Aubin-Mercier brings star power to UFC fight night

It’s been almost five years since Georges St-Pierre was making regular walks to the octagon.

In the time since, fight fans have waited patiently for the person who would follow in GSP’s footsteps and carry the torch for Canadian MMA.

Maybe we should appreciate Rory MacDonald more, but he never quite managed to capture the hearts and minds of Canadians the way St-Pierre did, and is now fighting relatively out of the mainstream spotlight in Bellator.

In his own weird way this week, though, Olivier Aubin-Mercier has begun doing just enough to suggest that he might be the star we’ve been waiting for.

It’s not something Americans necessarily understand, but with his moustache, fanny-pack and goofy “Canadian Gangster” persona, Aubin-Mercier is sticking out from the crowd.

“I was walking down the street and a guy screamed at me and said that I looked like a porn star,” Aubin-Mercier said. “At that point I told myself that I have no limits. I can be anything I want.

“I can be a gangster, I can be a porn star. Anything. The guy was really weird, he looked insane, but that has nothing to do with the story.”

In an MMA scene where standing out matters, Aubin-Mercier has tapped into something.

Ever since Conor McGregor burst onto the scene and showed that talking trash makes money, lots of fighters have attempted to follow his template.

Aubin-Mercier is trying something different.

He’s funny, he’s weird and he’s distinctly Canadian.

At Thursday’s media day, the Montrealer showed up with two “security guards” who dressed in black turtlenecks and black sunglasses, and rocked perfectly groomed moustaches.

“(They’re) not here for me, it’s for anybody that would attack me,” Aubin-Mercier said. “They ’re going to protect those people, from me.”

To be clear, nobody ’s trying to attack Aubin-Mercier. He might be a bit goofy, but he’s got the body of a professional fighter.

And anyone in the fight game knows he’s got serious fighting skills. He enters Saturday night’s fight with Alexander Hernandez riding a four-fight win streak and coming off the most impressive victory of his career: a first-round knockout of veteran Evan Dunham.

Aubin-Mercier has long been considered a top prospect, but prospects come and go. In the last year, he’s emerged as something more: He’s a legitimate contender now. Maybe not for the lightweight title just yet, but certainly for a spot in the top-10 of the 155-pound division.

After the Dunham fight, AubinMercier has begun to believe.

“Evan Dunham was one of my favourite fighters, so to fight him was really special,” Aubin-Mercier said. “I knew he was really durable, so to beat him in 50 seconds was really something incredible.”

If he beats Hernandez on Saturday, Aubin-Mercier will be in line for a serious promotional push. It’s possible – maybe not probable, but not out of the question — that he could even be slotted into the main event spot of October’s UFC event in Moncton, N.B.

From there, who knows? There are no guarantees in the fight game, but it doesn’t seem crazy to say Aubin-Mercier could be the star Canadian fans have been waiting for.

NOTHING

Look, sometimes there’s no drama.

The last few years have seen early-morning weigh-ins produce plenty of drama during fight week. No matter who is scheduled to fight on Saturday night, you can’t really feel confident about the lineup until everyone has stepped on the scales on Friday morning.

It’s always a tense time, but on Friday in Calgary there was basically no drama at all.

Every fighter showed up and every fighter was on-weight.

The card we were expecting for Saturday night is a go, and while that would be noteworthy for any UFC event, it’s especially so because Saturday night’s fights go down in Alberta.

For so long now, the province has felt cursed by the MMA gods.

Most famously, UFC 149 at the Saddledome was a disaster, losing its main event and just about every other intriguing matchup due to injury.

Then, last year, UFC 215 in Edmonton was struck by injuries as well. The card lost a hotly anticipated heavyweight bout between Francis Ngannou and Junior Dos Santos, as well as a flyweight title fight between champion Demetrious Johnson and challenger Ray Borg.

Apparently, though, the curse has been broken.

Every single fight the UFC announced for Saturday’s card is happening. No injuries, no fighters missing weight.

Life’s not always fair, but fate has smiled on Calgary this time around.

NOTES

The biggest pop from the crowd at Friday afternoon’s ceremonial weigh-ins might have been for Calgary’s own Hakeem Dawodu.

He might not be a superstar on the global stage, but in his hometown Dawodu’s name carries a whole lot of weight.

Khabib Nurmagomedov did a Q&A with fans prior to ceremonial weigh-ins and basically acknowledged that Conor McGregor is next.

He also said he didn’t believe McGregor deserved a shot, but money trumps everything in MMA and it’s inevitable that they face off soon enough.