Since the Holloway-Poirier/Gastelum we will have had 6 - count them, 6 - trash cards in a row before the next decent PPV card.
I can pick 8 total decent, meaningful fights between solid fighters out of the 6 cards combined, with only 1 fight that wasn't the main event being worth a damn. If they were all on the same card, it would make for an average PPV at best with a shit main event. Only one fight would be out of place on the undercard - the other 7 fights would just be standard main card and prelims. This is the best I could come up with out of 6 events combined (and no, I haven't forgotten Anderson vs Cannonier or Lentz-Oliviera 3, as those were redundant trash).
Main Card
Andrade vs Namajunas
Volkanovski vs Aldo
Gustafsson vs Smith
Cerrone vs Iaquinta
Overeem vs Oleinik
Prelims
Jacare vs Hermansson
Dos Anjos vs Kevin Lee (both coming off losses, remember)
Lineker vs Sandhagen
Glover Texeira vs Ion Cutelaba
Fight Pass
Mike Perry vs Cowboy Oliveira
Brunson vs Theodorou
Aspen Ladd vs Sijara Eubanks
Megan Anderson vs Felicia Spencer
Remember, this is out of nearly 80 fights.
The ESPN deal is already kicking in. Expect this to be the norm.
Edit: Actually an even better way to drive the point home would be to pick a main card out of the remaining 60 odd fights:
Anderson vs Cannonier
Greg Hardy vs Dmitry Smolyakov
Shane Burgos vs Cub Swanson
Charles Oliveira vs Nik Lentz
Makwan Amirkhani vs Chris Fishgold
And yes, I'm being fucking serious that that is what the UFC would have to go with what's available.
I can pick 8 total decent, meaningful fights between solid fighters out of the 6 cards combined, with only 1 fight that wasn't the main event being worth a damn. If they were all on the same card, it would make for an average PPV at best with a shit main event. Only one fight would be out of place on the undercard - the other 7 fights would just be standard main card and prelims. This is the best I could come up with out of 6 events combined (and no, I haven't forgotten Anderson vs Cannonier or Lentz-Oliviera 3, as those were redundant trash).
Main Card
Andrade vs Namajunas
Volkanovski vs Aldo
Gustafsson vs Smith
Cerrone vs Iaquinta
Overeem vs Oleinik
Prelims
Jacare vs Hermansson
Dos Anjos vs Kevin Lee (both coming off losses, remember)
Lineker vs Sandhagen
Glover Texeira vs Ion Cutelaba
Fight Pass
Mike Perry vs Cowboy Oliveira
Brunson vs Theodorou
Aspen Ladd vs Sijara Eubanks
Megan Anderson vs Felicia Spencer
Remember, this is out of nearly 80 fights.
The ESPN deal is already kicking in. Expect this to be the norm.
Edit: Actually an even better way to drive the point home would be to pick a main card out of the remaining 60 odd fights:
Anderson vs Cannonier
Greg Hardy vs Dmitry Smolyakov
Shane Burgos vs Cub Swanson
Charles Oliveira vs Nik Lentz
Makwan Amirkhani vs Chris Fishgold
And yes, I'm being fucking serious that that is what the UFC would have to go with what's available.
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