Mailbag: Does a UFC 322 win instantly make Islam Makhachev one of MMA's all-time greats?

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Where would a win at UFC 322 put Islam Makhachev in terms of the all-time greats list? Why has it taken this long for referees to say they’ll actually enforce some of the rules about eye pokes and extended fingers? And if eye pokes can’t be helped in combat sports, why does sumo wrestling not have this problem?

All that and more in this week’s mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @BenFowlkesMMA.

@justlikelasagna: Oh boy, what a slobber knocker we have lined up this weekend. We've had a lot of double champ fights up to this point, but this one feels truly special. No hyperbole needed. Islam Makhachev is one of the GOAT's with this win. Right?

I mean, yes. Probably. You win titles in two UFC divisions, all while losing almost never, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’re up there in the high country. But that doesn’t mean there won’t still be those who try to puncture the Islam Makhachev balloon with the old strength of schedule argument.

Right now, the two most meaningful wins on Makhachev’s record are Charles Oliveira and Dustin Poirier. He submitted both of them, which is damn impressive by itself, since they are among the best lightweights of this era.

Outside of that, though? He squeaked by a much smaller man in the first fight with Alexander Volkanovski and then knocked him out in the rematch after "Volk" took the fight straight off the couch. Most recently he submitted Renato Moicano, who got one of those old "title shots of convenience" to hold UFC 311's fight card together. None of that is Makhachev’s fault, of course. He can only win the fights he’s given. But still.

Now he faces a new welterweight champion in Jack Della Maddalena, who we still don’t totally know what to make of yet. "JDM" also benefitted from something of an unexpected title shot. It’s just that he made the most of his. He’s never lost in the UFC, which, you literally can’t do any better than that. Clearly, he’s good. And I think he’ll be a tougher test for Makhachev than people expect. But if Makhachev wins, there will inevitably be those who say he beat a caretaker champion and not an established titleholder.

First, though, he has to win. "JDM" has some tools that could be a real problem for Makhachev. He just has to be able to shutdown Makhachev’s wrestling in order to have a chance to use them. One way or another, I think we’re going to know a lot about this matchup by the end of the first round.

@NeedXtoseePosts: Herb Dean saying that "we are going to enforce the rules that have been in place for years moving forward"

Is strange right, like why haven't they been enforcing them and why his he openly admitting they don’t

He’s not saying anything we didn’t already know. The prohibition on extended fingers has been a rule for years now. And occasionally you will hear referees ever so gentle reminding fighters of it during a bout. Those fighters often go on to poke the opponent in the eye anyway, and even then it’s unlikely to lead to any actual consequences the first time.

The problem is that refs don’t want to become a factor in these fights. They don’t want to insert themselves. They don’t want their point deductions to be the reason the fight went one way instead of another. It’s an understandable impulse — refs shouldn’t decide these fights; the fighters should — but what it inevitably means in practice is a sport that allows and even encourages cheating.

So we can make all the rules we want. If the enforcement isn’t there, so what? That’s why I think we need to stop leaving so much to the referee’s discretion. When there’s a slashing penalty in hockey, we don’t let the refs decide whether it should be a warning or two minutes in the box. You know the rules ahead of time. If you break them, there should be an automatic penalty. I’m not saying it will magically fix everything, but it’s a step in the right direction.

@GabeDert: Been watching the sumo tournament

Bare hand slapping and face pushing legal as

Nobody seems to be getting eye poked

Honour system at work here?

Hai

First of all, if you’re a fan of combat sports and you’ve never watched any sumo bashos, you should change that. It’s a great sport and a fascinating world with centuries of history and tradition behind it. A lot of the techniques are familiar to anyone who’s trained in any form of grappling. Plus the matches are fast and furious and you get these great tournaments where everybody faces everybody else and matchmaking isn’t ever really an obstacle. (For more help hyping your sumo fandom, I recommend this story and this Instagram account that serves up full match videos straight into your feed.)

As for your question, people do sometimes get poked in the eye in sumo, but it’s rare. Part of that is undoubtedly that the standard of conduct expected from these rikishi — in and out of competition — is much, much, much higher than what we expect from MMA fighters. They are heavily criticized for any moves seen as dirty or even just kind of cheap. A guy pumps his fist in celebration after winning a big match and he might have to issue an apology later. They simply cannot get away with stuff like eye-pokes, and they know it.

Also, we must admit that the action is very different and takes place at different ranges. MMA fighters often find themselves at arm’s reach distance from one another, where an outstretched finger might issue from an outstretched arm. Sumo wrestlers are basically never that far apart. There’s plenty of slapping and shoving to the head and face, but very little opportunity to dangle some fingers out there “inadvertently” and let your opponent walk into them.

@EyeofMihawk: Dana White claims he’s not that political. Is he just telling himself he’s only spoken at the Republican National Convention and constantly has right wing figures at UFC events because of his personal friendship with Trump? Does that give him a PUE? (Political Use Exemption)

I think Dana White is very much telling the truth, at least as he understands it. I don’t think he has any strong political convictions. I suspect that what we see as political support is really just an expression of self-interest. Why did he go so hard in support of Donald Trump? Because he thinks Trump can and will help him. And he’s been proven right about that.

If you look at the political support and contribution history of UFC owners over the years, you’ll see that self-interest is always the guiding light — not political ideology. When it seemed beneficial to support Democrats, they did that. When it seemed like Republicans would give them what they wanted, they did that.

Even when you see White on these podcasts where he’s talking about the role the government should play in our lives or the usefulness of protest in a democratic society, his view is really limited to his own personal experience. There’s not a broader world view at work there. There’s also not much empathy or imagination. He kept going during the pandemic by getting his mega-wealthy friends in Abu Dhabi to help him out, so he doesn’t understand why other people wouldn’t just do that instead of protesting in the streets. What are they, stupid or something?!?

He also suffers from a common rich guy syndrome, the symptoms of which include thinking that you know stuff just because you made a bunch of money in one specific industry. White will tell you himself, he doesn’t read. He’s not a very intellectually curious person. When he holds forth on all these cultural and political topics, it’s mostly because he assumes he must already know everything worth knowing. If he didn’t, how’d he get all this money?

@otfervin: It’s a topic you spoke on before but don’t you believe it’s really detrimental to give horrible people a platform when they have something coming up. Speaking about them is enough it’s no reason to platform them. Eg:Tate Conor 45/47

I think there’s a difference between giving someone a platform and conducting an interview with them. That line can get blurry in today’s attention economy wherein everyone is an influencer and nobody seems to feel that the tools of mass media come with any responsibility whatsoever. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

If someone is in the news and we’re all talking about them, it makes sense to talk to them as a journalist. The key thing to remember, though, is that you can’t let the subject decide what the interview or the story is about. If this person is mired in controversy, they need to be willing to address that controversy. If they’re not willing to do that, or they want to declare legitimately relevant topics off-limits, then forget it. But interviewing someone and asking them hard questions about the things that got people talking in the first place is not the same as giving them a free platform on which to sell their particular brand of snake oil.