April's UFC event has taken yet another turn. It was originally scheduled to be in March and it would complete the trilogy between Max Holloway and champion Alexander Volkanovski. Holloway suffered an injury that was rumored to put him on the shelf for upwards of 6 months, which obviously forced them to cancel and find a new title challenger. Numerous potential options stood up and threw their name into the hat. Giga Chikadze was a popular option, but then he lost to Calvin Kattar. Former double champ and Olympic gold medalist Henry Cejudo wants the fight, but his uneven relationship with the UFC didn't help his cause. They were able to settle on long time division staple Chan Sung Jung, The Korean Zombie. It wasn't the most exciting fight when they announced it as Zombie has been a little up and down of late, but I'm still looking forward to the fight. There's a little bit of personal heat between the two and Zombie always puts on a good fight. It doesn't help matters that he's replacing Max Holloway, who has a pretty large fan base and the trilogy with him and Volk is the fight that everyone wants to see. Things had settled down and while everyone is disappointed that we won't get the trilogy fight next, it seemed like the general public had come around to the idea of the Zombie fight and recognized that it was probably going to be a fun fight, despite Zombie's lack of winning streak. Because nothing can just proceed cleanly, we got news in the middle of last week that Max Holloway was cleared to return and would make himself available to be the back up fighter if the UFC elected to do so. I am here to explore if this is actually a good idea or not.
I actually really like back up fighters. I think it is not only a good idea, but the story that goes into them is fun. The problem in situations like this is that the back up option is actually better or more interesting than the actual fight. We've seen this a couple of times in the past. Kamaru Usman was a back up before he got his initial title shot. Michael Chandler generated a lot of buzz as the back up for Khabib vs Gaethje. It wasn't the traditional back up, but Jorge Masvidal essentially served that role for what ended up being his first fight with Usman after Gilbert Burns tested positive for COVID. One danger of the back up is that they may be seen as the better or more worthy challenger and that is the potential situation the UFC finds themselves in with Max Holloway. Everyone wants to see Max more than the Zombie and he's viewed as the better fighter by a vast majority of fans. If Max weighs in and then doesn't fight, it could really overshadow the actual fight. In this case, I really don't think the juice is worth the squeeze. Volkanovski and Zombie both have a history of making weight consistently, so the back up isn't the most important spot for this specific fight. I wouldn't want to have a major story in the week leading up to the fight how the back up is what everyone actually wants to see.
With that said, I'm not one who really likes to complain without a potential solution, so I have one to propose. I still think having a back up is important just to preserve the main event incase anything went wrong. My first choice would probably be Calvin Kattar. I know he doesn't have the strongest resume in terms of recent win streak, but neither does Zombie. Even though the fight be sound a little disappointing on paper, Kattar is the type of fighter that will always put on an exciting performance, so the quality of the fight won't suffer with him in there. His name is hot right now after the fantastic performance he put forth against Giga and I would ride that momentum. If Kattar is unable to, Yair Rodriguez is an option too. If I'm being honest, I think Max is a better option than Yair because they just fought each other, so that would seem weird. I still really believe the UFC missed an opportunity by not giving Henry Cejudo more consideration, but clearly they're still not happy with him and its hard to blame them.
It's a short one today, but we're getting into UFC 271 stuff tomorrow, so be ready for that. Its a big week of fights coming up and I'm excited for it. What do you guys think? Should Max be the back up fighter? If not, who should it be? Leave any and all thoughts below. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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