Is UFC 329 a make-or-break test for Paddy Pimblett? Does Conor McGregor still have the juice to bring in huge audiences? Is there any reason at all to think Gable Steveson isn’t the safest bet on the fight card?
All that and more in this week’s mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @BenFowlkesMMA on X or @Ben_Fowlkes on Threads.
@YabbaDabbaYip: Outside of the main fight. What will be the biggest story to come out of 329
I think we’re going to find out whether Paddy Pimblett is actually good or just marketable. The jury’s been out on this for a while. Opinion has swung wildly back and forth at times. Sometimes we’ve seen him look like a wounded gazelle just waiting to be picked off by the first hungry lion he comes across. Then the next fight he’ll turn up looking like he’s one or two tweaks away from becoming an actual contender. It’s tough to get a fix on him.
Benoit Saint-Denis is a tough fight for anyone at lightweight. He’s got skill and speed and finishing ability, and his fight IQ has grown a lot in the last few years. Nobody who’s bad at this is going to beat him right now, at least as long as he shows up healthy and in good condition. If Pimblett wins, that would be huge for him. It would put him right back in the conversation. But if he loses? The conversation will be all about how he was a flash in the pan who made for good hype and fun sound bites but not much else.
@Jietzsche: The UFC 329 fight card is actually pretty good, but for me McGregor stains it so my hype level is low. I’m curious what the pre-fight metrics on Uncrowned are indicating about just how big the interest is in this event- Is McGregor still drawing traffic like the old days?
Short answer: Yes. Current indications are that our traffic is much higher than a normal UFC fight week, though maybe still somewhere short of where it was for the UFC White House event or the MVP MMA event on Netflix. But yeah, looks like McGregor still has the juice with fans.
But, as you alluded to, it’s not an uncomplicated kind of hype. People have to decide how they feel about McGregor these days, and to what extent they’re going to let their feelings dictate their interest in this event as a whole.
A quick glance around social media reveals lots of different approaches. Some people seem capable of pretending that he hasn’t been battling sexual assault accusations (and losing in civil court back home) during these last five years. Others are willing to acknowledge it, but only to a point. A few say they’ll skip the event altogether. Still others save their outrage for anyone who dares to mention it. As if maybe it wouldn’t exist if we could all just agree to shut up about it.
Personally, I don’t think we can do that. If part of the story is going to be his return after five long years out of the cage, then we also need to acknowledge all the different variables — and there are several — that kept him out this long. No one said the story would always be pretty, but it ought to be true.
@ewillcock: Give me one good reason to not sprinkle some Gable Stevson all over every parlay?
How about the fact that he’s a such a huge favorite that it would add almost nothing to the payouts on those parlays. For instance, say you had a parlay with Robert Whittaker and Terrence McKinney, who are both currently -145. That two-fight parlay right there would get you to +185. If you then sprinkled -2500 Gable Steveson on top of it, it only nudges you up to +196.
Is Steveson going to win? Almost certainly, yes. The UFC matchmakers didn’t pick Elisha Ellison for this job because they think he’ll derail the hottest heavyweight prospect this side of Brock Lesnar. But come on, this is still MMA. In fact, it’s heavyweight MMA. Imagine he goes out there and blows an ACL in the first minute. Then you just ruined all your parlays for (almost) nothing.
@Trey_zx: How do you feel about King Green going to the jewelry store on embedded today after complaining about having his jewelry stolen before his last fight?
First of all, his story about having $300,000 worth of jewelry stolen by a friend or acquaintance or whatever was one of my favorite UFC media day moments in recent memory. It would have been so easy not to tell that story. He could have just kept it to himself. But screw it, he just laid out the whole scenario for us, knowing it would probably only raise more questions.
As to your actual question, the one thing that story tells us about King Green is that he really likes jewelry. That’s the only way a person acquires $300,000 worth of jewelry in the first place. You don’t end up with that level of hardware by being a casual fan of jewelry. That is strictly for the hardcores.
So what did you think he’d do with his future earnings? Take it to the jewelry store, of course. Green is almost 40 years old. At this stage, a jewelry guy is not going to suddenly up and become a 401k guy all at once.
@NoahSas23: Is it tacky to wear a PFL shirt to a UFC event? I went to PFL in Pittsburgh in March and planning on going to UFC 330.
With Sean Brady in RAF the following weekend after 330, that leaves Pyfer fighters who are from Philly who could be free. Who would you match him up with?
A while back I was passing by a local music venue and saw people lining up to get into a Social Distortion concert. You could tell the lame-o newbs because they had showed up in Social Distortion T-shirts, instantly making them that guy. That savvy ones were wearing Rancid shirts or Bad Religion or Lagwagon shirts, something that said they were connoisseurs of the whole genre — even the lesser-known stuff. That’s what your PFL shirt will do for you, my friend.
As for Joe Pyfer, he’s getting up there in the rankings to where there aren’t that many people who really make sense for him who aren’t already booked or waiting on a title shot themselves. It’s probably going to mean reaching further down the list to find someone willing to jump in on short notice.
@welcometothe559: What fight(s) are you guys looking forward to and why? Any predictions ? Peace and love !
I’m really interested to see how Robert Whittaker looks at light heavyweight at this stage of his career. He wasn’t a particularly big middleweight, and now he’s making a very big 20-pound leap up in weight.
Nikita Krylov will have four or five inches in height on him, and probably a big advantage in punching power. If there’s anyone with the smarts and the all-around ability to figure it out despite those discrepancies, maybe it’s Whittaker. But it’s going to be interesting to see how he goes about it.
@AverageGrappler: I know it doesn’t matter because they are a monopoly with an $8BN TV deal and charge $550 for tickets . . But . . Are UFC in reality not bothered about viewing numbers? The two biggest cards of the year (maybe of recent years) on Sunday night on a limited platform, and now . . .
The return of the biggest star in MMA history (despite being a sex offender) booked on the same night as World Cup quarter finals. PFL get heat for their planning. UFC scheduling seems awful here when they could go REALLY big. Does it not matter?
It’s not that it doesn’t matter. It’s that it isn’t the priority. The name of the game for Paramount right now is subscribers. Without a bunch of new sign-ups, it’s got no chance of making back its investment in the UFC. And if you can’t turn someone like McGregor into a bunch of new sign-ups, what good is he?
The UFC decided a while ago that it would sacrifice long-term audience growth for the sake of guaranteed money. From the perspective of the TKO balance sheet, that bet has really paid off.
