Can UFC card bring the sizzle to Edmonton?
Despite a card ‘stacked’ with top fighters, critics say Rogers Place event lacks sizzle
It really wasn’t a fair question.
But then again, it seems to be THE question.
Why doesn’t Demetrious Johnson have sizzle?
Why doesn’t Amanda Nunes have sizzle?
UFC 215 press conference day arrived Wednesday at Rogers Place to promote the launch of ticket sales and the two headliners and defending champions were on the property.
Since the day the pay-per-view headliners were announced, there has been constant criticism around the UFC world about the lack of perceived star power. And predictions and projections are for a poor pay-per-view buy rate.
Why doesn’t Demetrious Johnson have sizzle?
He’s the No. 1 ranked poundfor-pound fighter in official UFC rankings. He beat out Conor McGregor and everybody else out to win the 2017 ESPY award for best fighter. He’s made 10 successful flyweight title defences and will break the record, currently shared with former middleweight champion Anderson Silva, for most title defences should he defeat Ray Borg in the Sept. 9 main event.
He certainly has a resume with sizzle.
“Yeah, I have all these records. But I don’t do trash talk. If you’re thirsty for trash talk, I’m not your guy. I prefer to treat myself as a professional and go in there and do my job. I over-deliver when I fight,” said Johnson, a.k.a. ‘Mighty Mouse.’
It might be as simple as the fact he’s jockey sized.
When Johnson and Nunes were introduced, the women’s bantamweight champion was bigger than he was and looked like she might be able to kick the crap out of him.
“It could be that. But I can’t focus on that. I can’t start thinking like a promoter. I have to keep thinking like an athlete or I’m not going to be successful. I’m not a promoter. I’m a fighter,” Johnson said.
Nunes destroyed Ronda Rousey, a champion with undeniable sizzle, in 48 seconds in UFC 207 in December. But apparently, Rousey’s sizzle wasn’t transferable.
“I’m an athlete. I go to the cage and I do my job. I feel like the UFC has to promote me, you know. If the company doesn’t promote the athlete, that’s the company’s fault, not ours,” she said.
Nunes, from Bahia, Brazil, caused considerable controversy recently when, on the morning of UFC 213 — a card she was headlining — she pulled out of her title fight against Valentina Shevchenko. The bout has been rescheduled here as the semimain
Yeah, I have all these records. But I don’t do trash talk. If you’re thirsty for trash talk, I’m not your guy.
event.
UFC boss Dana White publicly stated that Nunes was medically cleared to fight and claimed her withdrawal was mostly a mental problem.
“I have chronic sinuses,” she said. “Sometimes it gets really bad. My face was swollen. My head had so much pressure.
“Sometimes I can’t do things. That day I couldn’t fight. I had to go to the hospital. I decided I no fight.”
Should that take away from the same fight that they had her headlining for UFC 213?
Whatever, you may have noticed that UFC has moved the Junior dos Santos versus Francis Ngannou heavyweight fight on to the poster with almost third title fight status.
And they added two new bouts including a preliminary involving Edmonton’s Mitch Clarke.
“I think this is a stacked card,” said Johnson.
“You have me. You have Amanda Nunes. You have Junior dos Santos, a former heavyweight champion. You have Gil Melendez, a former lightweight champion, and you have Rafael dos Anjos, a former welterweight champion.
“This is basically a championship card for a championship city,” said Johnson, a Seattlearea fighter who is more than familiar with Canada, having won his inaugural belt at UFC 152 in Toronto back in 2012 and defended it in Montreal and Vancouver.
Maybe the UFC editorialists around the fight world are right. Maybe this is a card that just doesn’t have pay-per-view sizzle.
That doesn’t matter much to Edmonton partner the Oilers Entertainment Group for the first ever big time UFC event here.
It’s how it will sell here. With tickets on sale Friday at 10 a.m., we’ll know soon enough about that end of the sizzle story.