Matt Brown says Dana White’s claim that Alex Pereira would become the greatest UFC fighter of all time with a third-division title is pure promotion talk that no knowledgeable fan should take seriously.
Brown addressed the comments on The Fighter vs. The Writer, offering a nuanced distinction between being the most accomplished fighter and being the greatest.
It’s promoter talk. It’s pretty simple, and we can just narrow it down to that and that’s Dana talking what he’s supposed to talk. No one’s really buying it. Maybe some Brazilian fan of Alex Pereira that doesn’t really watch UFC is buying it. But I don’t think any halfway knowledgeable person is buying it.
Brown said winning a third title would be historically significant but that accomplishment and greatness are being conflated.
Sometimes what gets confused is most accomplished and greatest. In terms of most accomplished, I guess if he wins a third title, you could make that argument. I still wouldn’t think it’s the case, but I could see where you could make that argument. He’s got three titles. No one else ever did it. That’s like Floyd Mayweather. No real boxing historian puts him down as the greatest ever, but is he the most successful ever? By a large margin he is.
Brown also raised a concern about where multi-division title chasing is taking the UFC as a promotion.
What really sucks is it starts to really feel a little boxing-ish. Where so many guys are moving weight classes, this guy moving a weight class fighting for an interim title, not even the real title. It just reminds you of boxing with guys moving all over different weights, finding titles to win at different weights. The best fight the best, we don’t have too many belts, and all this bullshit. But that’s what it feels like another step towards.