In the space of a few months, Paige VanZant and Sage Northcutt, two of the UFC’s most promising blue chippers, have suffered huge career setbacks.

This past December, the UFC hosted a Las Vegas event on Fight Pass, their digital streaming service, which was unofficially dubbed ‘The Sage and Paige show’ since the two hotshot prospects soaked up the lion’s share of pre-fight publicity.

Northcutt, a 19-year-old Texan, was the first of the duo to compete on the card, defeating three-fight UFC veteran Cody Pfister via second round rear-naked-choke.

VanZant planned to replicate her promotional tag team partner’s success in the main event, but it’s safe to say things didn’t go according to plan since the blood-soaked 21-year-old wound up looking more like the girl from Stephen King’s Carrie than a magazine cover-girl when all was said and done.

Third-ranked UFC strawweight contender Rose Namajunas dominated VanZant from bell-to-bell, pummelling the Team Alpha Male-trained fighter for most of the 22-minute bout, before locking up a fight-ending rear-naked-choke in the dying minutes of the bout.

It was an unfortunate setback for the 115-pound star, but even in defeat, she was showered with praise. The California native had her face painted with blood for most of the fight, but never seemed discouraged, continuing to fight until the bitter end.

In many ways, the tough-as-teak VanZant exited the bout as a bigger fan favourite, despite being used as a golden-haired punching bag for almost five rounds.

The same cannot be said for Northcutt after his most recent setback.

The fighter, student, and model, suffered a demoralising defeat this past Sunday, tapping out to a heavily-criticised arm-triangle choke from largely unknown up-and-comer Bryan Barberena.

The developing teenage fighter was the laughing stock of the UFC after the loss, and it’s caused many within the mixed martial arts community to question whether Northcutt and VanZant are being prematurely pushed to the stars.

To debate that topic, I’ve called upon a few of the brightest minds in combat sports writing, with the intent of making a bit of sense out of this mess.

Ben Scott (freelance writer)
When did sport become professional? When did it cease to be simply a physical pursuit primarily performed in front of others who were physically there to watch it? Was it the modern Olympics? Perhaps it was the earliest media broadcasts of the UFC’s football equivalent, that being the NFL? Whatever or whenever it was, it changed the concept of sport forever.

With unlimited money and technology, amateur sport can do as much as professional sport. A streaming of a little league game featuring the child of a certain multi-millionaire ‘sports entertainment’ CEO can be beamed straight through to his office, live, in order for him to keep up with the kids and how they are going, for example.

We can sometimes forget that sport can either be simply ‘a sport’ or it can also be mass entertainment. Only when the business case adds up will it then become both. The NFL, NBA, ARL, NFL – these are all sports entertainment brands. The UFC is no different.

A perfect lightning-rod for this argument is the current debate about UFC ‘up-and-comers’, Paige VanZant and Sage Northcutt, whose performance versus pay-packet have come under heavy fire. Both are extremely gifted, both are embryonic in their careers and both are already under harsh scrutiny from the MMA and wider commentariat.

Have some of their performances been mixed? Sure, but nowhere near enough to start docking their pay and cutting their opportunities to progress as superstars. We are also talking about bona fide professional athletes here.

I’m all for a Don Frye, Tank Abbott, Ken Shamrock, Tito Ortiz elimination tournament displaying minimal athleticism and maximum circus lol’s of entertainment but what do we really want professional mixed martial arts and, by virtue, it’s greatest sporting brand to really be about?

Forget about mismanagement because it’s the ‘over-management’ of young MMA athletes that could actually deny a Michael Jordon, a Roger Federer, a Kelly Slater or a Tiger Woods-level UFC talent from ever breaking through at such a young age.

Frankly, much of the scrutiny of VanZant and Northcutt is sounding like a veiled attempt to rewind the clock back to the equivalent of the sporting dark ages. The UFC’s dark ages were even darker.

Some cite the promotion and rapid rise of the likes of ‘Paige and Saige’ as a mismanaged joke.

It’s time many in this sport realised that professional MMA exists and the existence of fighters like Northcutt and VanZant are the products of it. Otherwise, those same critics should loudly declare their wish for the sport to regress back to the dark ages, complete with poorer pay, horrific athlete conditions, less quality of life and no real future career prospects.

No, I am sorry, but it is ‘Paige and Sage’ who actually grew up and realised professional sport exists. It is their existence that further proves professional MMA well and truly exists also. The sport is all the better for that, it is all grown up now and it’s time we all grew up too.

Isaac Nowroozi (The Roar)
I’m not sure if VanZant and Northcutt were pushed up the card too quickly. From what I’ve seen, people tune in to see both of these athletes compete, and I think what people tend to forget is that they are incredibly young and still learning. People might think it was too much too soon, or that that they are too far up the card, but at the end of the day people will tune in to see people like ‘Paige and Sage’. They’re marketable.

