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I was never a big fan of bullying Demetrious into having to take the Dillashaw fight, but in retrospect he may have severely hurt his legacy as well as his pockets.
If you are someone as small as Demetrious who clearly doesn't have the biggest following it's always a dangerous game to "play it safe". The longer you stay at 125lbs and pick off mediocre challenger after mediocre challenger, the anticipation and demand for a big step up in competition grows, people want to see a challenge for DJ. Beating one guy after another had his resume growing slowly but surely and he of course was cashing cheques as he went, but with that said you're always missing the opportunity to take your status to the next level when you continue to fight no-namers.
Like think about it, imagine if DJ went up and fought TJ and actually beat him, just imagine that!? Let's say he finished him, or even if he didn't do that but instead won a 5 round war, how great would that have been for his legacy? Now of course you always have the risk of going up there and just being wiped by TJ, end up looking like you're not even in his class for example, but perhaps that roll of the dice would have been worth it - even with a loss.
You now look at the spectrum and it's all kind of backfired. The whole P4P greatest talk has just disappeared overnight, not even the most avid DJ fan is claiming that nonsense anymore. See that's what hurts you in this sport with the true fans, we know that title defenses don't mean shit, it's just a shiny stat on a piece of paper, the fight game is about WHO you fight at the end of the day. Shogun and Hendo have losses galore but will probably be above DJ in my all-time list because their level of competition has always been better than Bagautinov, Cariaso, Moraga, McCall etc. We can sit around like hipsters and act like these guys are elite fighters but they just aren't - even his biggest foil John Dodson is 20-10 right now, becoming a mediocre fighter in his own right.
Demetrious is staring down the barrel of not getting an immediate rematch with Henry. He's 32 and has been around for a long, long time, who knows where his career and health goes from here, the injury bug may begin to set in, who knows? It's very plausible that DJ fights someone like Formiga, walks through them and then gets a rematch with Cejudo - but then what!? Imagine he loses again!? Then how will his story be told 10 years from now? Let's say he wins, what does that do? He's gone around in a big circle to be back at square one and be top of a mountain that nobody really cares for.
Greatest Flyweight of all-time, but that isn't all that important of a title in MMA unfortunately. We've not seen enough 125lb fighters at this juncture to even celebrate that claim. It's like saying that Joanna was the greatest 115lb women's fighter ever, and then what happened, 2 losses to Rose, world thrown upside down. I understand that Demetrious wanted to gamble on himself and not go up for Cruz or Dillashaw unless it was for big bucks, but those demands are going to be a lot less entertained now with no belt.
Did DJ screw up guys?
If you are someone as small as Demetrious who clearly doesn't have the biggest following it's always a dangerous game to "play it safe". The longer you stay at 125lbs and pick off mediocre challenger after mediocre challenger, the anticipation and demand for a big step up in competition grows, people want to see a challenge for DJ. Beating one guy after another had his resume growing slowly but surely and he of course was cashing cheques as he went, but with that said you're always missing the opportunity to take your status to the next level when you continue to fight no-namers.
Like think about it, imagine if DJ went up and fought TJ and actually beat him, just imagine that!? Let's say he finished him, or even if he didn't do that but instead won a 5 round war, how great would that have been for his legacy? Now of course you always have the risk of going up there and just being wiped by TJ, end up looking like you're not even in his class for example, but perhaps that roll of the dice would have been worth it - even with a loss.
You now look at the spectrum and it's all kind of backfired. The whole P4P greatest talk has just disappeared overnight, not even the most avid DJ fan is claiming that nonsense anymore. See that's what hurts you in this sport with the true fans, we know that title defenses don't mean shit, it's just a shiny stat on a piece of paper, the fight game is about WHO you fight at the end of the day. Shogun and Hendo have losses galore but will probably be above DJ in my all-time list because their level of competition has always been better than Bagautinov, Cariaso, Moraga, McCall etc. We can sit around like hipsters and act like these guys are elite fighters but they just aren't - even his biggest foil John Dodson is 20-10 right now, becoming a mediocre fighter in his own right.
Demetrious is staring down the barrel of not getting an immediate rematch with Henry. He's 32 and has been around for a long, long time, who knows where his career and health goes from here, the injury bug may begin to set in, who knows? It's very plausible that DJ fights someone like Formiga, walks through them and then gets a rematch with Cejudo - but then what!? Imagine he loses again!? Then how will his story be told 10 years from now? Let's say he wins, what does that do? He's gone around in a big circle to be back at square one and be top of a mountain that nobody really cares for.
Greatest Flyweight of all-time, but that isn't all that important of a title in MMA unfortunately. We've not seen enough 125lb fighters at this juncture to even celebrate that claim. It's like saying that Joanna was the greatest 115lb women's fighter ever, and then what happened, 2 losses to Rose, world thrown upside down. I understand that Demetrious wanted to gamble on himself and not go up for Cruz or Dillashaw unless it was for big bucks, but those demands are going to be a lot less entertained now with no belt.
Did DJ screw up guys?
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