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I decided to wait a few days to weigh in on the UFC canceling UFC 151 because I wanted to think on it a bit before discussing it. First off, I think Jon Jones should have fought; however, it should have been deemed a non-title fight. There's a bunch of reasons for that, but the number one reason is that it's a fight on eight days notice. It wouldn't be fair to Jones to expect him to defend his belt against anyone on such short notice.
The other main reason that the fight should have been non-title is that whomever would have been the opponent wouldn't have deserved a title shot. Chael Sonnen and Chris Weidman are two of the men who volunteered to step up. Neither of them deserved a light heavyweight title shot. I hope I'm not being naive by thinking that both would have still stepped up even if it was non-title. Sonnen and Weidman should be commended for even offering to fight, but the truth is, it would have made the belt a sham if either guy had fought for it without earning the shot.
The other name that offered to fight on short notice was Anderson Silva. I can't believe that the UFC would be dumb enough to cancel UFC 151 when Silva offered to step up and save the event. I don't care if they had already started the process of canceling the event, you un-cancel it after this. You need to cue up the black-and-white footage of some dude running into the newspaper office screaming, "Stop the presses!" Nobody who had tickets to this event could complain too much about not seeing Jon Jones fight if you replace him with Anderson freaking Silva.
Getting back to Jones fighting anyone at UFC 151 on short notice, I think Jones would have beaten either Sonnen or Weidman pretty handily. Jon Jones is the type of fighter who you have to train specifically for, you can't just step in there with him and expect anything other than your ass handed to you. That's the reason why Lyoto Machida turned down the short notice fight with Jones. Machida knows that if he loses to Jones again, he has to start over, and the way Machida lost to Jones last time tells him that he has to revamp his game. He thought he would have months more to change it up. Machida can't rush it because he knows he only has one chance left; he can't blow it.
Sonnen and Weidman are under no such pressure. They would have been fighting one of the best fighters in the world on extremely short notice. There's not a lot of pressure there. All the pressure would have been on Jones. I could say that this justifies him not taking the fight on short notice, but I think that champions have to take that pressure on. Even in a non-title capacity, I still think that Jones owes it to the belt to fight.
Having said all that, though, I think the real blame falls at the feet of the UFC here. The fact that they felt that they had to cancel an entire card just because one fight wasn't going to happen proves that they were trying to rip consumers off with this subpar event. I hate to insult the other fighters on the card like that, but I think it's true. It's not the fault of Jon Jones that the UFC was trying to get away with this card as a pay-per-view event. That speaks to a severe lack of business acumen from the UFC braintrust. That's why they have so vehemently attacked Jones, to try to make him the scapegoat for this. The buck stops with the boss. This is like a NFL head coach or general manager throwing the star running back under the bus after they failed to get the first down on fourth and inches in their own territory.
Does Jon Jones deserve some blame? Absolutely, but he only deserves a little. What about Dan Henderson, whose injury caused this whole mess? Word is that Henderson suffered this injury a few weeks ago, but didn't alert the UFC. This could have changed everything. If this is true, then Henderson deserves almost as much blame as the UFC does.
I feel that the UFC deserves the most blame because they put the card together; they made the decision to put on a weak card. At the end of the day, this is their responsibility. I have yet to see anyone in the UFC come forward and take the blame. Instead, what I've seen is a bunch of selfish individuals who refuse to act like adults and accept responsibility for their own actions. To be honest, Dana White and the rest of the UFC brass should be ashamed of themselves. First, for putting together a card so weak that it could be destroyed by the loss of one fight. Second, for throwing Jon Jones under the bus in a way you rarely see. Last, they should be ashamed of themselves for not taking ANY of the blame. Trying to pass it all off on Jones makes them look really bad.
Comments and suggestions can be e-mailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com
Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/hydenstake/article_14248.shtml
Chris Brennan Marcelo Brito Rob Broughton Mike Brown Junie Browning
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