Ben Fowlkes

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The good news is that women’s MMA now has our full, undivided attention. Thanks to Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey — not to mention the willingness of Zuffa and Strikeforce to put them in the main event and push it as a fight that really, truly matters — the fight world will be fully focused on a women’s title bout this Saturday night.

The bad news, depending on who you ask, might be what the ladies had to do to get here.

If you’re just tuning in, the fight between Tate and Rousey is a big deal because it’s a title fight, sure, but also because the promotional powers that be have made it a big deal. They see the marketing potential in a bout between two good-looking young women who seem to legitimately dislike each other, and they’ve played it for everything it’s worth in promo videos that seem almost like they’re showcasing two James Bond love interests rather than professional athletes.

Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that, mind you. When it comes to selling a fight, you use what you’ve been given. But it’s hard to think that Rousey’s looks didn’t play a part in her getting a crack at the champion with just four pro fights on her resume. Certainly, her skills helped (she was an Olympic medalist in judo, after all), and her highlight reel filled with one armbar win after another played a part, but so too did her willingness to say whatever would get her name in the headlines. She literally talked her way into this fight, and she doesn’t deny that.

From Rousey’s standpoint, everything has gone exactly according to plan so far. She got the attention she wanted and the fight she asked for. That she didn’t particularly care how she got either is what has irked some of her peers, who have long prided themselves on an ‘we’re all in this together’ attitude when it comes to pushing the women’s division.

“I think that’s why a lot of us have a problem with Ronda,” Tate said when I spoke to her for an SI.com article this week. “I just don’t think she sees the big picture. If she did, I don’t believe she’d feel OK about how she’s talked her way into a title fight. If you’ve been following women’s MMA or you are a woman in MMA, you know why we’re upset. We’ve been putting in the work for so long and had our noses to the grindstone trying to be accepted and get to this point. We took it from the very bottom all the way to the top, and then Ronda comes in at the last minute and pulls the carpet out from under Sarah Kaufman’s feet. It’s just very unjust, and she feels OK with it because, in my opinion, Ronda’s a very selfish person. She’s more concerned with what’s good for Ronda than what’s good for women’s MMA.”

Of course, that’s an accusation that no one would even bother to make in the men’s division, where it’s just assumed that everyone is looking out for themselves first, and everything else second. It’s only women’s MMA that continues to foster this communal atmosphere, and you could make a strong argument that it would get more attention if everyone in the division would stop being so damn nice to one another.

Rousey has gone ahead and solved that problem, at least temporarily, and in the process maybe she’s shown her colleagues a new path to the waterfall. Not only can a female fighter break from the congenial atmosphere, she can also get rewarded for it if she has the skills to back it up.

But no matter what we’ve seen from Rousey so far, it’s that last part we can’t be sure about yet. Yes, she’s armbarred every opponent she’s come across, and in a hurry, but she’s also never faced anyone at the top of the division. She’s making a huge leap from the middle of the pack to the very top, and plenty of her peers think she’s not ready for it yet.

We won’t know until she’s in the cage with Tate whether she belongs there, though by then the hype will have done all it can do. And, let’s be clear, it’s already done a lot. People are talking. Fans are interested. Chances are this will be the most watched women’s MMA fight in years. As for what those people will be watching, and what it means for the future of the division, we’ll have to wait and see.

As of this weekend, big time MMA is officially back in Japan. At least, briefly. From the time it takes for the UFC to move its Octagon in and out of the Saitama Super Arena, the nation that spawned the once great (and, at times, also terrible) PRIDE Fighting Championships can once again show up and watch some of the best fighters in all of MMA go at in person. That is, as long as they’re willing to make the trip on a Sunday morning to accommodate pay-per-view audiences back in North America.

But as exciting as it might be for purely nostalgic purposes to see the UFC in Tokyo for the first time in over a decade, I find myself wondering what MMA fans are hoping to get out of this event that they wouldn’t get if the same exact fight card was held in Las Vegas.

