The two biggest stars in the UFC are currently out of action with Conor McGregor on baby watch while Ronda Rousey is contemplating retirement. The UFC badly needed Rousey to beat Amanda Nunes at UFC 207 but it didn’t happen as Rousey was demolished in under a minute. The UFC now has no superstars to lead their pay-per-view events in 2017 until McGregor returns and there are no real upcoming stars on the horizon to fill the gap.
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Where will the UFC turn without McGregor and Rousey? It is hard to make a case for Nunes taking the place of Rousey as Nunes simply isn’t as marketable. Nunes doesn’t speak great English and she doesn’t have the looks or the personality of Rousey. Nunes might have the talent to go on a nice run in the women’s division but even that is questionable as beating Rousey definitely doesn’t look to be tough to do right now.
The UFC wants to have a women’s star who can lead the way but they simply don’t have one right now. Rousey is probably going to retire and even if she comes back she won’t have the appeal she once had. Nunes isn’t going to take her place on the stage and there are no other stars in waiting. Cris “Cyborg” Justino might have been a possibility but she is facing a possible suspension. The UFC has had to turn to Holly Holm to lead UFC 208 which shows how desperate the organization is to have a female in the top spot. The UFC would have loved to have had Paige VanZant take Rousey’s spot but VanZant simply isn’t any good and you can’t have a losing fighter leading a big event.
The men’s side of the UFC is in slightly better shape although there is no one who can rival McGregor. Nate Diaz says that he wants a ridiculous amount of money to come back and that he has to be paired against McGregor again. McGregor had pay-per-view numbers that were fantastic while the rest of the fighters did very little. It has been reported that McGregor’s numbers from the middle of 2015 to the end of 2016 were more than the rest of the UFC fighters combined.
The UFC really needs to go out and give Georges St Pierre whatever he wants and get him back into action. He would be one of the few men who could attract a large pay-per-view audience with McGregor on the sideline. Perhaps the UFC can temporarily go with Michael Bisping who is the middleweight champion as Bisping is getting some press for his acting role alongside Vin Diesel. It would only be temporary as Bisping is 37-years old. Another possibility would be getting Jon Jones back into action but he has been suspended so often that it is hard to trust him to stay clean.
The UFC does have some young potential stars including Cody Garbrandt who looked really good in beating Dominick Cruz and T.J. Dillashaw could be a fighter who develops a following. Dana White said that Doo Ho Choi could be a future star but he lost at UFC 206 and White can forget about marketing Choi as a big draw as Choi doesn’t even speak English.
There is no question that the UFC is going to suffer a dip in ratings for 2017 as there are no big stars on the horizon that can attract viewers. McGregor will be back sometime this year but until he returns we are going to get a lot of events like UFC 208 that feature main events that really are not deserving of top billing. Is anyone really going to shell out pay-per-view money to see Holly Holm in a main event?
UFC 208 takes place on Saturday, February 11 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. UFC 209 is scheduled about a month later from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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