UFC White House came and went, and regardless of where you sit politically, the event certainly delivered talking points. Almost a week after UFC White House wrapped, and we’re still talking about the fallout from arguably the biggest UFC event of all time.
But as we’re about to turn the corner towards other UFC events, and the road to UFC 329 and Conor McGregor’s return looms, let’s put a bow on the UFC White House card by touching on all the big things.
Ilia Topuria
Can Ilia recover from this loss? I know he
can recover physically, but I’m wondering if he can recover mentally. His entire game and trash talk revolves around him as being this unbeatable force and now that he has been beaten like this…..I wonder if that can be recaptured? I feel confident it won’t be easily accepted by fans if he decides to continue with the overly cocky approach as before, but I wonder if HE needs that cockiness to succeed?
Immediately after Gaethje pulled off the upset against Topuria, this was one of my biggest questions, for some of the reasons listed here. Topuria is incredibly talented, but especially in his past few fights, his game has sort of distilled down into a singular focus on KOing people and a massive amount of arrogance. And sometimes when a confidence fighter loses, it rattles them irrevocably — just as Mike Tyson.
But, in the days since UFC White House, Topuria has carried himself exactly how you would want a fighter to after suffering such a loss. Unlike other fighters who lost at UFC White House, Topuria owned up to everything, congratulating Gaethje for backing up his talk and admitting he got whooped. It’s a level of humility that suggests this will be a setback for Topuria and not a total disaster.
Ultimately, this feels like a loss that was inevitable for Topuria. As he rose up the ranks, he was almost too successful and started fighting a little more recklessly than he did earlier in his career, because it kept working out. Like Gaethje’s first losses in the UFC, Topuria finally met someone who could withstand his offense, and now he’ll go back to the lab and approach his future fights a little more responsibly and a little more tactically. It’s gonna make him a serious problem for all his future opponents.
Alex Pereira
What’s the path for Poatan from here?
Apparently, the answer is “crash out publicly about losing.”
In contrast to Topuria’s respectful, humble acceptance of losing a fight, Poatan has gone ham in public about losing to Gane. And if it were just Poatan complaining about illegal blows to the back of the head, that might be more tolerable, but Pereira is just straight up being a sore loser.
Earlier this week, Pereira put out his response video where he called the punch that dropped him a lucky jab, which is laughable. He then complained about the illegal strikes from Gane — which is fair, he was fouled — but he followed that up by alleging that he was on his way to winning the fight and Gane was gassing. That is stone delusional. No one watching that fight thought Pereira was winning, and while he could have turned things around, when you refuse to acknowledge basic things like “that was a good punch that dropped me” and “I was losing before I got dropped, it was a hard fight,” it makes it seem like your complaints about the illegal shots aren’t entirely earnest.
I think Pereira is entitled to feel a little hard-done-by, but this is also something that happens to a ton of fighters during flurries in this sport, and most other fighters don’t get this up in arms about it. Many in the comments will not agree, but this is a very bad look to me.
Personally, I’d like to see Poatan just take the loss on the chin and move on. No one thinks less of him for it, and he’s still in the mix for a title shot because he’s famous, and heavyweight is trash. A fight with Josh Hokit seems perfect to position him back near the top of the division and get some good mojo back.
Moving Up
Is it fair to say one take-away from Freedom 250 is that going up a weight-class remains freaking difficult? re: Alex & Ilia.
I don’t think so.
Topuria had already moved up to lightweight and had a KO win over a top contender. He was the champion of the weight class, and looking at him, he did not appear to be a man who could return to 145 pounds easily. He simply lost to a guy who was extremely well-prepared and presented a set of skills Topuria had never faced before.
Pereira, meanwhile, was bigger than Gane and did not lose that fight because of any size disparity anyway. He lost because he fought an elite striker who has never lost a striking match in the UFC, and who fought him in a way that Pereira has historically struggled with.
The takeaway is that styles make fights, and high-level fighters who are well-prepared for specific opponents are hard as hell to defeat. It’s why defending a title is the hardest thing to do in this sport. You’re always getting the best effort from an opponent, and that opponent has planned specifically to take you one. It’s a really hard thing to do.
Daniel Cormier’s Twitter controversy
Can you please do a deep dive on the whole DC DM stuff. Journalists need to hammer this nail until it’s bent out of shape and the truth comes out.
So, I can’t do a “deep dive” because there’s just not much to dive into. We have very few facts, and no reliable way to get any more. Also, I don’t consider myself a journalist, for the record.
Here is the one thing I know to be true: Daniel Cormier’s Twitter account sent out a message alleging DMs from Eric Trump asking about fixed fights. That’s the only hard fact we have. We don’t know whether the alleged DMs in that Tweet are real or not, whether Cormier sent the Tweet, or anything else. Anything beyond the first bit is speculation.
But, if I were inclined to speculate, I believe that Cormier’s version of events — wherein he alleges he was hacked and none of this is real — is the truth. For one, subsequent Tweets out of Cormier’s account that night seemed suspicious. But the biggest reason — and perhaps this is rude, but it’s my personal feelings on the matter — is why would Cormier do it?
IF Cormier was really DM’d by Eric Trump asking for inside information or fight fixing, why would he then post about it? It’s not like Cormier has ever shown any animosity towards the Trump family, so unlikely he’d be doing it as a political maneuver. And at the bare minimum, that would draw the ire of the President of the United States, who is close friends with his boss, and also THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. More likely, it creates a firestorm that he’s in the center of, and I’m sorry, but that doesn’t seem like something DC would be interested in. If that did happen, I’m more likely to think he’d either just brush it off and ignore it, or maybe go to Dana White about it.
Also, why would Eric Trump be reaching out to DC for this information? He’s Dad, and to some extent he, is friends with Dana White. He could simply ask Dana in person.
So, yeah, it’s not the salacious answer that some want, but, to me, the simplest answer is that Cormier got hacked and the DMs aren’t real. And if you were someone looking to stir up some online shit, the UFC White House event with one of the Trump children involved is probably the perfect combination of factors to do the most you can.
What’s Next?
Now that you can put the White House card behind you, what absolute bufoonery do you think this sport will concoct next?
I don’t know, but I’m excited to see. A couple of years ago, we had the Sphere event, and that was unique and cool. Now we’ve had the White House event. The common denominator in both of those is that nobody saw them coming. And whatever the next big weirdo event is, I suspect it will be the same. It’ll be something no one ever considered before.
Fights in space is too far off, but that could be a thing at some point in the far-off future. Holding events at other iconic monuments is perhaps too obvious. AI fights seem like an inevitability. Any/all of those would be extremely silly and totally possible.
But if I had to guess, I think the next big UFC event that feels very, very stupid but will be huge, would be something simpler, like a fight between non-fighters. There was the briefly discussed Zuck v. Musk fight at the Colisseum, but that was never really going to happen. However, something like that feels like it’s in play when two extremely famous people let their egos run away with them, and the UFC sees an opportunity to capitalize.
Personally, I’m rooting for Eric Trump vs. Hunter Biden.
Thanks for reading, and thank you to everyone who sent in questions! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck, because every week I put a prompt into The Feed for your questions. Fire them into there, and I’ll answer the best ones in the Mailbag, and try to get to the rest in the responses.
