For Paige and Sage, the UFC's package deal, stardom comes with a price

After a nice early start and prime time finish I found myself with a chance to sit and think in the glow of the TV screen on Saturday night, and the question I kept coming back to is this: At what point does it become a bad deal for Paige VanZant and Sage Northcutt to be presented as a package deal?

And come on, don’t act like you haven’t noticed.

At UFC on FOX 22 in Sacramento, Calid., the UFC’s wonder twins fought on the same card for the second time in three outings. They also both lost for the second time in three outings – VanZant (7-3 MMA, 4-2 UFC) to former Invicta atomweight champ Michelle Waterson (14-4 MMA, 2-0 UFC), and Northcutt (8-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC) to the “CM Punk”-killer himself, Mickey Gall (4-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) – both via rear-naked choke.

Then there are the more obvious similarities. They have rhyming first names. They have matching blond hair. They both bear striking resemblances to the kind of mannequins you might see in the window of a sporting goods store. They’re both perpetually positive, a pair of toothpaste commercial smiles in a sea of glowering bone-breakers.

They’re also both very young (Northcutt is 20, VanZant 22) as we’re immediately reminded when they lose and expectations need to be revised downward.

Maybe all that explains why the UFC seems to want us to think of them in tandem, like the MMA version of a mixed doubles team. Together, they even got top billing over Urijah Faber’s hometown retirement fight. Then, also together, they went out there and got themselves soundly beaten.

Here’s where it starts to seem like lumping the pair together is doing them no favors. For one, all the similarities practically force us to zero in on the differences. (Don’t think people didn’t notice that Northcutt tapped without much of a defense after Gall jumped on his back, while VanZant battled Waterson’s choke until she lost consciousness.)

For another, it makes them feel like some market-tested creation, like they’re products of the same focus group. They’re the fighters who the corporate office has decided you’re supposed to like, and that can’t help but make some people hate them.

By itself, that might not be so bad. Hate is in many ways a more reliable driver than love when it comes to the fight game. The qualities that make someone a genuine star in this sport are hard to define and even harder to replicate, but almost anybody can make us hate them. And once you hate someone, what price wouldn’t you pay to see them beaten up and humiliated?

But you can’t hate these two. Not really. They didn’t do anything but say yes to people who were trying to give them money and opportunities they hadn’t really earned, and who among us wouldn’t have done the same?

A good heel lets you hate them with a clear conscience. They make you feel like you’re right for hating them.

With VanZant and Northcutt, their favored status is not some great injustice, but more like the UFC made them prom king and queen without even pretending to have counted the ballots first. They are the grinning reminders that this isn’t such a meritocracy after all, but if you get caught up being mad at them for it then you’re kind of missing the point.

Because, meanwhile, the people who beat them? You’d like to think that trouncing the teacher’s pets on network TV would be the springboard to the top for Waterson and Gall. One is already a proven fighter, while the other is still being molded before our eyes, but they both hit all the same notes as the people they beat.

As we saw at the ceremonial weigh-ins, Waterson has the moves to dance with the stars. And with enough practice, sure, Gall could probably rip up some produce. So is this the point where they get to “eat what they kill,” in UFC President Dana White’s words, and take the blondtourage’s place in line?

If there is any shred of fairness to this sport, then yes. But then you look down to the prelims of this very fight card and see Bryan Barbarena, the last guy to beat Northcutt, and you realize what a big if that is.

Still, it’s in moments like these that you’re reminded of one of the things that makes the fight game so stubbornly satisfying. The promoters may play favorites and push narratives. They may sometimes just straight up lie to your face.

But eventually it always comes down to two people locked in a cage together. In a space that small, you can only outrun the truth for so long.

For complete coverage of UFC on FOX 22, check out the UFC Events section of the site.