No, Ryan Bader will not go all Stipe Miocic with win at UFC on FOX 18

UFC light heavyweight Ryan Bader was certainly watching when heavyweight colleague Stipe Miocic went caveman and started yelling at UFC President Dana White after a knockout victory.

White was scared not to give Miocic a title shot, and now, he’s got it. So why not follow in those successful footsteps?

Well, if you’re Bader, you know there’s a difference between originators and imitators, and how those two are perceived by people.

“I don’t want to come off fake,” Bader (20-4 MMA, 13-4 UFC) , who on Saturday meets Anthony Johnson (20-5 MMA, 11-5 UFC) in the headliner of UFC on FOX 18, told MMAjunkie Radio. “You see these guys now that are trying to take the Conor McGregor approach when they’re just not good at it, and they’ve been respectful their whole career, and then all of a sudden they try this, and everybody sees through it. You like like an idiot. I don’t want to be that guy.”

UFC on FOX 18 takes place at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. The event’s main card, including Bader vs. Johnson in the main event, airs on FOX following prelims on FOX Sports 1 and UFC Fight Pass.

You can’t blame them for trying, of course. In an uncertain business, folks are bound to grab anything resembling a roadmap if it might help their career. It’s why people go to such extraordinary lengths to prepare for fights, and why they often resort to begging after them. (It worked for Georges St-Pierre first.)

Ryan Bader

There’s a lot done in the name of promotion, and given Bader’s career, you’d think he’d be a bit more open to going a little nuts. It’s no secret “The Ultimate Fighter 8” winner has repeatedly gotten the short end of the stick in his latest run, where he’s bucked odds on several occasions to win five straight. Yet he’s lost out on title opportunities and is now facing a former title challenger who could very easily knock him out of contention – literally.

Johnson, a perpetual sleeper of men, has won exactly one fight since a failed bid for the UFC light heavyweight title, and yet he’s getting a bout that could have very favorable results for his career.

With Bader, he seems to have strayed into the territory where he’s increasingly being given fights that are no-win situations. Beat Johnson, and he may or may not get a title shot. Lose to Johnson – which, by the way, is the prevailing bet – and he might never get the chance.

White has said Bader will “deserve” his title shot with a win over Johnson, but that’s not exactly something you can take to the bank.

So Bader has plenty of reason to be fired up. Watching Miocic, it’s hard not to go a little “Braveheart” and feel a bit of what he’s feeling. Would it be so hard to summon the same emotion in the event of a win over Johnson?

“If I go out there and take out ‘A.J.’ and I’m pumped up, then yeah,” Bader said. “But I’m not going to come off fake. I’ll be true to myself and my family and coaches. If they don’t want to give me a title shot, there’s nothing I can do, and I’m not going to not be true to myself.”

There was one time when Bader was overcome with emotion, and that’s when he charged the podium following champ Cormier’s win over Johnson at UFC 187. He felt the new champ had ducked him. Cormier disagreed. It seemed the two were doing the UFC matchmakers’ job for them, and many predicted Bader would be the first guy to challenge Cormier.

Then Alexander Gustafsson, who’d just gotten knocked out by Johnson, got the shot. So you can’t blame Bader if he decided to throw logic out of the window when thinking about the title picture. You couldn’t blame him if his emotions got the better of him, either.

There are many who believe Bader’s style is the thing that’s forever going to keep him from his golden opportunity. He’s just not the exciting presence that others like Johnson are in the octagon, and so he’s bound to stay in divisional purgatory until he eliminates every possible contender. He hears that, just like he hears everyone who thinks he doesn’t have a chance against Johnson. And somehow, this is the thing he loves about the game.

“I’m the same when I was in against (Quinton) ‘Rampage’ (Jackson), where every single person was counting me out,” Bader said. “I’m a 4-1 underdog. People don’t give me a shot. Other guys in the division are saying I might move up, but I want to fight Anthony Johnson when he wins. I have no pressure on me. I just get to go out there and fight my fight, and that’s when I perform the best.”

What happens after, we’ll see. But one thing’s for certain: Bader isn’t opposed to emotion – he’s just opposed to stooping.

For more on UFC on FOX 18, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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