Hot Tweets: Patricio Pitbull’s miscalculation, Keith Peterson’s mistake, and the UFC’s middleweight division

Hello, friends!

It was very busy in MMA last week with the UFC, PFL, and Bellator all hosting events. Jared Cannonier and Marvin Vettori delivered a shockingly fun middleweight main event, Sergio Pettis staved off Patricio Pitbull’s quest to become MMA first ever three-division champion, and referee Keith Peterson dropped the ball in a major way. Let’s talk about all of that plus Erin Blanchfield and the UFC’s summer schedule.

Yeaaaaaah. About that.

I’m often wrong about things in the MMA space — I make a lot of predictions, so that comes with the territory — but I friggin’ nailed Pitbull’s drop down to bantamweight and his fight with Sergio Pettis. Cutting down to a brand new weight class at 35 years old is extremely difficult. Not only do you have to deal with a much harder cut, and all that goes with it, acclimating to a new weight class takes time. The speed is different, the metagame is different. Everything is different. And having never done live reps there, the fighter himself is different, and has to learn on the fly.

Pitbull has had a speed advantage in every fight of his entire career… until Saturday. Pettis danced around him like Pitbull was moving through frozen molasses. That was brutal for Pitbull. Even worse was that the drop of in speed did not appear to bring with it an increase in power. So really, Pitbull gained nothing from dropping weight, he just lost one of his advantages. That’s less than ideal.

The idea that Pitbull was ever going to drop down to 125 was always a farce; the sort of nonsense thing people say to grab headlines. Now my question is does he stay at 135. Jose Aldo had a tough first fight down at bantamweight and then acclimated and became a top-five fighter. Pitbull could do the same. Or will he just return to his career weight class of featherweight and wait around for Sergio Pettis to bump up and try to take that belt from him? I could see this going any number of ways and I’m pretty interested to see which one happens.

I think this question is driving at the idea that middleweight is a “meh” division, comprised largely of fighters no one is particularly captivated by, and if we’re being honest, that’s true. Outside of Israel Adesanya and Robert Whittaker are there any other middleweights in the UFC that people are excited by? Chris Weidman, I guess? It’s a division dominated by two names at the top and not a ton of other big stars. 185 certainly isn’t anyone’s favorite division. And unfortunately, I think that’s just middleweight’s lot in life.

Heavyweight is a much worse division than middleweight, but the allure of heavyweights in general elevates them to a more significant place in public esteem. Light heavyweight is rancid, but its many years as the marquee division in the sport put it on a pedestal. And 170 and below have all been incredible for a really long time. Leaving middleweight sort of in the middle.

None of this is to say that middleweight is bad. It most certainly isn’t. It just doesn’t have cache at the moment. But ultimately, that doesn’t matter too much because it has a champion that is a star, a former champion that is beloved, and a bunch of dudes who are all solid. Those are all good pieces, and if you have enough good pieces, eventually good things happen. Just look at Saturday. Marvin Vettori is nobody’s idea of a thrilling fighter, and Jared Cannonier isn’t exactly Justin Gaethje either, but they gave us something really fun for 25 minutes. One fight won’t change an entire stigma, but it’s a start.

Let’s start here: Keith Peterson is not a very good referee. I don’t know that he’s a bad one, but he’s definitely not a good one. Despite what Jon Anik would have you believe, the man tolerates way too much nonsense when he has the call.

That being said, I’m willing to give him a pass for Saturday. Was it bad? Undeniably. There was no reason for Peterson to be so quick on the trigger for a guillotine choke, because if it goes a little long, it’s not going to seriously damage Ronnie Lawrence. Might as well be damn sure. BUT, Lawrence was in a tough position and his arm was raised like he was preparing to tap. I can see how Peterson thought maybe it had happened, and then when he grabbed Lawrence’s arm and Lawrence jerked away, he inadvertently did make the tapping motion. It’s not great, but like, I get it.

Refereeing is a difficult job. You’re tasked with the safety and well-being of people actively trying to injure one another, in a game that moves at warp speed. Sometimes, you’re going to make mistakes. You ever have a tough day at work, where doing your job is hard? We all have. And on Saturday, Keith Peterson had one. The reason I’m not here to rake him over the coals for it is because ultimately, it was an honest mistake and one that he owned up to immediately. That’s really all you can ask of someone when they screw up: to own it and apologize. Peterson did. It’s an annoying situation, but it is what it is.

Lastly, I want to discuss something else that people threw out in the wake of this snafu, and it was the idea that Peterson’s mistake screwed with the livelihoods of the fighters. That’s nonsense. Peterson isn’t to blame for the UFC’s draconian pay structure. Your ire belongs one place, and that’s the same place it belongs for anything like this: the corporate overlords. Dana White and the UFC could pay both fighters their bonuses, but they choose not to.

Of course Erin Blanchfield wants to go to bantamweight. But that’s another nonsense idea and one we should give no credence to. And deserve has nothing to do with it.

Erin Blanchfield is probably the best pound-for-pound female fighter in the world now that Amanda Nunes has retired. If she got the chance to fight Julianna Peña for the bantamweight belt, she would very likely win. But then what? Fight Holly Holm? Raquel Pennington? Bantamweight is a dying division and Blanchfield moving up would be akin to Nunes’ entire 145-run: activity for the sake of it.

Blanchfield is a natural flyweight and one who hasn’t won the belt yet. Unfortunately, she’s not going to get the chance for awhile because Valentina Shevchenko and Alexa Grasso are going to rematch at some point this year. That’s why Blanchfield wants Peña, because she knows she will have to wait to get her title and she’s impatient. That’s a terrible reason to let her do it.

Also, this idea that Blanchfield is drawing eyeballs is extremely optimistic. Nothing I’ve ever seen has made me believe Blanchfield is the next big star in MMA. She’s just the next amazing fighter. But Holly Holm vs. Julianna Peña for the title is a substantially more marketable fight.

I know it’s going to kill her, but Blanchfield just has to wait her turn at flyweight.

Nope. Because loaded schedules are not what the UFC does anymore. It hasn’t been for years.

I’m not here to beat a dead horse. “The UFC hasn’t made an effort to produce high end fight cards since signing their broadcast deal with ESPN and getting guaranteed money for quantity not quality” argument has been made enough. It is what it is. This is just the world we live in now. And so while yes, we do traditionally think of the UFC’s summer run as a series of awesome events highlight by a sensational International Fight Week card, the truth is we haven’t gotten that in a while.

I went back and checked and here is a rough accounting of the past three summers (June and July), starting with 2020.

2022: 9 events, 6 title fights, 24 other marquee matchups (loosely defined as fights that could reasonably headline an APEX show).

2021: 8 events, 2 title fights, 14 other marquee matchups (including the Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier trilogy bout).

2020: 8 events, 5 title fights, 16 other marquee matchups.

And this year, as it currently stands looks like this:

2023: 9 events, 4 title fights (including the BMF title), 18 other marquee matchups.

That’s pretty much the standard nowadays. The International Fight Week card will always be at least a little bigger, with a few more good fights on it, but everything else is going to stay the same. There are only so many stars and so many titles in the promotion, and when you have to deliver 42 events a year to get that sweet, sweet ESPN money, you’re not going to be able to stack cards. Instead it’s Contender Series talent all the way down.

Thanks for reading, and thank you for everyone who sent in Tweets! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck, because you can send your Hot Tweets to me, @JedKMeshew, and I will answer my favorite ones! Doesn’t matter if they’re topical or insane, just so long as they are good. Thanks again and see y’all next week.