You know what this is? The elders putting their foot down.
There’s this stat that came into popular conversation in MMA a couple of years back, concerning the age of Dramatic Fall-Off (or DFO) in the fight game. Champions who are 35 or older, especially at the lighter weights it was shown — and especially in the UFC — tend to fall off precipitously at that age. The proof of this was well documented. Younger competitors have been flushing the old birds out with duck calls or whatever and shooting them in flight.
Advertisement
(With the obvious exception being Jon Jones, who doesn’t respond to duck calls.)
This stat was particularly true until it wasn’t.
That’s because recently the old guard has gotten really, really stubborn, whether in the UFC or the boxing ring. Alex Pereira has done his best work north of 35, realizing a twilight windfall of cash. Valentina Shevchenko fended off Manon Fiorot at 37 years old at UFC 315. Alexandre Pantoja looked the best he ever has at 35 years young in his title defense against Kai Kara-France at UFC 317.
Last week, 39-year-old Katie Taylor defeated Amanda Serrano for a third time at Madison Square Garden, bringing the greatest rivalry in women’s boxing history to a close. Perhaps the most understated compliment we could pay her afterward was, “She didn’t look her age.”
Advertisement
And this weekend?
Why, this weekend was a veritable geriatric renaissance! An old-fashioned blue-hair revival! Older fighters showed up like it was early-bird dinner at the Golden Corral and laid waste to the youth without regret nor conscience. Out in London, it was 38-year-old Oleksandr Usyk straight outclassing Daniel Dubois with counters and speed and in-ring acumen. The left he dropped Dubois with to end the fight in the fifth round was a masterclass of fast-twitch muscle memory and instinct, generated from a well harnessed source of power.
“Thirty-eight is a young guy, remember!” Usyk yelled into the microphone afterward, winning over Earl Court’s finest quadragenarians. “Thirty-eight is only the start!”
Advertisement
What an icon.
Only the start? That must explain why Manny Pacquiao, returning to the boxing ring at 46 years old to face Mario Barrios for the WBC welterweight title on Saturday night, gave “El Azteca” all he wanted. The fight ended in a majority draw (!!), yet it was Pacquaio pulling away in the later rounds. He was out-foxing, out-quicking and out-gunning a fighter who was 16 years younger.
Scenes, baby, scenes! And think about that for a minute. When Barrios was born in 1995, Pacquiao already had facial hair and a driver’s license. By comparison, when Pacquaio came into the world, “The Dukes of Hazzard” was the hottest show on television.
Maybe the DFO line is moving. If we thought that Terence “Bud” Crawford, who turns 38 in September, might be a little long in the tooth for his epic boxing match with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez scheduled for that same month, we might think again. If the trend continues, Crawford — who was alive in the 1980s — could very well be in a sweet spot.
Advertisement
“Athletes are extending their prime performance age more so than ever before,” Most Valuable Promotions CEO Nakisa Bidarian posted on social media after the dust settled in the Pacquiao fight Saturday night.
“Plus they have experience.”
Bidarian ain’t wrong. Experience is having a freaking day.
It was true at UFC 318 in New Orleans, too. At 39 years old, Michael Johnson was a five-to-one underdog in his fight with 26-year-old Daniel Zellhuber, the Mexican brawler who put on the Fight of the Year against Esteban Ribovics at the Sphere last fall. When they showed Johnson in the promo before the fight, he was talking about “making another name,” which sounded like rocking-chair babble for a guy whose points are no longer all that lucid.
Michael Johnson reacts after a unanimous decision victory against Daniel Zellhuber at UFC 318.
(Cooper Neill via Getty Images)
So, what did Johnson do? He went out there and lit up Zellhuber for two of the three rounds, hurting him on occasion, dropping him, schooling him in the ways of “experience.”
Advertisement
And in the main event, when 36-year-old Dustin Poirier stood in the pocket and fired shots against 33-year-old Max Holloway, there was no sense of a dramatic drop-off. There was only the bittersweet feeling that it was all coming to an end.
That the Bayou-born Poirier was going out on his own terms, one last time into the breach, right in the heart of New Orleans, whether he won or lost. It’s good to get out gracefully. It’s rare to get out gracefully. Yet next to some of his counterparts, Poirier was still a proverbial spring chicken.
Not that the young aren’t holding their own if you pan back. Dakota Ditcheva, the 26-year-old phenom at PFL, reminded everyone why she’s the hottest name outside the UFC down in South Africa, defeating Sumiko Inaba from pillar-to-post (even through a broken hand). Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, 25, unified the WBC and WBO super flyweight titles by stopping Phumelele Cafu in the 10th. Ilia Topuria has done more by the age of 27 than some of the most decorated fighters of our generation did in their entire careers.
But give it up to the mainstays, the veterans, the graying distinguished fighters who right now are defiantly staying relevant. Looking at you, Beneil Dariush. The gray on the temple is as menacing an omen as any cauliflower ear in the industry. Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson is the oldest fighter in the UFC at 42, and even though he lost to Gabriel Bonfim on the scorecards, he didn’t really lose. Jim Miller may go on forever. And there’s no telling how old Myktybek Orolbai is — the program says he’s 27, but let’s just say there’s a museum of natural history out there somewhere missing a warrior from its exhibit of prehistoric man.
Older, wiser, meaner.
Usyk, Pacquiao, Johnson.
Either the young guys are dropping off, or these guys are refusing to.
Read the full article here
