Opinion: Debunking the Myth of Heavyweight Exceptionalism

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. Wednesday was the 15-year anniversary of UFC 31 — the second Ultimate Fighting Championship event for the promotion under Zuffa ownership and the new company’s first great one. Most MMA fights, regardless of promotional banner or fighters involved, don’t hold up in 2016 after a decade and a half of crucial technical and athletic evolution, but UFC 31 does across the board.B.J. Penn’s brilliant MMA debut? Check. Matt Lindland characteristically gaming the system, dropping to a knee while Ricardo Almeida upkicked him and eventually getting “The Big Dog” disqualified in shambolic fashion? Check. Semmy Schilt front kicking Pete Williams in the liver? It’s in there. Shonie Carter puts the spinning back fist on the map as a legit technique against Matt Serra, while Carlos Newton does the same for the humble bulldog choke, taking the UFC welterweight title from Pat Miletich in an upset. Future legend Chuck Liddell even jumps into the elite level of competition, punching out former UFC heavyweight champion Kevin Randleman in 78 seconds. And there in the main event is Randy Couture-Pedro Rizzo 1. It’s a fight that is by no means perfect; after essentially trading 10-8 rounds on one another in the opening 10 minutes, Couture and Rizzo slow considerably in rounds three and four before a quality finish. Nonetheless, it remains an incredible fight. The narrative is a great story in itself: Couture defending his UFC title after seeking more money in Japan and fighting under Zuffa ownership for the first time, only to knock off its preferred poster boy Rizzo. However, the fact that the fight is so damn good, so damn close and so damn violent — remember, we are talking about a Couture fight — seals its place in the MMA canon. As Andrei Arlovski and Alistair Overeem prepare to headline the UFC’s first trip to the Netherlands on Sunday, it occurred to me how little Couture-Rizzo 1 embodies any of the things that people associate with heavyweight MMA. Both fighters get tired after 10 minutes, which I suppose is prototypical of the division. Then again, it’s on account of Couture savagely battering Rizzo for five minutes against the cage in the best offensive salvo of his career before eating a million leg kicks and counters from (a) possibly the best leg kicker in MMA history and (b) one of the best heavyweight counterpunchers of all-time; it’s not like they threw haymakers for three minutes and each had a heart attack. There was plenty of damage done, but there were no blistering, single-shot knockdowns. Two grueling rounds gave way to three clever, strategic ones between two fighters who were at their best between 225 and 235 pounds. It continues to strike me how the most popular conceptions of heavyweight MMA simply don’t align with history and reality. It’s seductive and simple to imagine classic heavyweight battles look like Mark Hunt-Antonio Silva 1, but the division’s best fights have tended not to be bloody car crashes but more like thrilling car chases. Fights like Rizzo-Couture 1, Josh Barnett-Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira 1 and Fedor Emelianenko-Mirko Filipovic typify the best heavyweight MMA history has to offer. These are not knockdown-laden fights between giant bruisers but well-blended clashes that put an emphasis on strategy, tactics and adjustments in the cage and ring. Of those six fighters I just mentioned, Barnett is the only one who was over 240 pounds throughout his prime, and he earned the decision in that first Nogueira bout in a thrilling climax where he dove for a kneebar in the fight’s final seconds. That is certainly not the way people envision heavyweight MMA. Is it surprising? You would think when you dealt with high-stakes, in-fight comebacks in heavyweight MMA history that they would look like Tim Sylvia desperately cracking Arlovski in an act of self-preservation in their second fight. In reality, the heavyweight fights that always get brought up first in this context are Brock Lesnar-Shane Carwin and Nogueira-Frank Mir 2: One fighter gets smashed for a minute and then submits his opponent … or breaks his arm in half. I will also remind you that while he has become a formidable striker, the best heavyweight in the world, Fabricio Werdum, is a grappler first. In fact, Werdum is probably the greatest heavyweight grappler ever when you consider his achievements across gi and no-gi grappling and his accomplishments within the context of MMA. All of this to say, sure, heavyweights tend to have more power and your average heavyweight bout between free swingers will probably end viciously, but your prototypical “great heavyweight” is probably 20 pounds lighter, half the puncher and, in some cases twice the grappler that you’d expect based on the most casual stereotypes. It’s not only the athletic profile of the great heavyweight that the MMA world misreads, either, as the promotional exceptionalism of the sport’s largest men is also highly dubious. MMA has taken its …

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