What sense can we make of Raja Jackson’s attack on pro-wrestler Stuart Smith? And what can the UFC do with Johnny Walker after his big upset win in Shanghai? Plus, does Brian Ortega still have a future at featherweight?
All that and more in this week’s mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @BenFowlkesMMA.
@YabbaDabbaYip: Raja Jackson. Like. WTF
Yeah, that about says it. I have no idea what Raja Jackson was thinking, but that was truly awful to watch. As in, I watched it and felt a little sick and wished I’d never allowed any of these images into my head.
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The whole thing is just really, really sad. On the video, you could see that Stuart Smith, known as Syko Stu, was basically unconscious after Jackson slammed him to the mat. Why Jackson would then hit him more than 20 times as Smith lay there unable to defend himself defies any rational explanation. It seemed to just go on and on. It seemed to take so long for anyone to get in that ring and protect Smith. It was sheer senseless brutality, and for what?
I don’t understand anything about it. I don’t understand what Jackson was hoping to accomplish, if he really intended to do all that or just horribly misread the situation and what was warranted. I don’t pretend to know what should happen to him now as a consequence. It’s all just so … terrible. I’m not sure what else to say beyond that.
@Beastin364: Did Johnny Walker just totally ruin UFC’s plans for Zhang? No way they booked him in that fight thinking he’d win it right? So now what!
There is no way UFC matchmakers thought they were sending Johnny Walker off on a march to glorious victory in Shanghai. Do you hear me? Ain’t. No. Way. You take a guy with two straight knockout losses and book him against a Chinese fighter in China? A country the UFC is desperate to get a solid foothold in? The thinking there was that Zhang Mingyang would continue his streak of knockout victories and the crowd would go wild. Instead he got stopped inside of two rounds and the arena got very, very quiet.
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I don’t know what this means for Walker. The guy’s such a wild card that I wouldn’t be surprised to see him win his next three, but also wouldn’t be at all shocked if he lost three in a row. You truly never know.
As for Zhang, I don’t think it’s a complete derailment of the hype train. He looked solid before the leg injury, and was as game as he could physically be even after it. He’ll be back. But it sure wasn’t how that night (or extremely early morning here in North America) was supposed to go.
@SLefkaditis: With no UFC event in the APEX until (possibly) November, how close are we to an APEXless era?
Not close. It’s time we accept that. The APEX fills a need for the UFC. Until the entire calendar is booked solid with cities willing to pay for the privilege of a UFC event — any UFC event — there will always be some Apex in our lives.
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That said, I do think we should expect there to be a seasonal ebb and flow. Times of the year when there are more locales with money to spend and arenas to fill, the UFC will get out on the road and cash those site fee checks. When those are in shorter supply, it’s back home to the empty warehouse vibe of the UFC APEX.
@BraxtonLeeds: How come we next see any #StrikeforceNeverDie tee shirts like we used to with PRIDE FC?
Maybe because Strikeforce was bought by the UFC juuuuust as it was really getting good. In fact, that’s why it got bought. The UFC finally saw it as a nascent competitor and made an offer just as some of Strikeforce’s owners (basically everyone but Scott Coker) saw an opportunity to get out while the getting was as good as it might ever be.
PRIDE, on the other hand, was around long enough to have a golden era. It genuinely competed with the UFC and did so with a product that felt significantly different, offering a whole different vibe and appeal. Plus, it was long enough ago that we can be nostalgic for it. We remember the good parts and forget the awful ones. And, let’s face it, PRIDE had a much better logo than Strikeforce, which goes a long way in the T-shirt world.
@sentientlife4o1: Is Brian Ortega (who is inexplicably ranked 7th at featherweight despite having lost 4 of his last 5) done? Is there anyone he could reasonably be expected to beat in the top 10, provided he could make 145 without dying? Is a move to 155 even feasible?
I have no idea what’s going on with Brian Ortega, but it doesn’t seem great. He missed weight by almost an entire division, looked awful on the scales, then had nothing much at all against Aljamain Sterling, who is himself a blown-up bantamweight. It just doesn’t really seem like Ortega’s heart is in it anymore. At least not lately.
@bear_reynolds: Has Dana got bored of his slap fighting? UFC seems to be promoting it less these days.
I don’t know, I’m still getting emails with headings like, “WOLVERINE vs KLINGBEIL PRESENTED BY MONSTER ENERGY SET FOR ABU DHABI SHOWDOWN WEEK” (capitalization is theirs, btw), so it seems clear that Power Slap is still out here trying. And by trying I mean following the UFC to places like Abu Dhabi, using UFC company resources to promote a much cheaper product that appeals to a much lower common denominator, swimming in the UFC’s wake and looking for its crumbs.
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Thing is, you can only get so far with the whole overnight success story pitch. Dana White’s big push for Power Slap was built entirely on telling us how popular it was and how many social media views it was getting. That got some initial attention, in part because a lot of his figures seemed like outright fabrications (or, at the very least, context-free exaggerations), but at a certain point nobody cares anymore. You don’t ever hear anyone going, “Hey, did you catch that Power Slap event last night?!”
So in answer to your question, yes, White is still pushing it. The reason you don’t feel like you hear it much lately is because almost no one is interested in even having this conversation anymore.
@jmprobus: Got any HW up & comers that might climb the ranks over the next couple years? That division feels so empty
Well, it is the week of final roster cuts in the NFL. So there should be some athletic big men looking for work. This is why the UFC ought to have a series of scouts standing around outside team facilities, watching through binoculars for any defensive lineman whose code no longer opens the front door.
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I’m just saying, that’s a man who might be interested in hearing a proposal on the ride to the UFC Performance Institute.
