There have been several competitors over the years that the Ultimate Fighting Championship has kept around longer than they deserved. Sam Alvey might be the most prominent case, given that he closed out his UFC run by going nine straight appearances without a win. Almost every event features at least one fighter who could be on the chopping block. That distinction falls on Ode Osborne at UFC 306 on Sept. 14 at The Sphere in Las Vegas. The Waukesha MMA product owns a middling 4-5 record inside the Octagon and enters his flyweight showcase opposite Ronaldo Rodriguez on the heels of back-to-back submission losses to Asu Almabaev and Jafel Filho. Osborne’s margin for error appears to have grown perilously thin.
Then there are those the UFC kept around, even when it would have been justified in cutting them lose. A look at five such examples and how the company reaped the benefits of its restraint:
Advertisement
Jeremy Stephens
It seems only appropriate to start with someone the UFC could have cut loose on two occasions. Yet it wasn’t just losing streaks that put Stephens in danger of being given a pink slip. It was shenanigans outside the cage that had many believing he might be jettisoned. The first case came following consecutive losses in 2009 to Joe Lauzon and Gleison Tibau. Granted, the loss to Lauzon was in a UFC Fight Night main event, but Stephens missed weight by two pounds against Tibau in a fairly boring, one-sided affair. While most fighters nowadays would survive two-fight losing streaks, that wasn’t as common in 2009. After all, Din Thomas headlined a UFC Fight Night with Kenny Florian in 2007, came up short and was cut following a loss in his next appearance without missing weight. Perhaps it was the youth and Stephens’ tendency to deliver knockouts, but he held on to his roster spot and ripped off four wins in his next five contests. However, at the end of that five-fight run, Stephens lost three in a row. It’s easy to look at the names and grant him some leeway. Anthony Pettis would soon become champion, Donald Cerrone was near the beginning of what would turn into a hall-of-fame career and the wheels had yet to fall off of Yves Edwards. Then there were the legal issues that forced the UFC to rebook Stephens-Edwards. Stephens was arrested the night of the fight, and UFC President Dana White infamously attempted to bail him out of jail to ensure the bout happened in the fall of 2012. While it would have been understandable to not want to put up with that type of headache given the losing streak Stephens was on, the UFC kept him around. He dropped to 145 pounds, managed to add to his impressive highlight reel and even secured a pair of victories as a headliner. Stephens’ overall legacy is a bit on the controversial side, but it’s hard to say the UFC made the wrong decision to hang onto him.
Neil Magny
Magny most likely was a beneficiary of the UFC expanding its product into the Fox Sports networks in 2013. He was successful in his promotional debut at UFC 157 against Jon Manely, a castmate from “The Ultimate Fighter 16,” but he dropped his next two against Sergio Moraes and Seth Baczynski. It may have been the close nature of his contest with Baczynski, but prior to the UFC running 40 or more events in a year, it was commonplace for the company to cut loose unproven fighters after two consecutive losses. However, needing more bodies on call to ensure the increased number of cards were filled up likely saved his roster spot. Despite his lanky frame, few saw Magny becoming more than a footnote. Instead, he ended up becoming the UFC’s all-time leader in victories in the welterweight division, his present total sitting at 22. Seven of those came immediately following his loss to Baczynski, as he rattled off a winning streak that saw him appear in the cage as much as possible. He recorded five of those victories in 2014 alone. Magny’s propensity to fight with such intense frequency has been cited by many as a method for youthful fighters to follow, eliminating the potential of forgetting all they learned in their previous contest.
Tai Tuivasa
One of the most beloved personalities in the sport, it would take a lobotomy-like change for Tuivasa to be handed his walking papers—provided he doesn’t have too many more performances like he recently put forth against Jairzinho Rozenstruik. Regardless of whether he’s presently on a five-fight losing streak, Tuivasa scared his friends when he responded in the affirmative several years ago to an inquiry on X (Twitter at the time) as to whether he had been released following his third consecutive loss. It turns out Tuivasa was joking, but it wouldn’t have been too surprising given how awful he looked against Serghei Spivac in the last of those three losses. Spivac was supposed to be a layup to get Tuivasa back on track following losses to Junior dos Santos and Blagoy Ivanov, but the heavy-hitting Aussie faltered in embarrassing fashion. Taking a year between appearances following the Spivac loss, Tuivasa managed to re-center himself and run off five consecutive wins, all of them via knockout. Tuivasa truly established himself as a genuine treasure when he topped off that streak by engaging Derrick Lewis in the type of fight in which the former title challenger had been known to thrive and put “The Black Beast” out cold with an elbow in the clinch. Tuivasa’s subsequent fights have established he isn’t an elite heavyweight, but he has maintained a loyal following and developed a reputation for going out on his shield. Even if the loss to Rozenstruik proves to be a sign of things to come as opposed to an aberration, the product of the 10 fights since Tuivasa teased he was on the outs with the UFC has been overwhelmingly positive on the whole.
Rafael dos Anjos
The former lightweight champion has been in the UFC for so long that it’s easy to forget he could have had his run to the title short-circuited before it even began. When dos Anjos debuted in the UFC in November 2008, he was seen as a talented Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner with a limited standup game. That was reinforced when he fell to the aforementioned Stephens in one of the most ridiculous looking knockouts of all-time; the wind up on Stephens’ uppercut was straight out of a comic book. Dos Anjos’ sophomore effort saw him come up short to Tyson Griffin. While many at the time would argue Griffin was a step up in competition, that wouldn’t have stopped the UFC from cutting dos Anjos loose back then. Around that same time, Rich Clementi would be released following losses to Gray Maynard and Tibau, while Marcus Aurelio would be handed walking papers with losses to Griffin and Hermes Franca. The UFC was quite cutthroat. The assumption here is that dos Anjos’ youth convinced the UFC that he deserved another opportunity. The company could not have been more richly rewarded. Dos Anjos would make a long climb up the lightweight ladder, eventually going on to claim the 155-pound title by putting a one-sided beatdown on Pettis. While dos Anjos would never be the apple of the UFC’s eye, he did prove to be a reliable workhorse on which the organization could depend. His workload has fallen off in recent years, but given his 16th anniversary is fast approaching, a lighter schedule is something that can be forgiven. Dos Anjos presently sits at 35 appearances—33 more than he might have had if the UFC had not decided he only needed more marinating.
Jan Blachowicz
There couldn’t have been anyone else in this spot. For the others on this list, there was a belief for each that they hadn’t reached their peak, that there was still room for improvement. In the case of Blachowicz, it appeared he had topped out and was on his way out. After all, following his loss to Patrick Cummins in April 2017—it was Blachowicz’s fourth loss in five appearances—he was aged 34 and had 26 fights under his belt. It looked like the former Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki light heavyweight champion was a bust. One can only speculate as to why the UFC kept him around. Perhaps it was the price tag on his contract. Perhaps it was a lack of depth in the division that led management to believe there weren’t any better options out there than what it already had on roster. Whatever it was, Blachowicz returned in the fall of 2017 with emphatic success against a younger underdog in Devin Clark. He caught Clark in a standing rear-naked choke to kick off the most significant UFC career reversal in history. Starting with the Clark victory, Blachowicz would win nine of his next 10, claiming the light heavyweight title in the process and handing Israel Adesanya his first career loss. While it would be a stretch to call Blachowicz an all-time great, he most certainly proved to be a worthwhile champion and served as proof that late career resurgences, while improbable, aren’t impossible. Now 41 and coming off shoulder surgery, it’s likely Blachowicz’s days as a contender are numbered. However, he has proven before that it is unwise to count him out.
Related Articles