For starters, let’s abandon any notion that one UFC event is going to singlehandedly revitalize the flagging J-MMA scene. Local events have dried up for very good, albeit complicated reasons, and it’s hard to imagine the entire nation demanding more MMA simply because the UFC swept into town for a week. Japanese MMA needs to fix its own problems, and the UFC appears to be under no illusion that it can or should be a vital part of that.

We should also forget any fanciful ideas of a mini-PRIDE resurrection on the hallowed ground that once saw the glory days of Kazushi Sakuraba and Wanderlei Silva and “Rampage” Jackson. The UFC is the MMA version of McDonald’s at this point. It exports its product cleanly and efficiently, with the least possible amount of tweaking to suit local tastes. If you’re tuning in on Saturday night hoping to see the UFC turn itself into PRIDE inside a cage, forget it. Those days are gone and they aren’t coming back.

So then why is it such a big deal for the Zuffa-era UFC to break into Japan for the first time? Is it nothing more than an opportunity for Dana White to make good on his vow to put on a Tokyo event, or does it have a more significant impact?

I’m not sure I know the answer to that yet, and I doubt we’ll even know it by the time the UFC shoves off for home. While it’s true that Japan was once a vital market for MMA fighters and fans, that’s just not the case anymore. The UFC is good at drumming up interest in a new place, but we can’t pretend that Tokyo is gripped with the same invigorating passion for the sport as places like Brazil or even the U.K.

So why do this? Why go to so much trouble to bring MMA back to a place that let its own well dry up?

Maybe it is just nostalgia. Maybe it’s a chance for the UFC to officially plant its flag on the territory of its old rival. Maybe there is some small hope that this will be the spark that helps reignite the nation’s desire for a vibrant local fight scene.

I’m not saying it’s impossible — just unlikely. I’m also not saying that the PRIDE fanboy in me isn’t eager to see “Rampage” and Takanori Gomi and Mark Hunt once again stand in front of an eerily quiet Japanese audience, just for old times’ sake.

What I am saying is that, no matter how much we might like the idea of a UFC in Japan, we should admit that it’s more about what we want than what Japan wants. It’s a fun concept, but it’s probably not going to change anything, and it’s certainly not going to bring back the days when more than 50,000 fans flooded into the Saitama Super Arena to see a fight card full of Grand Prix dream bouts or mismatches or freak shows — sometimes all on the same night.

Japan’s MMA heyday has come and gone. If it wants to get it back, it has to do so on its own. The UFC might have had to jump through a lot of hoops to make this event happen, but it can leave a lot easier than it came.

When the word came down from the Nevada State Athletic Commission that Nick Diaz had tested positive for marijuana at UFC 143 last weekend, UFC president Dana White sent out a terse statement to the media to say he was “beyond disappointed” to hear the news. Like most of us, however, he probably couldn’t have said he was terribly surprised.

This is the second time in five years that Diaz has been busted for pot usage by the NSAC. The first was back at PRIDE 33, and it wiped out his magnificent submission win over Takanori Gomi. This one will likely cost him much more, since it comes at a time when his relationship with the UFC is shakier than ever.

White already admitted to bending some of his own personal standards to accommodate Diaz, who’s as exciting in the cage as he is unpredictable outside of it. But after Diaz declared himself “done” with MMA in a post-fight tantrum following his close decision loss to Carlos Condit, the UFC might be looking at the soon-to-be suspended welterweight and wondering if it’s even worth trying to convince him to return to the cage.

Granted, the UFC brass doesn’t seem eager to drop the axe on him just yet — as we’ve seen in the past, fighters who sell pay-per-views get to play by different rules — but if Diaz wanted to retire because he was upset about a decision not going his way, how do you suppose he’ll react to a likely fine and suspension?

Then again, Diaz isn’t the only one who could end up feeling the sting of this failed drug test. Not that he seems to give much thought to how his actions affect others, but turning in a hot urine sample to the NSAC is a pebble tossed in the pond of the MMA world. The ripples are still finding their way to the farther shores, and before it’s all said and done there could be quite a few figures whose lives are changed in ways both big and small.

