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The UFC is the world’s biggest MMA promotion and obviously, it’s their job to be able to sell the fights that they put on to the fans. Naturally, this means hyping fights up via countdown shows, pre-match videos, and the like.
How many times have we heard the likes of Joe Rogan, Jimmy Smith and Dana White himself selling fights as “the biggest fight in UFC history” or “fireworks guaranteed” and so on? It’d probably be impossible to count. Thankfully though, most of the time big UFC fights genuinely deliver.
Unfortunately though, sometimes big fights simply don’t live up to the pre-fight hype given to them by the UFC machine. Whether it’s because they were never likely to be good in the first place, or because they simply turned out to be a bad style match, the following 5 fights are examples of big UFC fights that were simply overhyped.
#1 CM Punk vs. Mickey Gall – UFC 203
When former WWE superstar CM Punk signed with the UFC in December 2014, it was practically a guarantee that his debut fight would be massively hyped by the promotion. After all, the last WWE crossover they’d signed – Brock Lesnar – had become one of the biggest draws in the history of MMA.
Punk though wasn’t quite cut from the same cloth as Lesnar, as he didn’t have the extensive amateur wrestling background that served Lesnar so well in the Octagon. And so we literally had to wait for years for the ‘Straight Edge Superstar’ to step into the cage.
During that time period the UFC were largely quiet around the future of Punk, but when it became known that he intended to debut in late 2016, the hype began. First, a fight between UFC newcomers Mickey Gall and Michael Jackson was put together with the idea being that the winner would face Punk.
Gall promptly won via first-round submission and essentially won a golden ticket to UFC stardom. His fight with Punk at UFC 203 was hyped massively, with the pay-per-view’s countdown show largely dedicated to the former WWE man’s transition into MMA, and despite a great-sounding main event between Stipe Miocic and Alistair Overeem, it was clear why most people were going to buy the show.
And then the fight happened, and Punk got stomped. He threw probably the worst punch in UFC history before being taken down, and from there Gall dominated him in the same way Royce Gracie dominated his foes in the early UFC shows – he mounted him, beat him up and then choked him out.
Any potential for Punk becoming a genuine contender in the UFC instantly went out of the window, and while Gall looked good, it was clear that he probably would never face such a poor opponent in his future UFC fights. This one-sided squash was a massive example of the UFC overhyping a fight.
#2 Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock – UFC 61
The feud between UFC stars Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock is undoubtedly one of the most important in promotional history. Beginning way back at UFC 19 when Ortiz beat Shamrock student Guy Mezger and then flipped Ken off, the bad blood culminated at UFC 40 – the Zuffa-era UFC’s first successful pay-per-view show – and the fight delivered hugely as Shamrock showed tremendous heart, but went down to Ortiz after the third round.
Nobody really needed to see a rematch some four years later, especially as Shamrock had lost his previous two fights in pretty bad fashion to Rich Franklin and Kazushi Sakuraba. But he was desperate for revenge and Ortiz was willing to oblige. And so the UFC’s hype machine kicked into overdrive.
The two men were announced as the coaches for the third season of The Ultimate Fighter – back when fans still cared about the show – and had slanging matches, pull-apart brawls, and even a strange game of pool to build their fight, which was scheduled for UFC 61.
By the time the show arrived, the fans had bought the hype, millions tuned in to watch and even UFC announcer Mike Goldberg was yelling about how it looked like Shamrock had some kind of secret gameplan that would allow him to defeat ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’.
But that wasn’t the case. Ortiz took Shamrock down with a body slam and began to hit him with heavy elbows from the guard. Referee Herb Dean decided Shamrock wasn’t defending, and the fight was stopped after just over a minute of action.
Worse was to come as Shamrock leapt to his feet to protest the stoppage, causing the crowd to rain boos down onto the Octagon. The first fight between the two was somewhat one-sided, but this was simply a mess, and it instantly deflated the massive hype going into the show – hype that probably shouldn’t have been warranted in the first place.
#3 Jon Jones vs. Chael Sonnen – UFC 159
One of the most hyped fights of 2013, Jon Jones vs. Chael Sonnen probably should never have been made in the first place. The origins were strange in themselves – essentially, Jones was set to fight Dan Henderson at UFC 151 with the Light-Heavyweight title on the line, but when Henderson went down with a knee injury, Sonnen offered to step in on around a week’s notice.
Jones flat out refused the late change and to Dana White’s chagrin, the whole card had to be cancelled. Jones went on to defend his title against Vitor Belfort a few weeks later, but his reputation was soiled – largely because of his refusal to fight Sonnen, a natural Middleweight who had no preparation time.
