Hot Takes Once Again Prove Lukewarm at Best
Tell us you don’t care about modern MMA without telling us you don’t care about modern MMA.
As painful as it is to start this off with a tired meme, that pretty much sums up most of the “hot takes” ahead of UFC 275. Which essentially amounted to, “I don’t like who’s fighting on the card, so it sucks,” which more often than not boiled down to “I watch the sport for the big names, and UFC 275 lacked them.”
Sure it did. But that’s not a hot take. No, UFC 275 did not attract the casual fans the way a Conor McGregor card would. But a) Conor McGregor can only fight so often and b) Conor McGregor is still healing up from a broken leg in his last fight. Meanwhile, the UFC put on a very solid card Saturday that even on paper looked promising, if you actually knew who was fighting.
Many hot take artists, including some who actually earn a living off the sport, couldn’t be bothered to even glance at Tapology it seems. If you weren’t excited for Jake Matthews vs. Andre Fialho, or Jack Della Maddalena vs. Ramazan Emeev, and you actually follow the sport— that’s on you. A bad card is one full of mismatches and fights lacking divisional relevance. UFC 275 had two world title bouts, a bonafide number one contender’s match that happened to be a rematch of one of the greatest fights of all time, and some smart matchmaking that produced fireworks.
And the main event? Sure, Jiri Prochazka had won only two UFC fights prior to being granted his title shot against Glover Teixeira, who hot take types likely know as one of the guys who didn’t beat Jon Jones. But those fights both resulted in impressive wins over former title challengers — and those of us who follow Japan’s RIZIN (a modern day PRIDE of sorts, with the very same CEO in Nobuyuki Sakakibara) recognized Prochazka’s talent years ago.
Enough with the hot takes already. They’re lukewarm at best.
