UFC 156 served as a lesson for long-term planning in the fight game. Two anticipated mega fights that hinged upon a particular set of results were incinerated for the foreseeable future and may never materialize. Rashad Evans and Alistair Overeem had one task: to win.
Instead, Evans treated fans to a fifteen-minute exhibition of fakes and faints. At the same time, Antonio Silva flipped the script and made Overeem pay the price for taking him lightly using the currency of a devastating knockout. A boulevard of broken dreams has thrown water onto a fire that was supposed to signal the year of the mega-fight.
Anderson Silva will probably end up fighting Chris Weidman, and Cain Velasquez will either have to wait for a new contender to emerge or fight Antonio Silva, whom he literally beat to a bloody pulp the first time they fought in the summer. Both of those fights are lackluster and have little box office appeal.
When the dust settles and the smoke clears, fights like Overeem vs. Silva make Vince McMahon happy; his stuff is fake.
Ben Fowlkes of MMA Junkie.com, wrote an outstanding piece about the downside of MMA booking in regards to Alistair Overeem’s loss at UFC 156 titled Bigfoot and The Reem: A Cautionary Tale
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