Twitter Mailbag: On the 12th day of MMA Christmas, my true love gave to me...

Which UFC title is most likely to change hands soon? What would a song about the 12 days of MMA Christmas sound like? And are we finally done talking about Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather yet?

All that and more in this week’s Twitter Mailbag. To ask a question of your own, tweet to @BenFowlkesMMA.

It’s got to be the UFC heavyweight title fight, in part due to the nature of that division. There’s also the fact that Francis Ngannou is a big, gifted dude who hits like the hammer of Thor, so that has to be taken into consideration. But let us not forget that Stipe Miocic is aiming for his third consecutive UFC heavyweight title defense, a feat that has never been accomplished in the history of this belt.

There’s a reason for that. It’s such a crazy, unpredictable division as it is, and Ngannou’s power offers an added element of uncertainty. Of course, it also makes him seem even more like the final video game boss that Miocic has to beat in order to break the title defense record, so it’s a can’t-miss fight any way you look at it.

Oluwale Bamgbose’s complaints are not exactly new in the world of pro fighting. He wasn’t his usual hyper-aggressive self at UFC on FOX 26, which earned him some boos from fans in Winnipeg, and then he got knocked out by Alessio Di Chirico’s well-placed knee in the second round.

He issued a series of tweets about his frustration with the fan response, but there’s one that really captures the spirit of them all, so maybe the thing to do is take it one sentence at a time.

“Some mma fans are some of the worst human beings alive & I would rather die than compete for their entertainment.”

Well that’s a bit of an overreaction, isn’t it? Seems like there are intermediate steps he could take in between competing for their entertainment and actually, literally dying.

“I want to compete @ my best for respectful & loyal fans.”

Now that’s fair. Some basic respect and courtesy is not too much to ask for, although the question of loyalty forces us to ask who those fans are supposed to be loyal to, and to what extent. Also, the part about competing at his “best”? That’s the part that’s entirely up to him. If Bamgbose made the decision to fight hurt, he can’t blame anyone else for that.

“Who are true to martial arts.”

OK, sure, I see his point. But there are plenty of venues to compete in martial arts. There’s a reason most of them don’t pay as well as fighting in a cage on a Saturday night.

“Not scumbag fans who enjoy our pain but boo strategy.”

I agree with him that there’s something gross about fans who get angrily impatient when a whole minute passes without someone being badly hurt. I wonder about the interior lives of those people. But just because you have a strategy, that doesn’t mean fans are obligated to agree that it’s a good one, or even an enjoyable one.

“U forget we get paid (EXPLETIVE)”

Ah, there it is. It’s the implicit argument that he would be more willing to give these “scumbag” fans what they want if the pay were better. I agree that fighter pay in MMA is a problem in a lot of ways. But it’s tough to make the argument that fans just don’t appreciate the nuances of your strategy if you’re simultaneously claiming that you’re paid too poorly to take the risks those fans want to see. Which is it? Are you doing great stuff that goes unappreciated by the idiots in the crowd? Or are you holding back because the money isn’t good enough?

Seems like Bamgbose’s complaints are coming from a place of frustration and disappointment, and that’s understandable. Also seems like he wants to tell the paying customers what they should want out of the experience, and it conveniently lines up with what he feels he’s offering. He’s free to try it that way if he wants. But that strategy might also prove to be an unpopular one.

Josh Emmett did knock out a guy who was ranked in the top five – and knocked him stiff. Then again, he also missed weight by a few pounds after taking the fight on short notice, so I guess you could make the case that he doesn’t deserve the full benefit of the rankings bump.

I’m sympathetic to that argument – making weight is part of a fighter’s job, after all – but I also can’t convince myself that those extra pounds really made the difference in this fight. It’s not like Emmett took Ricardo Lamas down and held him there for three rounds. He landed one crushing hook, which probably would have had just as much force at 146 pounds as it did at 148.5 pounds. I say give him his due.

This latest ploy was the most cynical one yet. You had Floyd Mayweather talking about all the money he could make in the UFC. You had UFC President Dana White intentionally fanning those flames by acting like it was a real possibility. Then you had Mayweather immediately pouring cold water on it, all more or less within one news cycle. So what was the point?

But we already know the answer to that. The point was attention. The UFC saw a chance to feed a story that might actually break out beyond the MMA bubble, and so it did that. It worked, too. The topic was being debated on ESPN by Wednesday morning. Friends of mine who don’t follow MMA were texting me to ask about it by lunchtime. Then Mayweather had to go and spoil it by telling the truth.

I mean, I understand what the UFC brass was thinking here. You’re working on a new TV deal in a very complicated media rights climate, there are worse things than to get your company’s name out there in connection with a big fight. But when the ruse falls apart just as most people are first hearing about it, it also makes you look pretty insecure, like you needed the help of a fighter you’ll never get in order to make the mainstream news briefly care about you.

Plus, at this point I don’t care if you think you can sign Conor McGregor vs. The Ghost of Bruce Lee. As far as I’m concerned, the next time he fights, it needs to be in defense of his UFC lightweight title – and against an actual contender for that belt. Anything else, and we rocket toward self-parody.

Why can’t it be both? Honestly, there was never a good reason not to showcase the highlight of Holly Holm dusting Ronda Rousey. It’s not like, as long as you keep it out of the commercials, people will forget about it. Plus, it’s by far the biggest moment of Holm’s career, and she’s the one who’s still around.

It’s also a convenient piece of evidence for use in promoting this specific fight. Cris Cyborg? The one thing most people know about her is that she is a terrifying destroyer of worlds. That’s a big part of her appeal, but it also means she hasn’t had a competitive fight in years. How do you convince fans that this time might be different, or at least might be more challenging than expected? You remind them of the last time Holm was in there against a seemingly unbeatable UFC champion.

And if Rousey doesn’t like it? Let her come back and try to replace that highlight with one of her own.

The first question is tough to answer, mostly because at least some of Fedor Emelianenko’s success in the golden age of the mid-2000s was based on the fact that there weren’t a lot of dudes like Miocic running around in heavyweight MMA back then. It’s like asking how a prime Jim Brown would do in today’s NFL. He’d probably still be very good, but they didn’t have beasts like J.J. Watt clogging up the defensive line back then.

As for the second question, I thought “Cat Person” was great. Mostly though, I’m just happy to have somehow stumbled into this alternate universe where people want to talk about short fiction in my MMA mailbag, so thanks for that early Christmas gift.

On the first day of MMA Christmas, the gods upon Mt. Xyience gave to me…

Twelve flying knee knockouts…
Eleven Twitter feuds…
Ten potential anti-doping policy violations…
Nine pleas for bonuses…
Eight spinning back elbows…
Seven late stoppages…
Six offers to fight whoever the UFC puts in front of you…
Five Superman punches…
Four fence grabs before a point deduction…
Three scary weight cuts…
Two baffling split-decisions…
…and a Conor McGregor contro-ver-sy!

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Twitter Mailbag appears every Thursday on MMAjunkie.