The UFC Is Completely Unpredictable
Updated March 8, 2017 at 11:44 a.m.
Heading into the back half of the week and following enough time to digest UFC 209’s main event, the headline still holds true. Tyrone Woodley vs. Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson 2 will go down as one of the worst title fights in the UFC’s history.
Some fight fans were prepared for this, but most weren’t. UFC 205 (Woodley vs. Wonderboy 1) won fight of the night and put on a pedestal what these two fighters were capable of. In comparison, UFC 209 boasted a total of :45 seconds of action over a full 25 minute fight.
10 rounds between these two Welterweights and the consensus is out: no clear winner, nobody cares. You cannot predict a UFC fight, it is why I hold the analysis of Robin Black so highly and also enjoy having his perspective on TYTSports regularly. Robin does not predict a winner for the most part, he does break down what each fighters strength and weaknesses are, and will throw out a predicted winner when he has too to fit a segment, but he knows more than most when it comes to the technical side.
There are some things that hold true. Wonderboy did win 3 of the 5 rounds, but you cannot say that Wonderboy did more damage in that fight. It is a slight flaw of the UFC scoring, but it is also something that cannot really be fixed. The fight was an endless calculation, and one that unfortunately took its toll on the audience. The UFC will live and die by the product of their title fights, but can always be bailed out by a remarkable card.
UFC 209 was not remarkable by any measure, save for the remainder of this post dedicated to Darren Elkins truly spectacular comeback.
The beauty of the UFC lies in its unpredictability. I grew up a boxing fan, and for a while defended boxing, its promotion and the product that was on display. The UFC is an entirely different monster, and two preliminary fights on the UFC 209 card proved that to an exponential degree.
Darren Elkins (pictured above) likely had a broken jaw following a first round beat down from Mirsad Bektic. Elkins entered the card as the biggest underdog (6–to-1) amongst all fighters, and those odds were reflected by the performance Bektic put on for the first 10 minutes of action. The bloodied Elkins took the warrior mentality to an entirely new level after a gash above his right eye was opened up and trenched. To Elkins credit, he knew how to get the crowd behind him, and after each break in the action, he wanted to some fuel so he turned to the audience.
Yea…that gash.
As the title of this piece points out, the element of surprise caught the entire T-Mobile Arena, and the media room in which I am writing this from. To Elkins credit, he got the crowd behind him by simply…surviving. This element is striking since I experienced a similar sentiment when Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson appeared to have used the reserve tank and then some at UFC 205, but managed to slip away and grab a majority-draw (in favor of Tyron Woodley, rematch later tonight).
Elkins finished Bektic with a head kick KO, and it will be nearly impossible for any fighter to make a better comeback this year.
This aspect of unpredictability, between two fighters who’s social media following are less than 25,000 followers, combined, is what real fight game fans are looking for. You simply don’t get these types of match-ups on other cards.
**Check back later for update on Wonderboy vs. Woodley 2
