So . . . that happened. By now, we all are aware of the saga of the magical disappearing UFC event. And from what I can tell, public perception of Jon Jones right now ranges from "fuck that guy!" to "no, seriously. FUCK that guy!" Truth be told, that's pretty fair. After all, there are a number of reasons why it's mystifying that he turned down the fight with Chael P. For starters, Sonnen hasn't fought at light heavyweight in years and there have been legitimate concerns about whether he'll be big enough to fight some of the bigger 205ers, let alone take on the man with the longest reach in the UFC. Compound that with the fact that the fight is on eight days notice and a large portion of those eight days would have to be spent cutting weight and fulfilling media obligations, and it seems clear that Jones would essentially be fighting an out of shape, undersized opponent who hadn't specifically gameplanned for him. If that wasn't enough, Sonnen and Henderson have similar Greco-Roman wrestling backgrounds. While their current fighting styles are not as similar as they were a number of years ago, they're close enough that it wouldn't seem like Jones had really wasted an entire training camp. Jones would most likely be semi-prepared and Chael would be completely unprepared. And then there's the biggest head-scratcher of all: this probably would've been an absolute windfall for Jones. The UFC is notoriously generous with its champions to begin with, and when its champs have taken short notice opponent changes, they've been even more generous.
While Jones is certainly a key component of why UFC 151 was cancelled, it's important to note that a) while it may have been a dick move, Jones was well within his rights to turn down an extreme late-notice fight, b) public opinion (of both fans and other UFC fighters) has unfairly heaped all of the blame upon Jones, and c) Dana White and the UFC deserve at least as much blame as Jones (and I'd argue much more).
With the UFC scoring a sweet Fox deal and MMA hitting the mainstream, the eyeballs of the Baldfather and the Zuffa luminaries have turned into pulsating dollar signs. Whereas one could always expect to have solid main and co-main events on every UFC card as recently as a year or two ago (not to mention intriguing third and sometimes fourth fights on special cards), the overall quality of the main cards of UFC events has been on a steady decline in recent months. Dana White is quick to blame this on a "crazy" string of fighter injuries, and it is true that there are more injuries now than ever before . . . but that's an obfuscation of the real issue.
The UFC has put on WAY more events in the past 12 months than in any 12-month period in its history. In the last calendar year, the UFC has put on 33 events, as compared to 24 the previous calendar year and 23 the year before that. There simply isn't enough top-shelf talent to fill the main and co-main events of these cards with an acceptable number of big name fighters, especially considering the rash of fighter injuries. Consider the arc of Jones himself. On March 19 of 2011, he fought Ryan Bader and he was in the THIRD billed fight of the evening. While the co-main event was a fairly bland Forrest Griffin vs. Rich Franklin yawner, the main event was the now-legendary fight between Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort. Having Jones and Silva on the same card is certainly a pretty high bar to set. Now consider the co-main events of the four UFCs that Jones headlined. They were, in order, Urijah Faber vs. Eddie Wineland (meh), Josh Koscheck vs. Matt Hughes (yuck), Frank Mir vs. Big Nog (irrelevant), and Rory MacDonald vs. Che Mills (pointless mismatch). The situation only gets bleaker when one considers the third-billed fights. Of the four fights (Jim Miller vs. Kamal Shalorus, Mark Hunt vs. Ben Rothwell, Lil Nog vs. Tito Ortiz, and Ben Rothwell vs. Brendan Schaub), one was a meaningless mismatch, two were heavyweight clunkers with no title implications, and one was a latter day Tito Ortiz fight ('nuff said). None of those fights even sniffs the level of Bader vs. Jones type of fight. So what, you might ask, is actually the POINT of all of this?
Dana White was quick to spin the blame from the debacle that was the cancellation of UFC 151 in the direction of Jon Jones. After all, Jones vs. Sonnen, while probably a mismatch, is still a fight that fans want to see (and pay for). But what he failed to acknowledge is that Jones has been tasked with singlehandedly selling each of his last four PPVs, and he would have been tasked with singlehandedly selling UFC 151 as well. Imagine if Jones or his opponent had gotten injured in any of his past four PPVs. The only co-main event that could have even been considered for promotion to main event status is Mir vs. Big Nog, and that's a pretty big stretch, especially considering the co-main of that card would shift to being Tito Ortiz vs. Lil Nog, and that's DEFINITELY not a good thing. I tend to think that if any of Jones' main events fell through, the UFC probably would have had to cancel those cards. Dana White and the UFC were playing with fire in each of Jones' last five scheduled appearances (including UFC 151), especially considering the greater rate of fighters getting injured. The UFC finally paid for its hubris the fifth time around.
Is it Jon Jones' fault that the co-main event of UFC 151 was the completely underwhelming Jake Ellenberger vs. Jay Hieron fight? A fight featuring a fighter coming off a knockout loss versus a late replacement who had previously flamed out in the UFC is hardly main event material, or co-main event material for that matter. Likewise, Jones can't be blamed for a main card that was rounded out by such classics as Dennis Siver vs. Eddie Yagin, Dennis Hallman vs. Thiago Tavares, and John Lineker vs. Yasuhiro Urushitani. Because it puts on entirely too many events, the UFC has had to cut corners in the fight cards that it makes. That means that it leans extra-heavily on the stars it feels can move cards by themselves. This, in turn, means that there is a huge amount of pressure placed on the Jon Joneses of the world to fight when scheduled and sell cards that would otherwise be unsellable.
It was a pretty weird and shitty move that Jones made in turning down the Sonnen fight, and on that there seems to be a consensus. But there have been numerous incidents of main events falling through on fairly short notice in the past, and the UFC has never had to cancel an entire card. The blame for the cancellation of UFC 151 falls on the UFC for being too greedy and putting on too many cards, thereby making the cards that it does put on watered-down to a historical degree. If there is a lesson to be learned from the cancellation of UFC, it's not that Jon Jones is a megalomaniacal jerk who kicks puppies and laughs at the misfortune of other fighters (although he may be); it's that the UFC has gone too far afield with the number of events that it's willing to put on, and that it needs to take providing a quality product more seriously.
Since I'm too lazy/dumb to figure out how to directly respond to comments...
kok44 said "Court McGee won he kick Nick ring ass for 15 mins"
Totally agree. I actually thought there were a bunch of funky decisions on this card. While McGee/Ring was the worst, I also was a bit skeptical about the Ebersole/Head and Lombard/Boetsch decisions, although I can sort of see why they went down the way they did. It was a pretty sucky card overall, outside of some parts of the main event and a few fun undercard fights.
