Paige VanZant had a pretty productive weekend, picking up a technical knockout win in her return to action at UFC on FOX last Saturday night. Living up to her exciting style, she blasted Bec Rawlings with a jumping switch kick that made the rounds across the news world. She made SportsCenter. She was featured in London’s the Daily Mail. Even Forbes wrote about it.
That’s the kind of treatment stars get, and VanZant is certainly raising her profile with every appearance. She’s already told us Hollywood was interested. She’s held them off for now, but there are definitely going to be distractions and temptations coming her way. That’s the nature of stardom.
For now, though, VanZant is saying all the right things. She wants to focus on her fight career and wasted no time saying she’d like to compete on the next UFC on Fox show in December. That’s great.
From the UFC’s side, how exactly does it handle her next few steps? On one hand, VanZant is 7-2 and ranked No. 10 in the strawweight division. On the other, she’s still just 22 years old.
Joining me to discuss the promotion’s conundrum is MMA Lead Writer Chad Dundas.
Mike Chiappetta: This is a recurring issue for UFC matchmakers. Some youngster gets signed, makes a big splash and garners an inordinate amount of media attention in a small amount of time. What do you do next? Take your time with that talent in cultivating them, or shoot them up the ladder toward a title shot and see how they handle the push?
There is no easy answer here. Even conservatism often backfires. Look at someone like 20-year-old Sage Northcutt, for example. Northcutt was slow-played, paired with opponents of similar experience levels, but stumbled anyway, getting choked out by Bryan Barberena in his third Octagon bout, forcing a reset to his UFC career.
VanZant did well until she was paired with Rose Namajunas, who at 24 is not much older than VanZant but was a step above.
From my perspective, this is a situation where the UFC will face backlash either way. If it pushes VanZant against Top Fivers, it’ll be accused of moving her up too quickly and stifling her growth. If it takes a more cautious approach, it’ll be criticized for the hyper-promotion of someone who hasn’t yet truly earned it.
It’s incumbent upon it to ignore the commentary and condemnation. VanZant is still building her base and shouldn’t be rushed. You could see that in her first-round performance Saturday. She expends a lot of energy for no purpose. There is a lack of efficiency there. Those are signs that she needs time to develop. The UFC would be wise to offer it. She’s a big enough star now to draw interest regardless of opponent, so give her the chance to mature her game before moving her up to the division’s best.
There is always the temptation to rush things, but this is one time to hold back a present-day payoff for the future.
What do you think, Chad?
Chad Dundas: VanZant is an interesting case for me because she's one of the first UFC fighters I feel a complete, borderline generational disconnect with. Not only do I not understand what she offers me as an MMA fan, I feel like I'm not supposed to understand. Like she's not here for me. Like I'm not in her demographic.
I'm a 38-year-old man. I'm married and have two children. I don't have Instagram. I've never seen an episode of Dancing with the Stars. When I see a 15-second video clip of VanZant dancing in her driveway, the only thing it makes me feel is mildly confused about what I'm watching and why it exists.
I guess I just don't get it.
But you know what? That's OK. I don't have to get it.
Here at Bleacher Report we have some metrics that suggest a lot of people do get VanZant. She racked up approximately half a million pageviews between three high-profile stories the company did on her over the weekend. To come straight from her breakout DWTS appearance and knock out Rawlings with a highlight-reel kick in the second round is about as good a performance as she could hope for on a nationally televised fight card.
So I guess I'm willing to take that at face value as kind of a cool moment for her.
Perhaps VanZant eventually develops into one of the best fighters in her weight class. Perhaps along the way she picks up a new generation of fight fans and they, like me, end up becoming lifers. But, like you mentioned, I think that's going to take some serious sculpting from a matchmaking department. At this point she's not ready to get tossed in there with any of the best strawweights in the world. Until she is, I'm just not sure I can see what is so compelling about her.
Mike: Chad, with these comments, you have officially reached a point of no return, like the grandfathers who complain today’s generation of basketball players doesn’t play the game “the right way,” and who pine for the days of Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle whenever they see a baseball player wearing his hat backward.
VanZant’s persona is the sunshine-blonde who is happy in life and bubbling over with personality. While I admit that it’s far from the many counterculture anti-heroes that populated the sport in our early days covering it, she is like the living embodiment of the millennial generation. Young, free-spirited, social-media savvy and focused on fun.
You and I are heavy consumers of the MMA product, but we have to remember that sports leagues and organizations are focused on demographics more than ever. One of the UFC’s great assets—one that helped spark a $4.2 billion sale—is the youth of its audience. VanZant speaks to the teenagers and 20-somethings in that group, which is why the UFC should take caution with her.
The one argument I could see for rushing her is the threat of Hollywood, something I wrote about in the aftermath of the fight. The UFC brass may have some concern about other offers encroaching on VanZant’s time and availability, but I would resist the urge to move too fast.
For the next two or three fights, I would try to match her with fighters on the edge of the Top 15. Give her a striking stylist first, then a ground fighter, then a wrestler. See if she can pass those tests before moving her up. We saw that her loss to Namajunas didn’t set her popularity back, but give her the chance to develop a bit more before she gets that kind of opportunity again, with the hope that she will be better prepared and that it will make a bigger fight.
Chad: That did come off a bit curmudgeonly, didn't it? Look, though, I don't think anybody can deny that recent cases like VanZant, Northcutt and CM Punk represent a significant departure from the way the UFC has done business in the past. Typically, the best fighters in the world first distinguish themselves in the cage, and during that process we determine which ones also have magnetic personalities.
For examples of this, think Robbie Lawler, Dominick Cruz or even—cue dramatic music—current strawweight champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
People like VanZant, Northcutt and Punk stand out because for them the process seems to have been inverted. The fight company tabbed them as individuals it could promote first and figured out if they deserved it later.
I've got nothing against that strategy, per se, but—curmudgeon alert, again—the old way seemed more organic to me and a much easier fit for my old-man brain.
But if that's where we are, that's where we are and I agree with the sentiment that for the good of everyone involved, VanZant ought to be brought along slowly. The trouble might be that she's already the UFC's No. 10-ranked 115-pound fighter. I'm not sure how many more stunning knockouts she could author before sheer numbers dictate she has to fight a real contender.
Mike: That's a fair question, but one I think the UFC can use VanZant’s age to deflect. After all her attention and exposure, she’s still just 22. That’s young in any professional sport, let alone one like MMA, with its many disciplines and facets to master.
She has all the tools to make her career a success. She’s young, athletic and driven, is surrounded by strong coaching and management teams and has the public’s eyeballs on her. They are all the ingredients to a perfect recipe. But like every recipe, it needs time.
For VanZant and the UFC, their patience—or lack thereof—will determine whether she ascends as high as her current star would suggest. To be sure, there are no easy paths to realizing her ultimate potential, but given her extreme youth, time is on her side, and all parties involved should use it.
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