He Said/He Said: Fightlinker vs Meltzer

by Kid Nate on Apr 7, 2008 4:48 PM EDT in MMA News

Dave Meltzer uses his Yahoo! column to sound off about the predicament of Wagnney Fabiano -- a clear top 10 fighter trapped in a minor-league promotion, the IFL:

But where Fabiano stands on the world wide stage is impossible to say. He's got the well-rounded tools and couldn't have been more impressive over the last year plus. How he would match up with the most publicized featherweight champion, Urijah Faber of World Extreme Cagefighting, who is No. 7 in the current Yahoo! Sports pound-for-pound ratings, is anyone's guess. And due to exclusive contracts with rival companies, it will remain anyone's guess.

That's unlikely to change unless UFC and WEC owner Zuffa's business domination over the sport in the U.S. ends. Or, unless the IFL, which has huge financial hurdles in its path to even last until the end of this year, ceases to exist and Fabiano winds up in the WEC.

Meltzer's answer? A real sanctioning body for MMA. Sounds good right?

Not so quick says Fightlinker:

Anyways, this time I'm saying "No Dave, you is wrong!", because the title of his newest post is "MMA needs a real sanctioning system". What bugs me most is that Dave doesn't even put any real thought into how the fuck a sanctioning system would ever work ... he just points at the IFL's Wagnney Fabiano and says "But I wanna see him fight the best!" So ... what? Are we supposed to set up some kind of system where promoters are forced to pit their fighters against eachother for some reason?

Take a look at boxing and how well sanctioning systems have worked for them ... it's a complete clusterfuck. At least with MMA you have maybe two or three top tier leagues where nearly all the best fighters gravitate to. In that way the current system runs kind of like hockey does ... you've got your different leagues but everyone knows that the NHL is the top destination. You don't see anyone flipping out regarding the #1 team playing in the European Hockey League and demanding that team plays the Stanley cup champions to see who's the best. The good players go to the top league, and then they duke it out.

People point to sanctioning bodies like they're going to be some kind of magical bullet that will allow all the best fighters from different leagues to fight eachother. Truth of the matter is, it will just cause complete anarchy and fuck everything up.

I'm not sure where I come down on this. I think the UFC has actually moved further away from being a completely dominant major league ala the NFL than they were last year. On the other hand, Fightlinker is right, the boxing model has been a fiasco.

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Re: He Said/He Said: Fightlinker vs Meltzer

Fightlinker is correct.

by Tha Realness on Apr 7, 2008 7:13 PM EDT reply actions

Re: He Said/He Said: Fightlinker vs Meltzer

"Take a look at boxing and how well sanctioning systems have worked for them ... it's a complete clusterfuck. At least with MMA you have maybe two or three top tier leagues where nearly all the best fighters gravitate to."

WBA/WBC/IBF vs UFC/Dream/EliteXC ..... ummm, i'm not seeing the difference there, FL.

"In that way the current system runs kind of like hockey does ... The good players go to the top league, and then they duke it out."

Nice analogy, not sure if it correct, though. This top league he speaks of doesn't exist for 3 of the big 5 weight divisions. The UFC can make this claim at 170 and 205, but at 155 185 and 205+, there is no top league.... in each of these divisions over half of the top 20 is out side of the UFC.....and they ain't duking it out..... there, it is more like Euro-league soccer with the champions cup: champions from the English Premier League, the spainish and italian leagues with out knock-out tourney to sort it out....which IS complete anarchy and everything is fucked up.

by robnashville on Apr 7, 2008 7:38 PM EDT reply actions

Re: He Said/He Said: Fightlinker vs Meltzer

I guess it depends on whose rankings you are looking at. MMA Weekly seems to be the general go-to. I would bet on quite a few unranked UFC MWs to wipe the floor with Denis Kang, Kazuo Misaki and Frank Trigg.

The lightweights are very difficult to gauge because UFC didn't consistently put on LW matches until 17-18 months ago. I definitely think the UFC's top-ten LWs could compete with the MMA Weekly top ten. Certain standouts like JZ, Aoki and Gomi would probably stay close to the top, but otherwise I could easily see the real top ten being about 50/50 UFC and non-UFC.

As far as the heavyweights go... They're pretty poor just about everywhere you look.

by Popetastic on Apr 7, 2008 10:51 PM EDT reply actions