Anthony Johnson Vs. Jimi Manuwa. Why?
What is the idea behind this match-up?
Anthony Johnson looked amazing in his last three victories, overcoming the high-level wrestling of Phil Davis and destroying Rogerio Nogueira and Alexander Gustafsson – all top level Light-Heavyweights, and then looked very good against Daniel Cormier, knocking him down in the first round before succumbing to his overall superior game. I think everybody is very interested in seeing him face some other top light-heavyweight at this point.
Jimi Manuwa has looked pretty good up until a few fights ago, but he hasn’t looked devastatingly good. He then lost to Gustafsson, and won a boring decision against top-20 (at the time) Blachowicz. What has he done to deserve such a highly ranked opponent as Johnson? And this is not the first time: Manuwa got Gustafsson when Gustafsson was the top contender slated to rematch Jon Jones after their close fight. It was a very strange match-up then, even though he was undefeated at the time, and it’s a stranger match-up now, after his last two unimpressive performances.
What will the MMA world gain from this fight? If Johnson would win, as he is expected to, everything would remain the same as it is now. Johnson would remain the number one contender; Manuwa would remain where he is ranked, and nothing would change. I suppose this could be a tune-up fight for Johnson for another shot at Daniel Cormier, but do we really want to see that rematch so quickly? Cormier beat him pretty definitively, and they both have many other top level opponents they haven’t faced, so why make this rematch now? This couldn’t be a tune-up fight for Johnson to face Jon Jones, because when ‘Bones’ returns he would obviously rematch Cormier for the undisputed title.
If Manuwa would win that would be a huge surprise, but would it be a good surprise? Anthony Johnson looked great in his last four fights. Everybody wants to see him against other top competition. If he were to lose to Jimi Manuwa, we might lose out on all these potentially interesting fights. He may not fight again for a long time, and he would lose the momentum he has now and the hype surrounding him. That would be a big loss for the UFC and the light heavyweight division.
If Manuwa would beat Johnson, it would most likely be through his superior technique, which might not make for the most exciting fight – probably ending in a decision for Manuwa. So then we would get a less exciting fighter instead of the more exciting one. The best case scenario is if Manuwa wins by KO, and even then we would still lose the exciting Johnson for a while.
There is definitely a good chance of this fight being a good, exciting fight. Technique vs. power, but there are many other potential match-ups that would make more sense ranking-wise.
I think much more reasonable match-ups would be Johnson against Texeira and Manuwa vs OSP, instead of the Texeira vs OSP fight which just happened. Manuwa and OSP are both up and coming fighters, who fumbled a little bit (Manuwa in his last two fights, OSP against Bader), and they didn’t seem to be ready for the elite level of competition, but they are definitely good enough for each other. Whoever would have won that fight would have gotten a Top 10 opponent. Johnson vs Texeira would be a very interesting fight of two powerful strikers, which wouldn’t hurt either of their standings. If Johnson loses to Manuwa, or if Texeira had lost for the third time in a row to OSP (which could have definitely happened) it could be devastating for them. But if Johnson lost to Texeira or vice versa, it would not be so bad, because they are both near top of the division.
So that’s why I’m not very excited about this fight (even though, like I said, it could be a pretty entertaining one), which makes this Pay-Per-View pretty lame for me.