Why UFC 198 Is the Card Brazilians Have Been Waiting For

Brazil has long yearned for a big, showcase UFC event since the promotion returned to the country in August 2011 at UFC 134 in Rio de Janeiro.

That was the first UFC show in Brazil's city of glamour—the country's second after UFC Brazil: Ultimate Brazil (or UFC 17.5) which took place in the country's most populous city of Sao Paolo back in 1998.

In the five years since the UFC's return to Brazil, they have had 23 events spanning cities such as the aforementioned Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo—as well as Goiania, Porto Alegre, Barueri, Uberlandia, Brasilia, Natal, Jaragua do Sul, Belo Horizonte and Fortaleza. Brazilians have both praised and derided some of the UFC's choices of location, given their lack of history or apparent interest in MMA or those cities' relative isolation in such a large country.

For instance, where are the events in Salvador or Curitiba? These are Brazil's third and eighth most populous cities respectively and both have big-name Brazilian fighters to hail from each conurbation.

Of those 23 events, just seven were UFC pay-per-view shows. Bearing in mind the fact you can comfortably hold PPV events in Brazil given their relatively insignificant time zone differences with the USA, this is a surprisingly low figure.

Brazil's smattering of Fight Night cards have been filled to the brim with local up-and-comers with the bill topped by a big Brazilian name against an American or European opponent. Brazilians, like the Europeans, have complained their UFC shows are too geared towards nationalism/regionalism and would like to see the UFC's top stars—not just those who hail from the same area as the fans in the stands.

It makes sense from a business perspective. How else can you build stars if a fighter's own countrymen and women aren't willing to buy into what you're selling? But, these kind of events do not always appease the fans that pay on the doors.

Simply, Brazil has long been yearning for a marquee event to mark a nation that has long been at the forefront of mixed martial arts—and UFC 198 looks set to gratify and satisfy those in Brazil as well as put paid to any thoughts of the UFC neglecting one of their most important regions.

UFC 198 will be taking place in both Curitiba and a football stadium—a city and a venue that has been a long time coming. After all, Curitiba has produced MMA greats such as Anderson Silva, Mauricio "Shogun" Rua, Cristiane "Cyborg" Justino and Wanderlei Silva: the former three of which will all feature on this very card. Given Brazil's plethora of state of the art football stadia – most of which were borne out of the 2014 FIFA World Cup along with the country's existing soccer structures—it's bizarre that it took this long to host a UFC event at a Brazilian football stadium.

As well as having a surfeit of top fighters to hail from the city, Curitiba happens to be the most populous city of Brazil's South Region and is a significant cultural, political and financial hub of Latin America. Arena de Baixada—home of Clube Atletico Paranaense and the venue for May 14th's event—has a 40,000-seat capacity and holds the distinction of being the whole continent of South America's first stadium to have a retractable roof: key to holding a combat sports event as significant as this.

UFC 198 signals the fourth time the organization has held an event in a stadium following UFC 129 (Toronto and the province of Ontario's first ever UFC show) in the Rogers Centre, UFC on FOX: Gustafsson vs. Johnson at Stockholm, Sweden's Tele2 Arena and UFC 193 (the UFC's first ever event in Melbourne and the state of Victoria) in the Etihad Stadium—who bore witness to Ronda Rousey's dethroning as women's bantamweight champion against Holly Holm. This fourth occasion proves the significance of UFC 198 in this region and the wider MMA landscape.

Yesterday's announcement that Cyborg will be making her promotional debut against Leslie Smith at UFC 198 is a far cry from the card's humble beginnings.

UFC 198 was originally announced as yet another Fight Night event for Brazil, though the headlining bout between Vitor Belfort and Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza was a sure-fire classic. That fight has been retained for this card and the event seemed to snowball ever since.

This event is one of the rarities that actually benefited from a string of injuries. A crocked Cain Velasquez pulled out of his rematch against Fabrico Werdum ahead of the originally-planned UFC 196 show. Croatian-American heavyweight Stipe Miocic offered to step up on short notice to face Werdum and save that aforementioned event, but Werdum pulled out of the show citing injury himself—thus leaving the card without its marquee event worthy of pay-per-view status, rendering it a free-to-air Fight Night show.

That match-up between Werdum and Miocic now serves as UFC 198's headliner for the heavyweight title, following the middleweight title fight eliminator between Jacare and Belfort.

Those two fights alone are worthy of propping up a respectable UFC PPV fight card, but there's Anderson Silva vs. Uriah Hall, Shogun vs. Corey Anderson, Demian Maia vs. Matt Brown, Cyborg vs. Leslie Smith and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (Little Nog) vs. Patrick Cummins. That's not mentioning the competitive undercard featuring the likes of Jon Lineker, Francisco Trinaldo and Sergio Moraes.

Sure, UFC 198—like all other Brazilian shows—is jam-packed with talent to hail from Terra do Brasil, but this event showcases the best fighters of a country that is teeming with the greatest MMA talents, both past and present, in competitive match-ups which have grand implications for their respective weight classes. That's all you can ask for in a UFC show.