The best and worst from UFC 231: Holloway vs. Ortega

#2 Worst: Did Dawodu vs. Bochniak belong on a pay-per-view card?

Did Hakeem Dawodu vs. Kyle Bochniak really belong on a PPV main card?

As far as I’m aware – the system works differently in the UK for now at least – a UFC pay-per-view in the USA costs somewhere around $65 to order. That isn’t a small amount of money by anyone’s standards. If the UFC expect fans to pay that kind of money, they should provide them with the best fighters on the pay-per-view portion of the card. Which begs the question, why was Hakeem Dawodu vs. Kyle Bochniak on Saturday’s main card?

It’s not that the fight was awful – it was perfectly acceptable MMA if not a barnburner – but neither man is ranked near the top ten of the 145lbs division right now and judging on Saturday they’re not likely to be any time soon. Dawodu won a unanimous decision, but it was a largely pedestrian performance and for Bochniak, it marked his 4th loss in 6 UFC fights.

On the preliminary card meanwhile we had #14 ranked Middleweight Elias Theodorou against Eryk Anders, who recently main evented a Fight Night card; and fights between the #3 and #9 ranked female Flyweights and between the #3 and #11 Strawweights. Why could one of these fights between proven, top-ranked fighters not have been placed on the main card?

Granted, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference in terms of fight quality, but for the paying customer, surely the more ranked fighters that are on a pay-per-view card, the better. Weak fights on the pay-per-view portion of shows have become too common in 2018 and this needs to stop going forward.