Miami, FL — To say there was excitement for UFC 299 among both fans and media members coming into last week would be a massive understatement. Covering the card, however, for this lowly Canadian MMA journo, was a journey and a half.
Sometimes, things just work out. Having booked a plane ticket in December, Miami was going to happen, come hell or high water. As it turned out, high water did happen— a storm this past Wednesday apparently flooded a termite nest, termites who proceeded to take refuge in the room I’d rented out through AirBNB. A series of phone calls, a refund, and a relocation to a Motel 6, then another AirBNB a few days later, followed.
Man, this MMA beat stuff is rough.
There are hiccups in nearly every trip it seems (hello, dead rental car in Vancouver). That doesn’t take away from the events themselves of course. UFC 299 was stacked, and no sooner had that plane ticket been booked had it proved a wise decision: as the card shaped up, it was clear that the event would rival UFC 300 the following month in terms of depth. A number of fans even preferred it.
I was among that group. UFC 300 is good, but it was never going to live up to expectations. I had zero expectations for UFC 299, knowing it would come in the shadow of that milestone event, at least until the card was formally announced. Plus, after UFC 297… well, let’s just say that with Canadian men going 0-6, Sean Strickland’s antics, some questionable fan antics (we got those in Miami too, and that’s a discussion for another day), expectations in general were low. Even Dana White admitted after that one that it was a bad card, saying he owes Toronto another one.
One thing Dana White won’t owe is anything to Miami. UFC 299 was a hit.
Media day was a marathon, with a full eighteen fighters on hand (UFC 300, per promotion officials, will have a media day featuring the entire card— good luck folks!). It also included a novel first: two media day appearances from Marlon “Chito” Vera, one in English, one in Spanish. Befitting of the massive popularity of Chito in Miami; it truly felt like all of Ecuador showed up to support the bantamweight challenger. If nothing else, Chito had a star turn in Miami.
Media day also saw Katlyn Cerminara reveal some very personal, very tragic news. When fielding that question, I had no idea of what was to come. Cerminara, then going by her maiden name, Chookagian, had been interviewed by our own Gabriel Gonzalez at UFC X last July, and referred to some nagging injuries that were keeping her out of the cage. I figured I’d follow up on that. Turns out, as we learned ahead of UFC 299, it wasn’t injuries, but fertility issues and two miscarriages.
If ever there was a moment I’d wanted the Earth to open up and swallow me whole it was upon hearing that response. But Katlyn made clear that it was a subject that was important to talk about publicly, due to the number of couples and women going through something similar. Never an easy subject to broach, never a pleasant conversation to have, but an important one.
That’s a pretty courageous move, frankly. We opted to turn monetization off where ever we could on that video/clip. It felt too personal and too important a story to want to profit off of. That’s not something we do often; it’s hard enough to make a buck in this business, and far too many people already think journalists should work for free (“you just want clicks!!” has become a battle cry of dunderheads who clearly work day in and day out sans paycheck).
Let’s skip ahead a bit. The pre-fight press conference was what it was. They’re rarely great these days, just fighters talking over each other. The weigh in format in Miami was something we broke this past week. Florida apparently has utilized this procedure in the past, though never for a card as big as UFC 299. In short, all fighters must weigh in during the initial hour. Anyone who misses weight can weigh in a second time, during hour two. There is no third hour, as is afforded in some jurisdictions.
After we broke that news, ESPN reported per sources that the UFC is in favor of using this format across the board. That will involve the usual alphabet soup of athletic commissions getting on board, so it make take some time. As an aside, credit to Marc Raimondi of ESPN for crediting us on the scoop. It was a small little tweet that we put out while we waited for more info from the commission, but that’s the sort of thing that is a huge boost to independent sites like this one. Marc’s one of the good ones.
Interestingly enough only one fighter missed weight on Friday and even needed that second hour: C.J. Vergara. To make matters worse, he couldn’t shed the extra pound (127 on both attempts) for his flyweight fight with Assu Almabayev. And worse still, he lost. Vergara has missed weight three times now in the UFC and his days may well be numbered.
There’s plenty to talk about in terms of the fights themselves this past weekend, but the key takeaways were Dustin Poirier’s big KO (and jumping the guilly), and Sean O’Malley dismantling Chito Vera over five rounds. Most of us saw the latter coming, but it was still a sight to behold. O’Malley might have hand-picked his opponent in the end, but Chito’s star power in Miami made it worthwhile. The gate was the largest non-Conor gate in UFC history, according to Dana White, and not all of the was Sean. Chito definitely did his part— he just couldn’t quite stick the landing.
If there was a third star of UFC 299 it would probably be either Michael “Venom” Page, who showed off against Kevin Holland, or Curtis Blaydes, who mounted an impressive comeback opposite the surging Jailton Almeida. I would have said Jack Della Maddalena here, but unfortunately, he was under the weather post-fight and couldn’t meet with the media or really get that star turn in terms of promotion. It doesn’t make his performance any less impressive but it’s one of those missed opportunities to self-promote. JDM is a quiet guy in general but he has proven to be deadly in the cage, doing his talking with his fists.
Back to O’Malley. His callout of Ilia Topuria probably didn’t have the best timing, and will be seen by many as an attempt to avoid a fight with Merab Dvalishvili. There’s no question Merab should be next, and he’s a stylistic nightmare for the “Suga Show” and frankly just about anyone. You don’t ragdoll Henry Cejudo while having a conversation with Mark Zuckerberg and end up an easy out for anyone. But for O’Malley, the wrestling and cardio of Dvalishvili don’t bode well. A Topuria fight would be just as dangerous, quite frankly, but the reward— a second UFC championship — is that much great. It’s pretty clear from Dana White’s response Sunday morning during the post-fight presser, however, that the UFC CEO isn’t keen on making O’Malley vs. Topuria just yet. One title defense versus no title defenses. This isn’t Volk moving up, and as much as the UFC wants to tout Sean O’Malley as the next Conor McGregor he isn’t there just yet. It’s not out of reach, however.
That’s a wrap from Miami, folks!
