After a dreadful three-round snooze-fest, Matt Hamill and Roger Hollett made anyone who watched the Evan Dunham vs. T.J. Grant bout at UFC 152 last night (Sept. 22, 2012) wonder why the hell these sluggish light heavyweights were on the main card, when the fantastic lightweight bout wasn't.
Mixed martial arts (MMA) matchmaking is an inexact science, but on paper, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) owes it to pay-per-view (PPV) fans to present the best prospects for their viewing dollar. Matt Hamill vs. Roger Hollett certainly wasn't that even in theory, as Hamill's lousy performances and Hollett's inexperience offered no obvious inclination toward an exciting bout.
Meanwhile, Dunham and Grant have been in consistently solid matches and their styles almost guaranteed an action-packed bout, which ultimately got "Fight of the Night." It's tiring to see the UFC trend toward the big men on the rarified main card slots so many fighters compete for, when lighter-weight fighters are consistently more entertaining.
Remember the horrific garbage foisted on fans in the Mark Hunt vs. Ben Rothwell horror-fest at UFC 135?
It's that kind of stuff that turns off fans and gives you the feeling that with PPVs at least once a month (and sometimes twice) the product is being watered down merely to fill spots and expand programming. Not only did Hamill-Hollett have less promise on paper, it isn't even a relevant match in the Light Heavweight rankings, as neither guy is remotely close to the top 20 in the division, whereas Grant and Dunham are.
It was a poor choice and one that the UFC should make note of moving forward. There are only so many good fights and viewer dollars to go around. The rationing of the former guarantees the reduction of the latter, and Hamill-Hollett was expectable garbage that turned out to stink as bad as we thought it would.
Jason Probst can be reached at twitter.com/jasonprobst.