Opinion: A Beautifully Weird Twisted Reality

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media.* * * There are basically two lenses through which I enjoy mixed martial arts. Truthfully, there are a myriad of reasons why I love this sport, general and specific, but nearly all of them fall under one of two overarching categories. First is the strange, bizarre storylines that materialize in this sport. Unlike the mainstream stick-and-ball sports, MMA still exists somewhat on the fringes of society, which leads to fascinating and hilarious things happening that are broadly endemic to the fight game. Think Anderson Silva’s blue vial defense hearing, Nate Diaz’ post-fight vaping or roughly 80 percent of all heavyweight fights. MMA boasts a brand of ridiculous that is idiosyncratically MMA, and it’s easy to love.On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are the superhuman performances, the in-cage violence that somehow feels edifying and virtuous. These things exist in their own ways in every sport, but in combat sports there is something all the more visceral and compelling and, dare I say, even heroic about them. The Ultimate Fighting Championship is founded on this type of performance; the legendary yet true tale of a scrawny Brazilian guy mysteriously making men twice his size quit by doing funky things with his limbs and theirs is hard to replicate elsewhere in the world of professional athletics. The UFC 204 main event between Michael Bisping and Dan Henderson on Saturday in Manchester, England, was the rare fight that existed in the crosshairs between both of these worlds. Maybe it speaks to my own depravity, but leading up to the most elderly title fight in the promotion’s history, I couldn’t help but find humor in the situation. On one side of the Octagon was perhaps the unlikeliest UFC champion ever, a man who stumbled his way into a short-notice title fight against an opponent who had already put the wood on him and was on paper a superior fighter in virtually every aspect. Yet somehow, the cosmos aligned for Bisping in his rematch with then-champ Luke Rockhold at UFC 199. “The Count,” who was otherwise known for being a pillow-fisted volume striker, scored a clean knockout for the first time in his UFC career to win the belt. Opposite Bisping was a 46-year-old challenger, 4-6 in his last 10 fights, who “earned” his crack at the title by fighting his way back from the wrong side of a 10-8 drubbing en route to icing a Hector Lombard who hadn’t won a fight in over two years. That solitary winning streak, by virtue of narrative spectacle alone, got Henderson to the Big Show one last time in his storied career. On top of the farcical nature of the matchup, the bygone testosterone replacement therapy-era cast …

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