I guess what I’m saying is that I just get the impression that both Conor and Weidman being UFC posterchildren, there may have been some pressure on the refs. - I don’t mean money pressure but just psychological pressure - to finish the Conor/Aldo fight earlier than it should have, and to let Weidman be battered longer than he should have.
I’m not squeamish about blood at all, I understand that a lot of the time it doesn’t signify serious injury; but I agree with Zuwadza, that to my mind Weidman wasn’t intelligently defending himself long before it was finally called, actually in his first battering. Whereas with Aldo I felt that he hadn’t really been that badly injured - he had obviously blacked out for a sec, but a momentary blackout is hardly a KO. He didn’t seem disoriented when he was on the ground immediately after Conor’s hammerfist, and in fact looked like he was starting to get into a position to defend himself at that point. Also, he didn’t seem disoriented when he was talking to the ref immediately after the call. Given he was the defending champion, he should have been cut more slack. But Aldo is ugly and dull, whereas Conor is handsome and charismatic.
Whereas with Weidman, it was the opposite problem - I felt he was given too much slack. (And looks-wise, while I suppose you could say Rockhold’s reasonably good looking, Weidman’s definitely got that All-American look to him.)
It’s inevitable that UFC is going to prefer pretty people to front the sport, but they should still be absolutely rigid in putting the sport itself as a test of combat skills first. That sense of authenticity is the whole reason the UFC got going in the first place, and if they lose that USP, people will lose interest - or, the UFC will turn into theatre, like most professional combat sports eventually do.
(I’m not claiming that these were works, not by a long chalk, not yet. But it’s a slippery slope. And in a way, it’s kind of inevitable that professional combat sports are going to eventually descend into theatre - at some point money, safety, etc., are going to trump the idea of “who’s going to win in a fair fight?” After all, who in their right mind would actually want to be battered to fuck for a living? And eventually, a lot of these people tend to know each other and be friends - who’d want to batter their friend to fuck for a living?)
