UFC on Fox 20 is bad.
Go ahead and talk about obscure prospects and unranked women and heavyweights who’ve combined for two total UFC fights; if you love those things, Saturday night is going to be the best night of your life.
But most people aren’t interested in those things the way you are, which means UFC on Fox 20 is bad. The card is a forgettable beacon in the middle of a summer when the UFC has done some good things in the pay-per-view space and when it will do more before the leaves change color.
However, Saturday's event is being propped up by Holly Holm, the former women's bantamweight champion who never successfully defended her title and is coming off a loss. She’ll fight a Kyrgyzstani kickboxer also coming off a loss in Valentina Shevchenko, who is 1-1 in the UFC and seems tailor-made to make Holm look exceptional on national television as she marches herself back into the triumvirate of relevance alongside Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey.
There’s plenty to dissect about this turn of events—the importance of Holm winning, the fact she might be in this position because UFC President Dana White seemingly doesn't think much of her manager, Lenny Fresquez, the reality that neither Tate nor Rousey is champion anymore and a possible rematch with either would be hurt by that—but there may be a broader issue at play here: the degradation of the UFC on Fox franchise in 2016.
This. THIS is why Holly Holm is alone on Fox Island this Saturday. Because UFC brass can't see past their own balls. https://t.co/4ZsLxCaxgL
— Scott Harris (@ScottHarrisMMA) July 22, 2016
Under the summer sun, the bitter cold of January in Newark, New Jersey, seems like a lifetime ago. The sticky heat of April in Orlando is an afterthought. But both of those months saw Fox events take place, and the cards were considerably less impressive than those from years past.
January was headlined by a mismatch masquerading as a bout between contenders when Anthony Johnson torched Ryan Bader. Outside of that fight, the biggest selling point was Sage Northcutt, a 20-year-old prospect just waiting for a Saved by the Bell reboot to be greenlit so he can jump the sport for Hollywood, and he was choked out by a late-notice replacement most people had never heard of, Bryan Barberena.
April saw similar matchmaking atop the card, with a badly deteriorating Rashad Evans sent to slaughter against seemingly ageless knockout machine Glover Teixeira. There was a solid strawweight fight on the card between Rose Namajunas and Tecia Torres, and Khabib Nurmagomedov returned from a layoff to blast Darrell Horcher in the tune-upiest fight of 2016.
But in comparison to the Fox show a year earlier—featuring names such as Luke Rockhold, Lyoto Machida, Paige VanZant and Ronaldo Souza—there was a marked drop in quality.
This pattern is reaching a crescendo on Saturday night with the paltry UFC on Fox 20 card. In fact, with UFC on Fox 21 dropping a mere five weeks later, cynics might suggest Fox has seen the trend and is simply looking to knock off its UFC commitment for the year early before starting fresh in 2017.
Despite UFC on Fox 21 holding the best headliner on Fox this year in Carlos Condit vs. Demian Maia, this will mark the first time in the history of the deal between the UFC and Fox there has been a second summer show. There is nothing else scheduled for the network later in the year.
Certainly curious.
All of this is to say if one were inclined, they could draw a number of inferences from the UFC dumpster that’s been set aflame on a midsummer night in Chicago.
Beyond what will shake out in the cage, there is reason to wonder whether the UFC and Fox are setting up for a split given sports television rights have exploded since the two came to a seven-year agreement in 2011. It appears the days of title fights or contender bouts and deep, exciting cards on Fox have come to an end, which is an alarming trend for fans and one that could be a strain for a network trying to get some bang for its buck.
On the other hand, the early days of the deal were similarly fraught with bizarre matchmaking and lukewarm receptions, a situation that forced both FOX and UFC to get more serious by offering bigger names and title fights—two of which aired as recently as last year. So perhaps the two sides are pushing the boundaries of disinterest to see how people respond with an eye on making improvements to the product again in 2017.
Either way, this is the type of discussion one needs to occupy themselves with when something like UFC on Fox 20 is on deck. It’s uninspired and uninteresting from a sporting perspective, and a reasonable offshoot of that is for the mind of an MMA fan to wander.
What such a series of duds means for the UFC-Fox relationship is probably as good as place to wander as any.
Follow me on Twitter @matthewjryder.
