Opinion: Fighting for Promotional Respect

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What is the difference between a flyweight and a bantamweight? Ten pounds and a shot at relevancy.

While fights between top-flyweights, aside from title bouts, are relegated to the preliminaries, such as the recent bout between Alexandre Pantoja and Brandon Moreno buried deep on the UFC Fight Night 129 card, bantamweights historically have a little more prestige and get higher placement on cards.

Emphasis on the “little” part of the last sentence though. Don’t get it wrong: Bantamweight is still a far cry from a “glamor” division like heavyweight. Whereas a fight between guys like Walt Harris and Daniel Spitz can make the occasional main card, a relatively similarly skilled bantamweight fight -- such as between Erik Perez vs Josh Hill -- would be lucky to scratch the FS2 prelims.

That is because most of the attention surrounding the bantamweight division is around the T.J. Dillashaw/Cody Garbrandt/Dominick Cruz cluster at the top of the division. These fighters have been able to make the 135-pound division cool again through getting their own season of “The Ultimate Fighter” and being featured on prominent cards like UFC 217. While each fighter of the triumvirate is talented and compelling in their own right, a large portion of their individual fame can be attributed to Urijah Faber. “The California Kid” was a step short of the championship belt for the majority of his career, never developing much beyond his wrestling-based attack. For whatever reason though-his affable manner, his laid-back California confidence, Faber was lightning in a bottle for World Extreme Cagefighting and, later, the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Fans cared about Faber in a way they don’t care about other fighters, particularly smaller ones. Even though Faber retired from fighting in 2016, he was able to pass on some of his stardom to the Cruz/Garbrandt/Dillashaw triumvirate from the association of either being his rival, protege, or, in the case of Dillashaw, both.

For the ranked bantamweight fighters that didn’t get the promotional rub from Faber though, interest remains tepid at best (unless you’re John Lineker, who is a special case as he’s more wrecking ball than human). In a sense, there are two classes of ranked bantamweights: the popular guys at the top (Cody/TJ/Cruz) and the JAGs (just another guys). Guys like Raphael Assuncao, John Dodson, Pedro Munhoz and Aljamain Sterling do not move the needle and are promoted little more than flyweights. All are very skilled fighters and provide welcome depth to any fight card, but they’re fairly interchangeable. Any could be substituted in a fight with another, and the promotional consideration or interest level would not change much.

There are two fighters in the middle though, young and new enough to not firmly be entrenched in either camp: Marlon Moraes and Jimmie Rivera. They meet at UFC Fight Night 131. With either two wins or a victory and some injury help/time, each fighter could find themselves fighting for the belt and getting the promotional push that accompanies that.

Each has to battle a stigma at UFC Fight Night 130 that has surrounded their career though. For Rivera, he needs to battle the decision-king label. It’s a label that has been fairly deserved to this point in his career, having gone to the decision in 15 of his 21 fights and all but one of his five UFC bouts. These decisions have also come against middling competition, with only an aging Faber ranked in the top 10. Rivera has clearly been the more talented fighter during his UFC tenure, leading to Rivera dominating the majority of his fights. It certainly seems like Rivera could finish his opponents; he just doesn’t, easing off the aggression in the final minutes in fights he’s winning. It’s left the majority of fan apathetic towards “El Terror,” but a finish against Moraes could go a long way towards restoring his reputation.

Moraes has been more dynamic in his fights, and the knee that slept Sterling safely ended any doubts about his finishing ability. However, he still needs to prove his mettle in the UFC as most of his success came in the now defunct- World Series of Fighting. The WSOF is generally well-regarded (the success of Justin Gaethje and David Branch in the UFC helped), but the best competition he faced in Rey Sefo’s promotion was Josh Hill. Of course, he dominated the inferior competition as he should, but it’s hard to place exactly where he stands from that. So far in the UFC, he has decisively beaten Sterling and lost a close split-decision to Assuncao. He belongs at the top of the division, but does he belong at the very top?

All eyes will be on the two bantamweights Friday night as they’re the only championship-relevant fighters on the card. A weak supporting cast puts the promotional burden on the two, but also provides more reward with an impressive win. A dominant performance for either Rivera or Moraes would go a long way to getting them a shot at the relevant table and being mentioned in the same sentence with Cruz and Garbrandt as title challengers.

Pressley Nietering is a third-year student at Clemson University.