior Columnist
The bantamweight lay of the land is still being constructed, but far be it from me to deprive the masses of my insights. Here's a bit of what's going on and what it all means.
Overeem's Conditional License
Some will say the NSAC was being overly understanding, while others will scream of incompetence, but the outcome is the same: Lesnar-Overeem is on. Whether or not Overeem is juicing at this point, due to the potential ability to flush the system before taking the test on one's own timeline, is up in the air for some and inconsequential for others. I don't know personally that PEDs enhance performance all that much anyway, but cheating is cheating regardless of whether or not it helps, and hopefully Overeem is clean. I have a feeling that, given the way this particular situation played out, Overeem hasn't exactly seen the last of athletic commissions. I'm not saying Overeem is dirty by any means, mind you. I'm just not saying that he's clean either.
FOX, Fuel, and FX
The more we hear about the deal with FOX and its family of networks, the better it all sounds. I think even knowing that the Facebook stream was going away didn't fully prepare me to hear that we were getting not two, but six fights on the first prelims special for UFC 142. When you add that to the amount of original programming that they've announced for Fuel and the likelihood that we'll get to see international versions of TUF on the network, it becomes all that much more impressive. It's a tired axiom, but it can't be said enough: this is a great time to be an MMA fan. The things that are happening now were incomprehensible I wrote a piece five years ago for this site saying that the next step for MMA was to get a network deal, but I lamented the outlook on that possibility. The UFC wasn't going anywhere outside of Nevada and California, ticket prices were insane, and the sport seemed, despite its growing popularity, somewhat inaccessible. That was just five years ago - and we were excited at the growth of the sport even then! I thought at the time that this would eventually happen, but the timeline seemed a lot further out than a mere five years. This was before HDNet became a destination and there was free MMA on TV constantly. It sounds like the old days, but it wasn't even that long ago. If I can put on my fanboy hat for a second, allow me to say this: be excited, people. This is awesome.
GSP and the Welterweights
With Georges St. Pierre on the sidelines for the foreseeable future, the welterweight division is in a bit of flux. This isn't the best news for the UFC's PPV drawing power, but it might just be a good thing long-term. If GSP is out for a while and whoever your interim champion is puts together a solid run, that's an automatic intriguing storyline for when St. Pierre comes back. We tend to forget how many excellent welterweights there are right now because of how dominant St. Pierre is, but with the door to the top of the division opening just a crack, we should see a mad dash for top-tier welterweights and those who would become such to get their foot in the door. I'm not saying that having a dominant champion - especially one as popular as GSP - is a bad thing. I'm just saying that forgetting about that champion for a little while rebuilds and intensifies the interest in seeing him return and take on whomever can become the next big thing. You've also got several selling points - will GSP come back at full-strength? Will he ever be the same? It's not a great situation to have, but it's certainly got plenty of upside.
Strikeforce
I don't know what the new deal between Showtime and Zuffa will entail for Strikeforce's future, but if it involves keeping Gilbert Melendez away from the UFC, I don't like it. Melendez is one of the last fighters of any importance left on the Strikeforce roster, and so many rich matchups await him in the UFC it would be a crime to keep him away. I get the attraction of having as many broadcast partners as possible for Zuffa, but if it comes at the expense of seeing one of the world's top lightweights in the UFC, it becomes less attractive to fans. In addition, I just don't see what the allure will be for Strikeforce unless the UFC starts sending guys back over there, and that dilutes the most important talent pool so it doesn't make any sense. It's just another, shinier version of WEC, and we see what happened when the top fighters from that promotion came to the big stage. Why split up the pool? I don't get it. Hopefully all our worries will turn out to be unfounded when the details are announced - time will tell.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
