Aiken

I was just reading the Rashad Evans thread about how he turned down the Grover Taxidermist fight and had a thought....

Fighters pulling out due to injury has become something of an epidemic recently (since the UFC introduced a healthcare plan?) and so fighters are finding it more common to be asked to fight someone they haven't trained for at short notice... A possible solution would be to sign a third fighter as the fight understudy - it would be their job to prepare for, and make weight in preparation for the fight. The two scheduled fighters would be aware that they might potentially be fighting someone else but their fight contract would compel them to fight the understudy if the primary opponent can't fight for whatever reason...

Yes, the UFC would need to pay fighters who perhaps don't fight, but I assume that's a small price to pay to avoid scraping a card...

There’s probably a hundred reasons why this is a bad idea, and I’m not emotionally invested in the concept, so by all means explain to me why my idea is dumb.

Thanks

OHKO

What if the primary opponent and the standby fighter has completely different styles? Would put the champion at a disadvantage since he was mainly preparing for a different fighter.

What if say Urijah Faber was the contender for the featherweight title and Mendes is the standby fighter? Faber could fake an injury 1 week prior to the fight and let Mendes fight for the title. Then Faber drops down to 135...

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Aiken

Since the two primary fighters would both be aware of who the understudy was, it would be their responsibility to train appropriately.

I'm not saying that the idea is watertight, but IMO the UFC needs to do something... I think most people are tired of the current situation where fighters are turning down opponents because of "short notice"

If there's a better alternative, I'm all ears (apart from my nose).