There was a lot of stock invested in UFC 326. Two of the hottest fighters in the sport today, Max Holloway and Charles Oliveira, were set to engage in a highly anticipated BMF clash. Raul Rosas Jr. got his toughest test yet in the Octagon in Rob Font. Gregory “Robocop” Rodrigues is seeking revenge for one of his losses. There will be four fights on CBS. This is UFC’s first appearance on the channel.
And now, 12 hours after the card expired, many people agree. UFC 326 was a huge disappointment.
Obviously, most of the fan complaints are directed at the main event. What many expected to be a five-round war ultimately ended in a one-sided victory for Oliveira, who swept all five rounds on the scorecards to claim the BMF belt.
The BMF wars we’ve seen in the past have been stand-and-bang wars where striking dominates the Octagon. Take a look at the names that fought for the belt before last night. Jorge Masvidal, Nate Diaz, Dustin Poirier, Justin Gaethje, Holloway. Both BMF title fights ended in dramatic knockouts. Three of them ended up being finishes.
Now, I’m not going to say Oliveira should have traded for 25 minutes with Holloway. That might have been Holloway’s ticket to get him into the Shadow Realm. Grappling is Oliveira’s strength and he used that strength to win. There was no finish, but it’s hard to finish Holloway. There are only two people who have done that: Poirier (when a young Holloway made his UFC debut in 2012) and Ilya Topuria.
But when the BMF belt is on the line, the MMA community has expectations. If this had been an interim lightweight title fight, everyone would have been talking about Oliveira’s dominance and how this would be like the Oliveira of the late 2010s until the title run ends in 2022. But expectations derailed the main event.
The problem isn’t just about Oliveira’s landslide victory.
While this wasn’t an issue due to the nature of the main event, having the stream crash for several minutes in the third round was not ideal. And if it had been finalized, pitchforks and torches would have been all over social media.
Rosas Jr. earned the biggest win of his career against the tough and tough Rob Font. But the results were not very good. Like Oliveira, Rosas Jr. also used grappling, but seemed to focus only on positioning and not take any hard action against it. The UFC has a rocket on him and will be selective about who he faces. Because this game wasn’t like that.
UFC Freedom 250, a White House card, should be a fun, star-filled night, but some felt the reveal was lacking.
Four fights on CBS… I still don’t understand why they did two prelims and two main card matches when they could have shown the entire prelims or the entire main card. It felt awkward.
The CBS audience saw two highlights: Rodriguez knocking out Bruno Ferreira and Drew Dover knocking out Michael Johnson. It’s a shame that the Dober-Johnson fight brought us yet another betting line controversy.
And what of the two preliminaries that CBS viewers saw? Neither is impressive. Highly rated Donte Johnson has lost much of his prospect aura. Highlights of Cody Garbrandt vs. Xiao Long saw Garbrandt take repeated low blows and vomit into a bucket. Long lost two points attempting a “holloway point” and looked like a fool for making his own decisions in the process.
Criticism of UFC 326 wasn’t limited to the format of Holloway vs. Oliveira. A lot of the things on the card were disappointing, unmemorable or bad.
And for a card where the UFC had a BMF fight, featured top prospects, revealed a White House card, and had the first UFC fight on CBS, fans deserved much better compensation than they got.