For starters, take Condit. He entered the interim title bout as a considerable underdog, with even Georges St-Pierre rooting against him. Outside of his own camp, few people believed or even hoped he’d win the fight, if only because they were hoping for a GSP-Diaz showdown instead. Then he did win, albeit somewhat controversially, and thanks to an evasive style that wasn’t exactly popular with fans.

As if that wasn’t enough of a Pyrrhic victory, now the fallout from the Diaz drug test has further overshadowed his efforts. Is there any other way that Condit could have beaten Diaz, won the interim title, and still come out looking like supporting cast in the UFC’s welterweight division? Probably not. It takes a lot to win a fight in the UFC and still see your stock drop. It takes some serious bad luck to become a bit player less than a week after winning an interim belt.

And how about GSP? He’d all but said that the Diaz fight was the only one that interested him at 170 pounds, which is why he was seated cageside for the big post-fight showdown that we all just knew was coming. A Condit victory has got to be enough of a blow for his hopes, but with an impending suspension that will likely keep Diaz out of action for a year or so (and that’s if Diaz decides to come back once it’s over), St-Pierre has got to be wondering if he’ll ever get a chance to settle his beef with Stockton’s favorite son.

Then there are the forgotten men on the sidelines. For instance, there’s Nick’s brother, Nathan Diaz. Though he’s never had/caused half the problems that Nick has in his MMA career, there’s always the threat of guilt by association. After his impressive victory over Donald Cerrone, the UFC has him slated to face lightweight standout Jim Miller on FOX in May. That’s a big stage, and one he’s earned, but what are the chances that the younger Diaz has been excusing himself from the room every time his brother lights up? The UFC brass has got to be wondering that very thing as they wonder just how much responsibility to bestow upon one of their best lightweight hopes.

But finally, there are some positives from all this. At least, there are if you’re one of the other welterweight contenders in the UFC whose hopes sank at the mere mention of a potential Diaz-Condit rematch. Guys like Johny Hendricks and Jake Ellenberger have been quietly making their cases as top 170-pounders recently, and now that the UFC no longer has the option to put the division on hold while Diaz and Condit have another go, maybe they’ll get their chance to do something about it.

After all, one man’s positive drug test can sometimes be another man’s break in the clouds. Just because Diaz has to pay for an ill-timed toke, that doesn’t mean everyone should.

It’s weirdly fitting that, as the UFC takes to pay-per-view on the eve of the Super Bowl, the fighter who should lead the charge is Nick Diaz. That’s not because Diaz embodies any of the same qualities that we’ve come to associate with pro football’s circus weekend. Quite the opposite, in fact, which is what’s so great about it.

If Nick Diaz were to suppress his hatred of jock culture long enough to actually play football, he’d probably be terrible at it. At the very least he’d be a pain in the ass to deal with in the locker room, where he’d be mean-mugging the assistant coaches and demanding to know what his teammates were looking at. Diaz does not play well with others, nor does he suffer bullshit gladly.

And, let’s be honest, bullshit is mostly what the Super Bowl is about.

I don’t mean the actual game. Between the whistles, there’s actually something genuine happening, something you can’t fake or script or slap a logo on. It’s everything else — the media feeding frenzy, the aging rockers stuffing themselves into leather pants one last time, the nauseating approach to pageantry that makes a royal wedding seem modest and wholesome by comparison — that is overflowing with bullshit. By this point, the Super Bowl is about so many things that are not football that you almost have to squint to see the game through the haze of gross commercialism.

Compare that to Saturday night’s UFC 143 event, where Diaz takes on Carlos Condit for the interim welterweight title and the right to face real champion Georges St-Pierre just as soon as he’s healthy. Okay, so the interim title part might be crap (those always are), but the rest of it is refreshingly genuine and devoid of marketing ploys, beginning with Diaz.

Earlier this week Diaz got his pre-fight media blitz started with an interview in which he criticized the UFC for its selective editing in promotional videos. Then he complained at the pre-fight presser that his opponent wasn’t getting enough attention, what with the welterweight champ hanging around, and followed it up by further diffusing any rivalry hopes by actually shaking hands with his adversary (not a big deal for most fighters, but a bit of a rarity for Diaz).

