It’s pretty obvious at this point, people need to understand it clearly extends beyond the actual fights though. Someone like Jared Gordon is easy to screw over, but at the higher level more shrewd tactics must be employed.
it’s in the negotiations, fight schedules, mind games and bs to keep certain fighters in limbo, etc. We saw this recently when Aljo fought 5 rounds with Henry then right after fights Sean with hardly enough time to actual develop a game plan, gets stopped and runs right into the punch.
The UFC wouldn’t offer certain guys a fight right after they just fought a five round war, they would protect their lucrative investment and wait to increase his/her odds of victory. One way you can sway a fight result is to make sure one fighter is obviously less prepared than the other, and because fighters can’t just turn down a fight offer without bs like potential contract extensions, that’s why you have someone like Aljo accept a fight on a horrible timeline.
As soon as Ngannou put up resistance to the UFC, he was immediately shit on and the UFC quickly found his replacement (Gane), it was so obvious through the promotion that they specifically picked Gane to be Ngannou’s toughest fight and potential loss.