Due in no small part to Sonnen’s verbal abilities, the UFC quickly latched onto the angle that Jones was somehow afraid to fight ‘The American Gangster’, and promptly signed a fight between the two for early 2013. And naturally, they turned to their oldest trick – making the two men coaches of The Ultimate Fighter to build their feud.
The season was a pretty decent one and if nothing else, it enhanced Sonnen’s reputation as a potentially great coach. But despite providing a ton of hype, it couldn’t hide the truth – that the fight itself was a bit of a joke as it was likely to be one-sided in favour of Jones.
Sure enough, Jones smashed Sonnen in a simple fashion, taking him down with ease and ending the fight via TKO in the first round – despite suffering a gnarly broken toe in the process. But the hype had apparently done enough – the show sold 530,000 pay-per-view buys, becoming one of the more successful cards of 2013.
Still, the fans that ordered the show probably came away somewhat disappointed if they’d expected the war that the hype packages promised. This was a squash match masquerading as a piece of great matchmaking – verbal hype from Sonnen that didn’t pay off in the end.
#4 Georges St-Pierre vs. Nick Diaz – UFC 158
By the time 2013 came around, Georges St-Pierre had reigned over the UFC’s Welterweight division for some 5 years, making 7 successful title defences – a divisional record – in the process. It looked like surging contender Johny Hendricks would be next in line, but instead the UFC turned to a man who was supposed to fight GSP a little earlier – bad boy Nick Diaz.
The GSP/Diaz fight had fallen apart in 2011 due to a serious knee injury to St-Pierre, and Diaz had consequently lost to Carlos Condit and hadn’t fought since. But the fans wanted to see the fight, largely because the feeling was that Diaz would bring the fight to St-Pierre like few others had before.
Diaz had already talked a good game to build the initial fight – claiming GSP was scared of him – but by the time the hype for the clash began, even he seemed to see through it somewhat.
St-Pierre was actually the one talking more than ever – claiming that Diaz’s trash talk had taken him to a “dark place” and that he’d be more aggressive than before – but Diaz simply said that the UFC – and St-Pierre for that matter – were “selling wolf tickets”; in other words, overhyping the fight and the rivalry.
In the end, the fight wasn’t bad per say, but it certainly wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for GSP. ‘Rush’ simply used his usual tools – his tremendous takedowns, top control and jab – to outpoint Diaz over five rounds with little difficulty. But it wasn’t an angrier, “dark” GSP at all, and for all of his own talk, Diaz wasn’t massively aggressive too.
Had there been little hype coming in, the fight would’ve been decent. But due to all of the trash talk and the heavy promotion going in, it was hard not to be disappointed.
#5 Rashad Evans vs. Rampage Jackson – UFC 114
The disappointing fight between Rashad Evans and Rampage Jackson – which in hindsight, wasn’t as horrible as people made out at the time – is a curious case because the hype for it seemed to go into overdrive simply because the fans were made to wait for it for such a long time.
The feud between the two 205lbers began in early 2009 – Rampage defeated Evans’ teammate Keith Jardine and was then pegged to challenge Evans for the Light-Heavyweight title he held at the time. But in the interim, Evans lost his title to Lyoto Machida by knockout.
The UFC were still keen on making a Rampage/Evans fight, however, and decided to name them – you guessed it – coaches for the 10th season of The Ultimate Fighter. The plan worked, as it quickly became clear that the pair despised one another, and numerous confrontations happened throughout the season.
Unfortunately, though, Rampage decided to take a leave of absence from the UFC after the tapings had ended, and the idea of the big fight was shelved. In this instance though, the extended wait only made the rivalry between the two more bitter – and the fans even more desperate to finally see them square off.
When Rampage decided to return in 2010, the fight was immediately booked for UFC 114, and the hype went wild. Rashad called out Rampage for quitting the UFC as he’d quit in his PRIDE fights with Shogun Rua and Wanderlei Silva. Rampage went even further, labelling Rashad an ‘Uncle Tom’. And of course, Dana White promised an instant classic.
In the end, though, the fight was anything but. It started hot as Rashad nailed Rampage with a right hand that had him reeling, but in the end, it came down to Rashad’s wrestling and cardio being too much for a rusty Rampage to handle, despite a late comeback in the third round.
Rashad won a unanimous decision and was labelled a “dull fighter” while many fans considered Rampage washed up after his poor performance. Dana White seemed utterly disappointed with the whole thing, but really, after such a massive hype job anything but a Rocky style fight was always going to be a downer.