It’s stuff like this that makes you really feel for the UFC’s marketing team. They have their work cut out for them with Diaz, who obstinately refuses to be made into a pawn for anyone else’s agenda, even that of his employers.

But then, that just makes Diaz all the more genuine, which in turn makes him even more fascinating. When other guys flip opponents off at the weigh-in or accuse other fighters of faking injuries, it’s hard not to wonder how much of it is just a gimmick to sell a pay-per-view or angle for a particular fight. With Diaz, who won’t even do the bare minimum when it comes to giving the UFC the sound bytes it wants, you know you’re getting the real deal. It just so happens that that deal can occasionally be too real, even for the purveyors of professional cage fighting.

The Diaz-Condit fight is not only a great, brutal fight on paper — it’s also a stripped down, no-frills version of professional sports. It’s two guys in a cage, both vying for the same thing, and doing so without the benefit of some pre-packaged narrative. You don’t need hype when you have two welterweight bulldozers like this. You just need to get out of the way and let them do their thing.

On the weekend when pro football adamantly refuses to just that, Diaz’s brand of aggressive authenticity — even when it’s halfway insane — seems like a minor miracle all by itself.

For just the second time in its history, the UFC will air a live event on network television this Saturday night, and this time it’s serious. Last time, sure, it had a heavyweight title fight to offer up, but first-time viewers got just over a minute’s worth of action out of the evening’s one and only fight, which didn’t give them much of a chance to figure out what the UFC is all about.

Now those same viewers will be tuning in again (or so the UFC hopes), this time with three full fights on FOX, two of which have immediate title implications. That’s all well and good for the hardcore fight fans who already understand what they’ll be looking at on Saturday night, but what about the regular network TV viewer who tunes in knowing only that this is not NFL football or the local news? I figure those poor saps are bound to have some questions, so we might as well see if we can’t help them out with quick, easy answers, FAQ-style.

Question: Why are these fights such a big deal, exactly?

Answer: For starters, because they’re on network TV, which is a big deal in itself for a company and a sport that nearly vanished altogether not so long ago. Beyond that, the Rashad Evans-Phil Davis fight will probably determine the next challenger for UFC light heavyweight champ Jon Jones, depending on who wins and whether they emerge relatively injury-free. The winner of the Chael Sonnen-Michael Bisping fight will definitely (or so Dana White says) challenge middleweight champ Anderson Silva, probably in front of an enormous crowd in a Brazilian soccer stadium this summer.

Question: So they’re fights to see who gets to fight? That doesn’t seem so special.

Answer: Fair enough, but what you have to realize is that there’s a lot of history in some of these potential match-ups. Evans and Jones were training partners and teammates once upon a time, but that relationship turned sour quickly and has only gotten more so. Sonnen and Silva already fought once, with Sonnen looking like he had a decision victory all but sewn up until Silva submitted him in the final minutes of the final round back in the summer of 2010.

Question: Sonnen…he’s the one who keeps saying all that ridiculous stuff, right? Is he serious with all that?

Answer: Yes and no. He’s serious in the sense that he keeps doing it and it’s kind of his thing now, but he’s not dumb and he’s not crazy (at least, he’s not significantly crazier than any other pro fighter). He just knows what works when it comes to getting his name in the headlines, and he’s gotten so good at it that he can even make himself the focal point when he’s not in the main event, such as now. Evans and Davis might be the guys on top of the card, but Sonnen is savvy enough to know that if he shows up to the pre-fight presser with a fake championship belt that he claims to have stolen from the champ’s house, it’ll get people talking. Here we are, so mission accomplished.

Question: So far you’ve only mentioned two fights, but you said there were three.

Answer: You’re a clever one, aren’t you? Okay, the third fight doesn’t have quite the same stakes, but it’s interesting for different reasons. You see, originally Sonnen was supposed to fight Mark Munoz and Bisping was supposed to fight Demian Maia. Then Munoz got hurt, so Bisping moved up to fight Sonnen and a guy named Chris Weidman agreed to step up on eleven days notice and fight Maia.

