Strickland makes a commanding statement in fight; Ige and Neal continue to fade

There's a system in UFC that it has to be really disheartening if you end up on the wrong end of it. Someone that was at one point in time an up-n-comer, who got a push for the big time at least once and failed, but managed to build a name for themselves in the process ends up getting used as someone that is meant to fail and lose to someone else who the promotion would like to push as a new star in the UFC. In wrestling they are called "jobbers" and while the UFC doesn't have scripted matches (mostly) it is pretty clear just by someone's name appearing on a card that this is what they are there for.

src

While UFC doesn't tell people they are jobbers, you just need to look at the cards to understand who these people are. They are guys who have been around for a long time, you kinda recognize their names from somewhere and it is probably because several years ago there was a push to get them near the top and now they just kind of lurk in the mid teens and get a bone thrown to them every now and then. The almost always lose any fight they are in on a main card and I believe this is by design.

There were two such jobbers on the main card last night and as expected, they both lost by KO. The other person is Geoff Neal and he hasn't been relevant for quite some time.

src

I normally kind of feel bad for these guys because there has to be a part of them that realizes that they are being used when they, a person with a name and "brand" is fighting someone normally a lot newer to the promotion and that same person is normally a lot younger.

In Neal's situation the fight was a bit more embarrassing because in the entire just over 1 minutes of ring time, only 13 strikes total were thrown by both guys combined. This means he has lost 3 of his last 4 and his last winning streak was in 2019 when it looked like he had a shot at the belt that never materialized.

Ige was on a streak back in 2018-2021 and he looked very promising but this gravy train was cut short by a loss to the "Korean Zombie" who the UFC favored heavily because the UFC is always looking for ways to tap into the Korean or Japanese markets. He managed to keep his edge for a bit longer, but 2 consecutive losses after the Korean Zombie fight kind of sealed his fate as a jobber henceforth.

The most famous jobber of all of UFC time is likely Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone, who was thrust into fights we knew he wasn't going to win and this was almost always against some big name like Dustin Poirier or Conor McGregor who had just lost a fight and needed a "W" after that. At least in the case of Cowboy, he was always extremely well paid for these losses. For Ige and Neal, i'd be surprised if they were paid $100,000 for a fight night.

On the other side of things. Sean Strickland put his fists where his mouth is and had a true bruiser of a fight. A slugfest if you will, which is what he specializes in.

src

He is the kind of guy that relentlessly moves forward peppering you with jabs and then putting some hooks in there as well. He seems to have endless cardio and if someone decides to stay on their feet like Hernandez did, they are going to have a bad time. By round 3 Sean had him wore down, got the KO, and then immediately started running his mouth again. If you don't mind "X" links here is the final moments of that fight

I didn't watch this live, just like I said I wouldn't and just looking at the stats and highlights have given me the same amount of information than if I had watched it all.

What I would take away from this is that Strickland will almost certainly call out the champ or someone champ-adjacent and those other two need to have some very serious meetings back at fight camp about how willing they are to destroy what little remains of their legacies at this point. The UFC will continue to use them as long as they continue to allow them to.