HBO’s prestige sci-fi western, Westworld, has been a pretty hot property over the past few months. There's been lots of internet chatter and editorial pieces on what it all meant as it was happening, lots of consideration of what it all meant once it was over.
It was with good reason too; it was weird, but not inaccessibly so. It was unique in a way almost nothing else on television has been for a while. It had stars.
An early scene depicted one character being dressed for his trip to Westworld. After being outfitted in appropriate western attire, he got to pick his hat on his way out the door—one wall was all white hats, and another was all black. He chose white, and he was on his way, the whole thing amounting to some blunt symbolism regarding the season ahead.
People choose their hats in real life too. They decide whether they want to be good or bad, good at being bad or bad at being good. In the fight game, if stardom is the goal, you need to pick your hat as expressively as possible and hope that doing so gets you attention and makes you rich.
On Saturday night in Sacramento, California, the UFC will hit national airwaves in something of an official kick-off to the holiday season. Four fights will be broadcast on Fox, and the notion of getting attention looms large across the card.
The main event features two wildly popular strawweights who have built a following on in-cage performance and a physical appeal that doesn’t hurt in women’s MMA, as Paige VanZant takes on Michelle Waterson in a probable barn-burner that’s likely to put the winner a fight away from serious title contention. Depending on which person you talk to, both of these ladies might be worthy of white-hat status.
Urijah Faber will fight his last fight, and given his age and acumen for pursuits outside of the sport, it seems highly likely that this will be the last time you see him compete—not the usual combat sports "retirement" for a few months or years that has claimed so many.
A true white hat, Faber was a superstar when athletes who weighed under 170 pounds simply were not superstars. For a period in time, he almost single-handedly kept WEC afloat and is very much responsible for blazing the trail that gave MMA Jose Aldo, Conor McGregor and Max Holloway.
Even Mike Perry will show up for work in Sacramento, a bizarrely magnetic black hat who’s presently undefeated and has kind of sneaked into the conversation of prospects to watch in 2017. His magnetism is surely not because he’s likeable, what with his cornermen spitting racist comments during a fight and his backstory involving probation and a UFC-branded gym, but he’s the type of guy people will watch. If he keeps winning, they’ll keep watching in hopes of seeing him lose.
But nestled in the middle of this card is the fight that stands to make the truest star of all, that being Mickey Gall vs. Sage Northcutt. At a time when only McGregor and Ronda Rousey have any level of transcendence to their stardom, it’s men like Gall and Northcutt who may be on the way to seizing the throne next.
Battle of the young guns goes down Saturday. #UFCSacramento pic.twitter.com/8WC8fJBIvJ
— #UFCSacramento (@ufc) December 13, 2016
In Gall, the promotion accidentally found a natural salesman who has never been afraid to snatch an opportunity. He called out CM Punk before the sweat dried on his pro debut, won a UFC bout and then proceeded to obliterate the former pro wrestling superstar—who brought no shortage of eyes to the fight—on the biggest stage he’d ever found.
He was also excited to wear something of a black hat in that instance, offhandedly praising Punk after the fight before turning his attention to Northcutt in a memorable post-fight rant. He didn’t let up from there, campaigning for the bout in the media and on social media, even challenging Northcutt to a "hair vs. hair" stipulation after criticizing the Texan’s locks in an interview.
Northcutt is the white-hat star of that future the UFC has been looking for, or at least believes it’s been looking for, since the days of Georges St-Pierre. He’s almost comically mannerly and pleasant in his engagements, coming off as polite to the point of being oblivious or aloof. He’s also 20 years old, a genetic freak and the type of lifelong martial artist who has developed ninja-like movements as second nature in his muscle memory.
In terms of finding a face to put on posters, you couldn’t find a better guy than Super Sage. He’s all smiles and spiked hair, thrilled to be one of the baddest men on Earth while doubling as a college student and crushing apples with his bare hands on Instagram.
So what better way to get some attention than by putting them against one another and seeing who emerges the winner? That hat narrative is the type of thing that’s captured people’s attention since the beginning of time, made countless stars in MMA before and made Westworld a cultural phenomenon.
By putting Gall vs. Northcutt on a show that will likely garner more eyes than any pay-per-view this year, the UFC gets two of its hottest young properties out there for public consumption.
By putting them against one another, there becomes an interesting engagement between them through their personalities and attitudes.
And when someone has a raised hand, the story will have come full circle, and one of them will be that much further on their way to stardom.
People want to see these things. They want to see the conflict of good and bad in their stars.
Given the way Saturday’s card is built, the UFC is counting on it.
