Mailbag: Who is the biggest draw at UFC 315 in Montreal on Saturday?

Who (if someone) is the main draw at the UFC 315 in Montreal on Saturday? Who should be the next online in the UFC Bantamweight division? And why can't the PFL do more with signatories like Francis Ngannou and Jake Paul?

All this and more in this week's postal bag. To ask your own question, hit @benfowlkesmma Or @ benfowlkes.bsky.social.

@ Shadore66: who is the draw or co-reprimanded to convince people to remove $ 80 from their pocket and buy this PPV? Belal? Valentina? It is not because they have belts that their fights are worth 80 dollars, right?

It must be Belal Muhammad. Must be. Valentina Shevchenko has had a great career and deserves to be considered one of the best to do it in the female MMA, but at this stage, she could not move the needle with a bulldozer and 10 pounds of dynamite.

It is not me who tries to insult him as an fighter, you understand. Athletically, it is not quite what it was in the past (which is right, since it won the UFC fly weight title seven years ago), but it is still one of the big WMMA in terms of general achievements. It's just that people don't seem to worry about it at the moment. In a way, even as a champion, she feels like another fighter who disappears entirely from the conversation on Monday after each fight for each title and does not occupy any space in the minds of the fans until she presents herself again to weighing.

So that leaves Belal. The good news for the UFC 315 is, it is an interesting fight for several different reasons. On the one hand, I think that Muhammad always shows his cause to be taken seriously as a Welters weight champion, and skepticism tinged with disdain which some fans consider it could result in an interest in rooting for Jack Della Maddalena. I think this fight also has the potential to be a fairly funny confrontation of styles.

In addition, if Muhammad loses, he could shake not only the weighing weigh but also light. Many things can drive on the main Saturday event. And combat fans love these first indices of chaos.

@ Munabear007: as far as the next one at 135, which is more important a) Head to head: Yan beat Sandhant or b) Save the common opponents: Cory finished Figgy and has not lost against sugar or merab?

Choosing between these two options, I must say that the most important factor is the previous record against the champion. That is to say that Cory sandhage has the advantage simply because he has never fought Merab Dvalishvili or Sean O'malley, while Petr Yan lost the two. The UFC tends to prefer new clashes to reruns in title fights, and it helps even more than Sandhant has a recent victory and a finish in a main UFC Fight Night event.

But you know what tends to be the most important factor in these decisions, replacing all the others when the choice is even a bit close? Availability planning. Once the UFC has chosen a date on the calendar for a title Bantamweight UFC, whatever the guy won the phone and says yes first to date and specific location is probably the next challenger. The best sandman or yan can do it is to position yourself to be at the top of this call list.

@Needxtoseposts: Are we fans of MMA in danger of falling into the old trap of boxing of

“They have lost their 0, they must be washed / fraud”

It is always a risk in all combat sports. We are an excitable group. And there are relatively few real competitions to found our too large and totally certain conclusions. It's not like the NBA, where there will be another match tomorrow. It is not even like the NFL, where you only have to wait until next Sunday to see if your quarter-Arrière is really as terrible as everyone said when the stadium was deposited last weekend.

In MMA, 15 or 20 fights could easily be the entire UFC career. So, if you lose one, yes, it's a big problem and people will inevitably react. But not all losses (or victories) are also created.

In the case of Bo Nickal, I think we are looking at a young fighter who had had some of the holes of his game exhibited by a good opponent who was bigger and much more experienced than him. It is not a disaster. This is part of the growth process that many fighters are going through at the start of their career. It's just that they generally do not do it on ESPN in the co-principal event of a UFC combat evening.

Let us remember that Nickal is less than 10 fights in his professional career. Most of them have not exceeded a tour. Many of them have not exceeded a minute. It's really not much cage time. This loss to Reinier de Ridder shows us Nickal still has a lot to grow and learn to do before he is ready to be in these big fights, but that's good. He has time. We do not yet know everything we need to know about him as a fighter. Sometimes we just have to Remember that just because these fighters are on television, it does not necessarily mean that we see a finished project there.

@Ontologicaltaxi: the PFL has the linear heavyweight champion (Ngannou) and the highest profile boxer in the current era (Jake Paul). Why does their second place feel so much further from Strikeforce, or even Bellator 2015?

Whoa, there. I just can't let you come here and call Jake Paul the “highest boxer in the current era”. Absolutely not. He may have attracted a lot of attention during his last fight, but Mike Tyson and Netflix made a lot of heavy. His next fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. will not touch these viewers' numbers, so let's not stop.

But what I think you are here is something that many MMA promoters had to teach the hard. The opening of the portfolio and the signature of a great talent does only much for you. Indeed: a) This person cannot compete, at most, a few times per year, and, b) that the great talent still needs people to fight, or what does this matter?

If you have the best heavy goods vehicles in the world but your competitor has the entire rest of the division (or at least these precious souls who really count), you cannot arouse so much interest in a series of champion fights against TBA.

But really, the biggest problem is that the giant gulf in the notoriety of the brand. The UFC has spent years making its brand a greater star than any individual fighter. There are disadvantages defined to this (note the lack of UFC stars at the moment, which leaves a lot of events to feel like deliberately interchangeable for content), but the advantage is that competitors cannot gain ground easily simply by selecting free agent fighters.

@Worldsworsthero: What time is your nap?

As the father of two children, my nap game is quite strong. It must be. You do not browse the years of baby and toddler intact if you do not learn to take a little sleep each time an opportunity appears, but briefly.

I have given this question of the ideal nap a lot of consideration over the years. For me, the perfect nap window is from 2 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. – but please note that I absolutely do not say that you should take a nap for this full half hour. It would be a crazy gambit. You wake up groggy and useless rather than rested and refreshed. Worse, you could even spoil your sleep for tonight.

No, what you want to do is lie down for a nap a little time in this window, but to adjust an alarm so as not to sleep more than 10 to 13 minutes. If you are really tired, 15 minutes. But that's the maximum. More than that and you play with fire.

But a good 12-minute nap in these afternoon marasts when not much going on anyway? You can wake up energized and ready to do something with the rest of the day. It's perfect and I highly recommend it.

@Jedkmeshew: Your mailbag vs my mailbag column is the DDP vs RDR of MMA Media Mailbags?

I think it's more like Minowan vs Butterbean. In order to know who is who we must first determine which of us looks better in an ordinary red speedo.

@JMPROBUS: Why does RDR against Anthony Hernandez do so much?

I would look at that with certainty. Although I wonder if the UFC has a plan for Ridder, and if this plan may have changed after having had a great moment in the victory over Nickal.

“RDR” went on the microphone thereafter and called Sean Strickland, who, just in terms of profile, would probably do much more for him than a very hard fight but still a little under the radar against Hernandez “soft”. I think that De Ridder has many ingredients necessary to transform into a precious asset for the UFC at the average weight, where there is a need for fresh faces that people care about.

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