When UFC 278 came to Salt Lake City in August 2022, the first-ever pay-per-view fight card in Utah was headlined by a thrilling welterweight championship match between Leon Edwards and Kamaru Usman that shook up the combat sports landscape.
And when UFC 291 takes place at the Delta Center on Saturday afternoon and evening, there will be yet another title belt on the line.
It’s not quite the same, though.
No one disputes that the main event is a surefire banger. No. 2-ranked lightweight contender Dustin Poirier stepping into the octagon against No. 3-ranked Justin Gaethje, in a rematch of their epic, back-and-forth, “Fight of the Year”-winning match from April 14, 2018? It sells itself.
As Gaethje succinctly described the impending proceedings to The Salt Lake Tribune during a promotional appearance in June: “It’s gonna be a chess match of sorts, with a couple of car crashes mixed in between.”
The only real question, really, is why the UFC felt compelled to tack the “BMF” belt onto the affair when finalizing the fight.
BMF? It stands for “Baddest Motherf---er,” and it was concocted in 2019 for a match between Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz as a one-off event, a means of distracting fans from the fact that UFC 244 was one of the rare pay-per-views to feature zero championship bouts among its five main-card matchups.
Now that Masvidal, the winner of that match, is retired, the company decided to resurrect the BMF premise for Poirier vs. Gaethje 2, given that they are, indeed, two of the UFC’s most decorated and celebrated merchants of violence — and given that UFC 291 is the latest pay-per-view not to feature a lineal, divisional championship match.
“That was thrown on kind of last-minute,” Poirier acknowledged this week. “When we first started talking about the fight, that wasn’t brought up.”
(Frank Franklin II | AP file photo) Dustin Poirier, right, shown punching Michael Chandler at the UFC 281 mixed martial arts event in November 2022, will be taking on Justin Gaethje July 29, 2023 for the vacant "BMF" title.
The fighters on this card are a mixed bag on the significance of the BMF belt.
“I love that [this fight] validates the BMF title,” said welterweight Michael Chiesa. “A lot of people say it’s a paperweight of a belt, it’s useless, and I disagree.”
Put Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson down on the “it’s useless” side of the ledger.
“It is kinda gimmicky. What does it really do for the UFC? Just put people in the seats, I guess. Do people fight for it?” Thompson said. “At this point, it’s kind of being held up there as a champion[ship], and it’s not.”
Bobby Green, however, takes issue with those who take issue with the BMF belt, believing they are telling on themselves to some degree.
“I think it’s dope. Because it separates the real from the fake. That’s why guys call it cringey — the guys calling it cringey are usually the fakes,” Green said. “There’s guys who come to fight … [and] the other guys on the other hand, those are guys who want to do a ‘match.’ They’re doing a jiu jitsu match, they’re doing a wrestling match. There’s two different sides; which side of the fence are you on? Are you coming here to pump the fans up and show them an actual fight? Or are you just trying to get a ‘W’ on your list?”
Thompson wasn’t backing down, though. In his view, you know exactly what a traditional championship belt delineates (namely, being the best in your weight class at that moment in time), while the BMF is too subjective, too open to interpretation — especially when it’s two hand-picked guys contesting it, but not defending it.
“I don’t even know what it is. You’re not the meanest dude, you’re just the baddest dude? If you’re just the ‘best fighter,’ why don’t I fight for it, then? Or anybody?” he said. “I don’t get it. But it puts people in the seats. … It’s kinda gimmicky, but people like it. Eh.”
Kevin Holland thinks that last thought is the most salient point.
He personally finds the idea of the BMF “dope,” to a degree that, upon realizing he might never get to fight for the belt, he had a custom BMF ring made to wear on a finger. Still, in his view, the significance of the title is pretty straightforward.
“It’s a cool fight, it brings a lot of followers. ‘Bring More Followers’ — that’s the name of that ‘BMF’ belt,” Holland said.
And to his point, UFC 291 — the second pay-per-view to be held in Salt Lake City in less than a year — quickly sold out.
It probably would have anyway, though.
The two fighters going for it Saturday have taken care not to be dismissive of it. Poirier mentioned that his wife made a good point to him in suggesting it could bolster his legacy. And Gaethje, who was among the most dismissive of the BMF belt when it was unveiled four years ago, has now done a 180 and deemed it “prestigious.”
Still …
Both have rightly noted that, should they win this fight, their attention will turn to preparing for a lightweight championship match against the winner of the Oct. 21 title bout between champion Islam Makhachev and No. 1 contender Charles Oliveira.
They’ve also said that they’d follow the BMF template established by Masvidal — treating it as a one-off, and not even considering defending it. If Poirier wins the belt, he’ll display it for a time in the American Top Team Gym next to the one won by Masvidal, his former teammate, before putting it on his mantle. And if Gaethje prevails, he’s got a place set aside for it in his house.
It may only be really meaningful to them, however, inasmuch as Gaethje is looking forward to Masvidal — who will be in attendance Saturday — having to put the belt around the waist of the man who vanquishes his buddy.
(John Raoux | AP file photo) Justin Gaethje, right, knocking back Tony Ferguson at a UFC 249 in May 2020, will be looking to get revenge against Dustin Poirier at UFC 291 in Salt Lake City on July 29, 2023.
“Yeah, I want to make him do it. That would be nice,” Gaethje said. “I know he’d hate it, so I’d love it that much more.”
It’s far from a sure thing, of course
He was stopped by TKO in their first meeting, though that’s perhaps not really relevant. Both men have said each has made significant improvements to their arsenals over the ensuing five years, to a degree that their 2018 bout is fairly obsolete in their minds.
Still, that first one left a lasting impression.
“I actually sat next to Justin at one of the pay-per-views in Vegas, and we were talking, chopping it up, and I told him, ‘Dude, I don’t wanna do that again!’ I told him that. And here we are, about to throw hands,” Poirier said. “Honestly, throughout the five years since the first fight, I didn’t see [the rematch] coming.”
But when the possibility was raised through the UFC’s matchmakers, Poirier said he was hit with an instant dose of butterflies and anxiety — which made him realize they had to run it back.
“I was like, ‘We gotta do this. This is the one,’” he said. “… We were just on a collision course, it seemed, to do it again.”
Though both have paid nominal lip service to being more mature, less impulsive, more technical now, everyone is ultimately expecting fireworks on fireworks on fireworks from two evenly-matched competitors.
“It’s a flip of a coin,” said Thompson.
“It’s pure violence. There’s a reason this fight is put together — these are two of the most violent guys in the UFC,” added Chiesa. “I’m excited to sit back and watch these guys go at it.”
“This guy’s dangerous. I’ve accepted that this is a 50-50 fight, in my mind,” said Gaethje. “… I’m willing to fight fire with fire — that’s what we do in this game.”
“It’s wartime, man. Adversity will present itself in this fight,” said Poirier. “… He’s got that aura about him now — the chaos, the most violent. But I really am that, and he knows that. So let’s go there.”
That is what makes this rematch appealing.
While it would be harsh to suggest the BMF belt is entirely superfluous, it’s nevertheless true in this case that — whether you like the idea or not — it wasn’t really necessary.
“This fight gives you that [championship] feel,” Gaethje said, “without anything on the line.”
