Trading Shots: On Anthony Pettis, precipitous falls, and jumping to conclusions

Former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis lost his third straight fight at UFC 197 in Las Vegas on Saturday night, but were fans and media too quick to label him a tanking fighter as a result? Retired UFC and WEC fighter Danny Downes joins MMAjunkie columnist Ben Fowlkes to discuss.

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Downes: Ben, Saturday night’s UFC 197 pay-per-view event had no shortage of story lines, but what stood out to me was the fight between Anthony Pettis and Edson Barboza. It wasn’t necessarily the fight itself, but people’s reactions to it that caught my attention.

If you were watching social media, you saw fans and your friends in the so-called media rattling off their “look how far he’s fallen” takes. The second round hadn’t even started before people started in with the career advice. Pettis should change camps. He should change his strategy. He should get a new suit guy.

Yes, Pettis has lost three straight fights. I’m sure you’re even going to mention how he was on a Wheaties box. But isn’t he still one of the best 155-pound fighters in the world? Don’t we create a false dichotomy when it comes to fighters (and perhaps sports in general)? You’re either the greatest ever, or you’re a bum.

Fowlkes: I’m glad to see you Roufusport guys stick together, even after some of you have gone down to Albuquerque to train and others of you have moved to San Diego and joined the so-called media. But I get it. Pettis is your buddy. You saw people on the Internet being mean to him and it makes you mad. We’ve all been there. If Pettis was some Nova Uniao guy who’d fallen off, I can’t see you being quite so annoyed, but fine.

What I wonder about is your claim that, despite three consecutive losses, Pettis is still “one of the best 155-pound fighters in the world.” That strikes me as an intentionally vague phrase, one that can be both true and sort of meaningless at the same time, and I say that as someone who’s used it plenty in other situations.

What does it mean to be one of the best lightweights? For instance, every fighter in the top 10, isn’t he one of the best? Might as well extend it to the top 15, who are still a fairly elite group, when you consider all of humanity.

Obviously, Pettis is no longer the best, according to the system by which these things are decided. He was the best, but then he lost his title (that big shiny belt that fighters carry around as a physical reminder of who The Best is) to Rafael dos Anjos. Now he’s the best.

But Pettis is still really good, right? So next he fought Eddie Alvarez, another really good lightweight. He lost that too, at least according to the judges. Still, no shame in losing to Alvarez. Then he fought Barboza, who, it must be said, kicked him to shreds while stifling Pettis’ attempts at offense. No doubt as to who won that one.

My point is, what do you expect people who aren’t Pettis’ friends to say? What, that he’s the best fighter to ever lose three in a row in the UFC (which, actually, could be true)? That he lost to three very good fighters (also true), so cut him some slack? Is he still “one of” the best because he’s better than 95 percent of the lightweights in the world (again, true)? Or because, as far as his potential, you think he’s still got it in him to be champ again, despite this bad run?

What are we talking about here? Is it what he’s done or what you think he can do?

Downes: This may come as a surprise to you, Ben, but I’m actually capable of forming my own thoughts outside of who you might deem a “buddy” of mine. Am I more cognizant of the goings-on of people who I used to train with? That’s a fair statement. Diminishing my point with an ad hominem attack right off the bat? For a guy who’s criticized Dana White over the years, you sure embrace his playbook.

“One of the best” is a vague phrase that probably doesn’t mean much. It’s a lot like the phrase “UFC caliber.” Phrasing aside, my problem was that people were already writing the recap before it ended. “Look how the star has fallen” is an easy story, so it was embraced in the first round and the everything was seen through that lens.

The reverse occurs when someone like Jon Jones or Demetrious Johnson fights. “LOOK AT THAT JAB!?! It’s so majestic and awe-inspiring! Oh, NOW HE’S CIRCLING TO THE MIDDLE! He truly is the greatest fighter in the world!”

Anthony Pettis

Fans should be passionate and their fervor can sometimes cloud their judgment. The promoter’s job is to live on the poles. Overstate, overdo and overemphasize. In the Venn diagram of MMA, reporters should have less intersection with those other two roles.

This isn’t necessarily about Pettis; it’s about an approach to the sport. Yes, you have to find an angle to appeal to readers, but at what expense? Making grand, sweeping conclusions two minutes into a fight may be nice for retweets, but haven’t you already distorted things? We’ve talked before about the role of social media vis-à-vis journalism. When media members are more interested in attention than prudence, trouble arises.

Fowlkes: Wow. Apparently when it comes to passionate defenses in the court of public opinion and throwing around fancy terms like ad hominem, “Showtime” Pettis does indeed have a guy for that, and that guy is Danny Downes. (I’m kidding. Kind of.)

I understand what you’re saying about the way we get swept up by certain viewpoints and narratives that then achieve this unstoppable momentum before we have a chance to really evaluate them. I think some of that is the nature of the instant reaction world in which we live. Some of it, though, is a consequence of the sport.

One of the things that makes pro fighting different from the stick-and-ball sports is that the individual athletes compete so much less frequently in MMA. It makes it so that every time we see them we are rewriting our entire perception of them. With each fighter and each division, it’s like a map that gets redrawn after every fight. The more we see them, the more we notice twists and bends in the coastlines that we might have missed on previous trips. The map comes into focus, but it also changes as their skills and opponents change.

You could argue that people redrew their maps too early in the Pettis fight, but it’s not like he charged back in the later rounds to prove everyone wrong. He still lost the fight. I wouldn’t disagree that people might be writing off his entire career too soon, slapping him with that downward trending label after essentially one rough year. But is this not what the map looks like right now, regardless of what you think (or hope) it might look like this time next year?

We get carried away. This is true. You could argue that people got carried away in the other direction when Pettis was on Wheaties boxes. I think he’s a really good fighter whose full story is far from being written. But I don’t blame people too much for looking at the most recent information as the best indicator of where the story stands now.

For more on UFC 197, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Danny Downes, a retired UFC and WEC fighter, is an MMAjunkie contributor who also writes for UFC.com and UFC 360. Follow them on twitter at @benfowlkesMMA and @dannyboydownes.