UFC 220: The Human Sacrifice.

What is being touted as the greatest heavy weight fight of all time. In the upper echelon of combat sports, outside of the heavy weight division, every man and women is dieting professionally to come in at the lowest possible weight. It is a major disadvantage to fight someone who weights more than you. Sounds obvious, but if you are a 190-200lbs cage fighter, you do not fight at the 205 division, you dont even fight at the 185 division. Its chicken yams avocados and saunas until you bring your body down to 170, a state you can only maintain for a few hours without dying. On fight night you are close to your actual weight, and edged to win as much as possible. The UFC's current pound for pound(p4p) champion, had to leave the 145lb division, and refuses to go up, because he was a loser when we add 10 more lbs. Yet we are about to allow the current champion, Stipe Mioicic to enter into a cage with a 263 pound(offically) soul relegating predator-a 25 pound difference.

Frances Ngannou has been fighting professionally for slightly more than two years. The story of his upbringing is a mixture of Conan and Blood sport. His entire time in combat equates to less then one hour. He owns the world record for the hardest punch at 129 161 units, its equal to being hit by a car. Let that sink in. This man is going to kill someone. This contest should be illegal. One could refute this point with Frances's match against Zoumana Cisse in Dec 2013. Mr Cisse was wobbled with near every punch that connected, but he did not fall-and he won a decision.

The gaping whole in that argument however is the time. It was in Dec of 2013, over 4 years ago. The predator has improved dramatically. If we average out his UFC career, it has taken him slightly more than 24 minutes to reach the number one contender status. None of his last four fights, versus the highest level of competition, has made it minute two of the first round.

It is my hope that Stipe gets choked out when he shoots for a leg after being rocked. A humane passing of the torch.
It is my fear that Stipe has too much heart. Wants it too bad, and is in that moment, is too willing to sacrifice himself for his fleeting chance, to defeat this Goliath-don't blink.