Not even the UFC’s new dress code could stop Ben Rothwell.
Rothwell said he was preparing to make his walk to the cage on Saturday for his co-main event bout against Josh Barnett at UFC on Fox 18 when company officials told him he had to lose his trademark druid cloak and assassin’s mask.
Obviously, this was a bummer for all involved.
No matter. On this night, it just so happened that Rothwell made a strong impression once he actually arrived in the Octagon.
Following a tepid first round between the two lumbering heavyweights, he used a series of strikes to force Barnett into an ill-advised takedown attempt against the fence midway through the second. As Barnett struggled for a single-leg, Rothwell secured his jiu-jitsu coach’s funky signature “gogo choke” and scored one of the more shocking submission wins in recent memory.
In so doing, he collected his fourth straight stoppage dating back to August 2013 and became the first MMA fighter ever to coax a tap-out from Barnett using a submission hold.
“I’m a man of my word,” Rothwell told MMA Fighting.com’s Ariel Helwani after the fight. “When I say that I can end anyone in any position, I mean it. ... I’m like a bear trap. You put your neck in there, you’re not getting it back.”
Despite the fact that his pre- and post-fight performances were more subdued than we’re used to seeing to from him, Rothwell may also have done a lot to clear up the current confusion around the heavyweight title scene.
As noted by FightMetric's Michael Carroll, the victory over Barnett gave him the second-longest active win streak in the weight class, behind only champion Fabricio Werdum's:
LONGEST ACTIVE UFC WIN STREAKS, HW DIVISION
— Michael Carroll (@MJCflipdascript) January 31, 2016
1. Werdum, 6
2. Rothwell, 4
3. Overeem, 3
3. Rosholt, 3
3. Magomedov, 3
With a highlight-reel submission over one of the greatest grapplers in MMA history now on his record, it’s unclear what else Rothwell has to do to prove he deserves the next shot at the championship.
Still, we would’ve liked to see the cloak.
During his curious march to contender status, Rothwell has cast himself as the dark lord of the 265-pound division. With his hooded robe, foreboding entrance music and menacing laugh, he has finally managed to separate himself from the herd and become perhaps the fight company’s most unlikely fan favorite.
But either because of the UFC’s beleaguered exclusive uniform deal with Reebok or the bout’s prime-time slot on network television, executives allegedly put the kibosh on Rothwell’s evil-wizard routine this weekend.
“I’ve got to get a Reebok mask and a Reebok hoodie or something,” he said to Helwani. “They’ve got to let me do this. Maybe that’s what it was [causing the slow start]. Maybe in the first round I was like, ‘Man, they made me take my cloak off!’”
Here it is in all its glory, from simpler times:
@benfowlkesMMA pic.twitter.com/yN32jHAWSa
— Big Ben Rothwell (@RothwellFighter) June 9, 2015
Forcing Rothwell to ditch the theatrics was one thing. Continuing to deny the 34-year-old Wisconsinite’s claim to No. 1 contender status might prove to be a slightly more difficult magic trick.
It does not exactly qualify as breaking news that the UFC heavyweight title picture is a mess. Even before Cain Velasquez and then Werdum dropped out of the event formerly known as UFC 196 with injuries this month, there was a longstanding lack of clarity.
A gaggle of challengers that at one time or another has included Rothwell, Stipe Miocic, Andrei Arlovski, Alistair Overeem and Junior dos Santos have all been jockeying for position.
Unfortunately, owing to Velasquez’s perennially injured status, the title has been locked in a protracted series of delays and rematches.
In the interim, Arlovski and Dos Santos have fallen off the pace with losses, while Overeem has become a free agent. That pretty much makes the choice for next No. 1 contender unusually cut-and-dried at the moment.
Will it be Rothwell or Miocic?
The two were supposed to meet in a title eliminator in Dublin last October, but the fight was scrapped when Miocic pulled out with a back injury. Oddly, the 33-year-old Ohio native appeared to use the delay to his advantage, defeating Arlovski by first-round TKO earlier this month to make his own case as top contender.
Amid the chaos of UFC 196, Miocic was even briefly linked to a short-notice title shot before Werdum demurred. Conventional wisdom now says he’ll be the one waiting in the wings once Velasquez and Werdum finally settle their business.
But if that’s the case, what of Rothwell?
It’s pretty easy to make the case that he deserves the next championship opportunity more than anyone else in the Top 10. His win streak is longer than Miocic’s, his level of competition is comparable and—as Rothwell himself will point out—he’s not the one who pulled out of their fight with an injury.
Perhaps the only real argument against him at this point is his positive test for elevated levels of testosterone in the wake of a victory over Brandon Vera in 2013.
This week, Rothwell told Bleacher Report’s Jeremy Botter that his testosterone use stemmed from injuries suffered in a years-old car accident. At the time, the Wisconsin State Athletic Commission saw it fit to issue him only an “administrative warning,” though the UFC suspended him for nine months anyway.
As a result, Rothwell’s resume as a potential contender isn’t completely spotless.
Then again, in the heavyweight division, nothing is ever perfect.
We’re talking about a weight class where the consensus best fighter has had his career nearly completely derailed by injuries, where a high percentage of top contenders are pushing 40 and where at least four members of the current UFC Top 15 have had some documented dalliance with performance-enhancing drugs.
All things considered, Rothwell’s recent victories should rightly put enough distance between himself and that positive test to earn him a title shot—especially in this weight class.
After all, this victory over Barnett was as convincing a single-night resume-builder as a heavyweight can make in the UFC in 2016.
Even if it was disturbingly cloak-less.
