This article originally appeared on FIGHTLAND.
The fight game is all about questions. After all, when there seem to be no challengers left to fight, no questions left to answer, people get bored. But it seems as though UFC 208 has people asking all the wrong questions. Why is one of the top contenders for the middleweight title, Ronaldo 'Jacare' Souza, fighting the sub top-ten ranked Tim Boetsch, and why did it take Souza placing a fake Craigslist advertisement searching for an opponent to get even this fight booked? Why is #3 ranked Glover Teixeira taking on Jared Cannonier? Why is Wilson Reis, a man deemed worthy of challenging for Demetrious Johnson's flyweight title just a few months ago (before Johnson pulled out with an injury), stillfighting in half empty arenas on the undercard against an opponent with a 1-2 record dating back to 2014? The most important question of all, however, is what is going on with this main event?The idea of a women's featherweight division already hurts the heads of some fans. There aren't many top quality fighters who could reasonably compete at that weight, and even less who can't actually make the bantamweight limit. Hell, the second best women's featherweight of all time and the name that legitimises Cris 'Cyborg' Justino's record is Marloes Coenen, who has quite easily made bantamweight throughout her career. It seems like this title is just plugging the star-shaped holes in the UFC's pay-per-view schedule with more silverware. What makes it more bizarre is that the aforementioned Cyborg Justino, the consensus number one in the world at featherweight and the apparent reason for this division's existence, isn't involved in the title fight. Instead we have Germaine de Randamie vs. Holly Holm. Germaine de Randamie fights on undercards and has amassed a 3-1 record. That loss came to the great Amanda Nunes, the victories came over opponents who boast a combined UFC record of 0-6. And Holly Holm? She's a particularly strange case.Read more on VICE Sports.
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