Question: That’s confusing, but okay. What’s up with Weidman and Maia? Why do they matter?

Answer: Weidman is an undefeated former college wrestling standout who’ll be taking a big jump up in competition against Maia, who’s a more experienced fighter and an absolute wizard with submissions. It’s a huge test for Weidman, who has looked really good against a lower caliber of opponents, and it’s a fight that Maia has to win if he wants to stay in the upper echelon of the division. So yeah, that’s pretty important too.

Question: The last time I watched this stuff on FOX there was an hour of talking and literally one minute of fighting. It’s not going to be like that again, is it?

Answer: No. That was just a teaser before the UFC’s deal with FOX really began. This time there are more fights, and even if those end in a hurry (and at least two are likely to go the distance), UFC president Dana White has said they’ll air fights from the undercard to fill the extra time. Typically, the UFC is very good about cramming as many fights as possible into its broadcasts, so you should get to see no shortage of blood and sweat.

Question: Speaking of blood, I heard these things are, like, crazy fights with no rules and no weight classes and sometimes people die. Is that true?

Answer: Okay, you know what? We’re done here. Enjoy the fights.

If you could go back in time and tell those of us who used to follow this sport via slow-loading internet message boards and borrowed VHS tapes that one day our big problem would be too many MMA events packed into too short a timeframe, we probably would have called up our friends via a landline phone to come help us beat you up.

Those were different times, though definitely not better times for MMA fans. Just encountering another person who followed the sport and knew it as something other than ‘that no-holds-barred stuff’ was like stumbling upon a fellow member of a secret club. Those days are gone now. Just take a glance at the UFC’s live events calendar, and you’ll see what I mean.

Friday night — just six days after UFC 142 in Rio — we get a free cable TV event on FX, with every single prelim bout (beginning at 6 pm ET with Canadian bantamweight Nick Denis vs. Joseph Sandoval) airing on FUEL. Then, eight days later, the UFC comes back to network TV with three fights on FOX. Then there’s a whole eleven days until Diego Sanchez and Jake Ellenberger do battle on FUEL, followed by UFC 144 in Japan ten days later.

As you can see when you look at who’s on these cards, a new stratification seems to be taking shape among the UFC ranks. It kind of has to, with the schedule being what it is. In the first two months of 2011, the UFC put on four events — three pay-per-views and one Spike TV “Fight for the Troops” card. It followed more or less the exact same schedule the year before.

By the time the first two months of 2012 are over, the UFC will have run six events — three pay-per-views, two cable TV cards, and one network TV show. But since the total number of fighters under contract in the UFC hasn’t changed significantly since last year, that means something’s got to give. Either the existing UFC fighters will all be required to step in the cage more often, or the bar for what’s worthy of being on TV gets dropped just a tad. So far, it seems to be the latter.

It’s a subtle shift, mind you. The UFC is still the pinnacle of the sport, and just sticking around at that level means you must be doing something right. That said, when you look at tonight’s fight card — and especially the UFC on FUEL lineup in February — you start to see a lot of lesser-known characters. No offense, but are fans really readying their popcorn for that Aaron Simpson-Ronny Markes bout? I doubt it.

There are reasons to be optimistic about this change. For one, it means more opportunities for up-and-coming fighters to show their stuff. Maybe it will even mean that the UFC will stop cutting guys as soon as they hit a losing streak, thus relaxing the hypocritical stance that demands thrill-inducing risk-taking behavior all while punishing the losses that inevitably come when you take some chances.

Then again, it also moves the UFC, however slightly, toward the boxing mold — those old-fashioned fight cards that depend entirely too much on the main event. How could it not slide in that direction, when the pace of events demands that pay-per-view mid-carders become FUEL TV main eventers, while prelim standouts become FX mid-carders? With so many slots to fill, everyone has to step up.

