The Big Picture: Two Ways to be Number Two

[JayPettryMMA]

BY ERIC STINTON
JUL 2, 2019

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Memory is seldom kind to second place. Google “second place sayings” and a litany of familiar sentiments emerge. Second is the first loser; no one remembers who came in second; either you’re first or you’re nothing. These are harsh ways to think of those who are better than every single person except for a single person.

The way we think about individual competitions is binary -- there is a winner and at least one loser -- so we tend to scale up that Boolean framework to encompass an entire field of competitors. It doesn’t matter if winning a silver medal means you beat 100 people. Silver is only as significant as the loss it necessitates. This is compounded in MMA, where number twos abound. Sometimes the number two fighter in the division is actually the number one fighter, but he or she simply hasn’t had the opportunity to prove it yet. Assuming the champion is in fact the ichiban, it’s still not entirely clear how to determine the second best. Is it the loser of the most recent title fight? Depends on who lost and how. While only one person can claim the number one spot in a division -- or two if the Ultimate Fighting Championship thinks slapping an event with some interim gold will yield some increased green -- any number of fighters, from proven veterans to untested prospects, could make the claim that they are the second best. You’ll be hard-pressed to hear anyone vocalize that, as second is the first loser, after all.

There is really only one way to become the best -- win, win, win -- but there are a number of different ways to be second best. Two perennial second bananas demonstrated this at UFC on ESPN 3 on Saturday in Minnesota.

First, there was the Frustrated Number Two. In the co-main event, Joseph Benavidez notched a third consecutive win, finishing top-ranked flyweight contender Jussier Formiga in the closing seconds of the second round. It was the first time Formiga had been stopped since 2013, when Benavidez 187’d him in 187 seconds. It was yet another piece of evidence that Benavidez is one of the most criminally underrated fighters around, as if any more was needed. Consider his career: 15-3 in the UFC (20-5 if you include World Extreme Cagefighting bouts), with wins over virtually everyone who’s been anyone in either the flyweight or bantamweight division. His losses have come against Dominick Cruz, twice, Demetrious Johnson, twice, and in a head-scratcher to Sergio Pettis. Of those five losses, three were split decisions. Even against all-time greats like Cruz and Johnson, Benavidez has always come up just short of greatness.


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