However, I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to remember that these kids are still young. One loss does not mean that much early in their career, especially if they learn from it. A lot of people seem to think, regardless of past results, that after one loss they are no longer ‘legit’.

If Northcutt keeps improving at the rate he is, at Bryan Barberena’s age he will be miles ahead of ‘Bam Bam’, and most other UFC fighters. Same with VanZant. In a few years she will be above the level of those who are more experienced, so I have no doubts that we are looking at two future champions with those two.

The UFC hypes these fighters up so much, that the public begins to think that these guys are invincible, and if they lose they, well, suck. The backlash against Northcutt is uncalled for. The same will happen with McGregor should he lose. People will forget what happened in the Jose Aldo fight, and say that McGregor was all talk. The sad nature of not all, but a lot, of MMA fans is that they love you when you’re on top but will kick you when you’re down.

Northcutt’s pay has been a big point of contention for fellow UFC fighters. I completely understand that people tune in to see these a fighter like him, so he naturally gets a pay spike. However, with all the fighters that are underpaid, like the Roy Nelson’s of the UFC, it does not seem fair at all.

From Northcutt’s point of view, he should get as much as he can get. But the fighters have a right to be upset with a rookie earning $80,000 each time he wins a fight.

Emma Challands (Combat Press, Fight News Australia)
The UFC has placed a large emphasis on fighters that bring an interesting narrative to the table, or a certain air of marketability, whether that is because of their personality or attractiveness. Is this wrong of them? No. It makes absolute sense. The UFC is very focused on bringing mainstream sports fans to the table, however, they do it at the risk of alienating their already established viewership.

It’s not that MMA fans dislike fighters such as VanZant and Northcutt, it’s just that they don’t necessarily like having a ‘product’ shoved down their throats 24/7. Not to mention the undue pressure it puts on these young up-and-coming fighters to keep winning and building their brands. You only have to read the comments after both of these fighters lost recently to understand how much backlash they have received after their ‘hype trains’ were derailed.

As young athletes, they want to put themselves in the best position to succeed, and that likely means doing whatever the UFC lays out for them, but it could be at the detriment of their career progression.

The UFC has branded itself as the best mixed martial arts promotion in the world, essentially the NFL of MMA, but if they continue to bring in relatively green prospects they will end up doing more harm than good for their brand – take Mickey Gall and his potential future opponent ‘CM Punk’ for example.

I would suggest that if the UFC wants to be taken seriously as the premier promotion for MMA then they are better off sticking with fighters who have, at the very least, a respectable professional record.

In terms of whether or not Northcutt should be receiving the hefty paycheck he is getting, I think the answer is obvious. I have personally spoken to the number five-ranked bantamweight Aljamain Sterling and whilst he would be more than willing to undergo the promotional duties that have been afforded Northcutt he has never been given the opportunity. When you think about the fact that Sterling is a genuine future title contender with a great personality it almost seems ludicrous and makes the UFC appear to be playing favourites.

If they keep this up, there’s no doubt that fighters will continue to look at free agency to get a better deal.

Justin Faux (The Roar)
Since Dana White and the Fertitta brothers took control of the UFC in the early stages of the millennium, they have made no bones about their objective – to create stars and have them face off on pay-per-view to generate millions of dollars.

The strategy has crashed and burned more than once, and the Nevada-based promotion has lost fistfuls of cash investing in the wrong athletes before, but what’s happening today with VanZant and Northcutt is unlike any other gamble on stars the UFC has undertaken.

In the past, the promoters have put money behind established fighters like Chuck Liddell or Georges St. Pierre. Sure, they were both beatable so it was a calculated risk to push all their chips in on them, but both were battle-tested fighters who had their feet held to the flames.

The same cannot be said for ‘Paige and Sage’.

These two incredibly promising and marketable athletes are also green-as-grass with a lot of room for growth before they become championship-level fighters.

Making matters even harder for the UFC team, VanZant and Northcutt both compete in the women’s strawweight and men’s lightweight divisions – the two most talent-rich weight classes each gender has to offer.

UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby did a great job slowly building VanZant in the beginning, feeding her a steady diet of tough, yet winnable matches during her first three UFC bouts but with a small pool of women in the 115-pound class, it was inevitable that she would face a top contender – and when she did, Namajunas throttled the American model.

Fellow matchmaker Joe Silva tried to follow a similar blueprint with ‘Super Sage’ giving the teenage prospect two tune-up matches before Barberena tipped over his apple cart.

So are the UFC mismanaging them? No, not at all. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t do a better job of slowly building them up, and giving them appropriate tests along the way, though.