So, too, do the fans. The demand on their time just to stay abreast of the sport’s ups and downs will become greater than ever this year, increasing the chances that many of them might just hit the snooze button and only show up for the two or three big fights a year.

UFC president Dana White would probably say that that’s just fine with him, but it isn’t, of course. He wants as many eyeballs as he can get on as many events as he can get them on. You just can’t help but wonder what will happen to fan interest if people start to feel like they can’t keep up without dedicating their entire lives to it.

It’s not as easy as you think for the UFC to take its act to Brazil for the week, as it’s doing with UFC 142 on Saturday night. I know, you hear the stories and you think it’s all thongs and coconut water down in Rio de Janeiro, and, okay, it is partly thongs and coconut water. I was there for UFC 134 in August, which is wintertime in Brazil, and even the middle-aged mothers with toddlers in tow had both cheeks hanging out on the beaches of Ipanema. But I digress…

The point is, they do things differently in Rio, and that makes for a very different environment on fight night. If you want to get into the spirit and party like a ‘Carioca’ (that’s what they call the merry residents of Rio, genius), here are some helpful do’s and don’ts to incorporate into your normal routine as you take in UFC 142 on Saturday night.

Do: Show up extremely late to all pre-fight functions

Carioca time is not like regular time. It’s a far more fluid concept. That’s why if someone tells you that they want to get together for drinks before the fights start, say at 5 p.m., go ahead and interpret that as 5-ish. Or 5:45. Whatever. Brazilians understand that, since they’re dealing with other Brazilians, nothing will start on time anyway.

Don’t: Show up late to the fights.

Vegas crowds might not show up en masse until the main card begins, but Cariocas are packed to the rafters twenty minutes before the first prelim bout. What does it say that the people who aren’t on time for anything are on time for this? Probably that the UFC has a very easy time of it when it comes to ticket sales.

Do: Come prepared with some intimidating chants to spook foreign fighters.

Last time, the chant the Americans heard all week was ‘Vai morrer,’ which means, ‘You’re going to die.’ In the middle of one fight, during which American David Mitchell was perceived to be attempting some underhanded tactics against Paulo Thiago, the chant got even simpler, just calling him a son of a bitch in Portuguese over and over. Some things are better left untranslated, perhaps.

Don’t: Tolerate any post-fight remarks in English, especially from Brazilians.

Despite the fact that many Brazilian UFC fighters are bilingual and realize the need to address English-speaking fans on the pay-per-view broadcast in a tongue they understand, Cariocas weren’t having it. They booed even their most beloved fighters if they dared to utter any words in English, then cheered madly when they switched back to Portuguese. Maybe it’s better for a fighter to risk the wrath of the TV audience rather than the one within throwing distance. Which brings me to my next point…

Do: Throw your beer in celebration when your fighter wins.

Where I come from, you don’t throw away a half-full cup of beer unless you’re so mad at the target that dousing them feels worth the money you’re throwing away. Either Brazilians have a different take, or they don’t charge enough for beers at the HSBC Arena, because cups of suds came raining down when Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, “Shogun” Rua, and Anderson Silva all won. I admit, once I saw the celebratory beer-throwing in action a few times I was convinced: that’s how you create a party atmosphere. Just be careful if you’re watching the fight at a sports bar. That sort of thing is frowned upon in many establishments.

Don’t: Go straight home after the fights.

C’mon, son. Don’t act like you’re leaving game night at your grandmother’s house. The fights may be over, but your evening doesn’t have to be. If there’s one word to describe how the Cariocas approach MMA — how they approach life, really — it’s: passion. Unlike the crowds that come shuffling in complaining about the price of nachos and go wandering out complaining about snarled traffic in the parking lot, the Brazilians seem to find a way to enjoy just about everything. In fact, they aren’t even complaining that, because of the time difference and the need to adhere to the UFC’s rigid pay-per-view schedule, UFC 142 likely won’t wrap up until 4 a.m. local time. Come Sunday, you just know the beachside bars will still be packed some tired, but nevertheless enthusiastic fight fans determined to get the most out of another beautiful day. Now that’s a philosophy I can get behind.