UFC President Dana White has confirmed that the lightweight title rematch between current champion Benson Henderson and former titleholder Frankie Edgar will headline UFC 150 on August 11 in Denver, Colorado.
Henderson won the title from the New Jersey native at UFC 144, earning a unanimous decision victory in a back-and-forth fight many had scored in favour of Edgar.
While it was initially suggested that Henderson would face former WEC foe Anthony “Showtime” Pettis in his first title defence, Edgar lobbied to be awarded a rematch, citing his back-to-back fights with both BJ Penn and Gray Maynard as precedent.
White lobbied for “The Answer” to move to featherweight, where an immediate title shot against Jose Aldo awaited, but Edgar and his team stuck to their guns, and a second meeting with Henderson came together.
But is that really a good thing for the UFC, the lightweight division, or the fans?
Don’t get me wrong: I loved their first meeting, and am stoked to see the sequel, but I can’t help but wonder if all these rematches actually do more harm than good in the long run?
A win for Edgar in August levels the series at one win each. Would Henderson then get a rematch of his own; a trilogy bout to break the tie?
In the interim, the lightweight title chase is on pause.
After being bumped from a title shot by a rematch for the second time in as many years, Pettis opted to have surgery on his injured shoulder, leaving him sidelined until late summer or early fall. Nathan Diaz had seemingly earned himself a shot at the title following his win last weekend against Jim Miller, but the overwhelming feeling coming out of that fight is that he’s more likely to meet Pettis later this year than fight for the title.
There is no better example of a casualty of the championship logjam than Miller, who had amassed a seven-fight winning streak at one point without challenging for the title. When his chance to earn a shot finally came around, he lost a one-sided battle to Henderson, who used the win to propel himself into his own “title eliminator” bout later in the year.
The same goes for Pettis, who opted to take a tough fight against Clay Guida rather than wait out Edgar and Maynard last year, only to have Guida earn the victory by using his wrestling to control the creative striker on the ground.
In addition to the congestion they create within the division, rematches can result in missed star-making opportunities as well.
No fighter was riding a bigger wave of momentum heading into 2011 than Pettis. Fresh off landing “The Showtime Kick” in his WEC 53 battle with Henderson, he entered the lightweight division with a great deal of buzz even before stepping into the cage. Six months and one bad match-up later, that momentum was gone, and Pettis was looking to get back into the win column in a preliminary card fight opposite Jeremy Stephens.
While he still has legitimate star potential, Pettis’ arrival as a marquee name in the lightweight division is already long overdue, and these frequent rematches are partially to blame.
Matt Hughes is one of the greatest champions in UFC history. After he lost the welterweight title to Georges St-Pierre at UFC 65, he didn’t get a rematch, despite having won five consecutive title fights prior to that. Instead, Hughes faced Chris Lytle.
Same goes for Chuck Liddell after he lost the light heavyweight title to Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. His first loss in three years earned him a meeting with Keith Jardine, not a do-over against Jackson.
Times have changed.
Now, every close fight is called “controversial,” and the Internet explodes with demands for an immediate rematch following every back-and-forth battle that goes to the scorecards.
The precedent is there for Edgar to get his rematch, and I think it’s the right call for this fight, but moving forward, the UFC needs to do their best to move away from immediate rematches.
If Jon Jones should happen to lose to Dan Henderson later this year, don’t match him up with “Hendo” for a second time right away; let someone else have a shot at the title first, and build to the rematch.
Seeing the same two people battling for divisional supremacy becomes stale, and stalls the development of other fighters with championship potential.
New stars are made through big fights on the biggest stages, but they’re never going to get their chance at stardom if the same cast of characters are always going back-and-forth over championship belts all the time.
E. Spencer Kyte is the author of Keyboard Kimura, the MMA blog of Vancouver’s leading newspaper, The Province. Follow him on Twitter (@spencerkyte), or Facebook.
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