UFC Fight Night 88 opinion: Prospects are supposed to lose

Two of the three undefeated bantamweight prospects on Sunday night’s UFC Fight Night 88 card suffered their first professional defeats. Thomas Almeida was undone by fellow unbeaten Cody Garbrandt’s brutally powerful right hand, while Aljamain Sterling faded after a strong round 1 and dropped a split decision to the dangerous Bryan Caraway.

As is the usual thing to shout when red-hot prospects are defeated in the UFC, the HYPE TRAIN WAS DERAILED! Come to think of it, Almeida vs. Garbrandt guaranteed this exact outcome regardless of the victor. More than 150 firefighters had to douse the flames from the towering inferno of hot takes and hindsight opinions dished out on MMA Twitter immediately following the event. It’s okay, we all say some crazy things in the heat of the moment, but I do find it bizarre that in a sport that touts how hard it is to remain undefeated, one L can be etched into the brains of fans even well past the point of its relevancy.

Think of our current UFC heavyweight champion, for instance. Stipe Miocic just knocked out Fabricio Werdum in Brazil just two weeks ago. He was knocked out by Stefan Struve back in 2012, in what was only his 10th professional fight in the 2nd year of his career. I think the work he’s shown over the last 4 years is enough to make the Struve loss an increasingly distant footnote.

Just for fun, let’s see what else happened in 2012.

Stephen Thompson, just 2 years and 7 fights into his pro career, lost a pretty unflattering unanimous decision to …

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