UFC 190 comes to you from Brazil this Saturday with a seven-fight main card. Opening the pay-per-view action will be a possible strawweight title eliminator between No. 1-ranked contender Claudia Gadelha and No. 15-ranked Jessica Aguilar.
This fight should have been the co-main event of the evening.
Gadelha, #1-ranked women's strawweight, and #1 non-UFC SW (until now) Aguilar, play hors d'oeuvres to FOUR unranked #TUFBrazil contestants.
— Jesse Scheckner (@JesseScheckner) July 28, 2015
Outside of the main event title fight between Ronda Rousey and Bethe Correia, this is the only fight with any significance. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira would have had some significance two years ago, but in 2015, it is just two old veterans clinging to relevance. Heavyweights Stefan Struve and Minotauro Nogueira will square off as well, but they're not viable top-tier fighters.
What two fights are after Aguilar-Gadelha? The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil finale fights. Like most, I'll take a hard pass on that.
It isn't surprising that this fight didn't get the call to be a co-main event. The UFC has shown little interest in promoting its female divisions with any semblance of urgency outside of Rousey.
The first-ever strawweight fight, which involved Gadelha, was listed as the opening fight of a card via Fight Pass. As B/R's Jonathan Snowden reported, there have only been 13 total strawweight fights in 2015, and only one more for the 135-pound weight class.
Of those rare fights, only two were co-main events (Esparza-Jedrzejczyk, Eye-Tate), and just two of the four PPV bouts were non-title.
I forgot to mention Gadelha vs. Aguilar. That's actually the best fight on the whole card.
— Adam Martin (@MMAdamMartin) July 27, 2015
Either Aguilar or Gadelha will quite possibly be the next contender at 115 pounds, and neither receives much promotion from the organization. They should be getting coverage as the co-main event, and they should have the platform to showcase their personalities. Both Aguilar and Gadelha have great personalities and are well-spoken.
Shogun and the Nogueiras are not PPV draws anymore, so that argument is null and void. Having them on the Brazilian card to help sell local tickets is fine, but they do not have to receive such high placement on the card to achieve that effect.
If this PPV card wasn't seven fights deep, there is a good possibility the UFC would have chosen to have this fight on the preliminary card to begin with. They are fortunate enough just to be the curtain-jerking bout, but they deserve so much more.
Do any other top-ranked fighters get treated this way? Were Luke Rockhold or Johny Hendricks just lucky to get on a PPV event because they added more main card fights? Were they relegated as top contenders? No.
Aguilar is the former No. 1-ranked fighter in this weight class, and Gadelha is the top-ranked fighter in the UFC's rankings. Their placement on this card would be justifiable if it were a stacked event like UFC 187 or UFC 189, but it's not. It is a PPV being carried by Ronda Rousey.
There is no other fight on this card worthy of the co-main event over the strawweight title eliminator, and that is all the more reason to put Aguilar-Gadelha at the co-main event slot.
This could be a female-led PPV. 2015 is a year of revolution for women's athletics. The UFC could have continued that trend by showcasing these title contenders at UFC 190. Instead, they are nowhere to be seen in the UFC's promotion of the event.
