At WSOF 9 we saw two new champions crowned. Marlon Moraes defeated Josh Rettinghouse to win the Bantamweight title, while Rousimar Palhares quickly submitted Steve Carl to win the Welterweight strap.
Yushin Okami and Josh Burkman also picked up wins on the card that night. Most fans can see some of the blatant mismatches here. Even if you are not familiar with Marlon Moraes, once the match began you could tell that there was a clear difference in talent. The same goes for Yushin Okami vs Svetlozar Savov, Josh Burkman vs Tyler Stinson, and Rousimar Palhares vs Steve Carl.
In my opinion the Moraes and Okami fights were the biggest mismatches on the card. This is a problem the WSOF has to address. I know the promotion is still young, but they must do a better job of matchmaking.
Do I enjoy watching Marlon Moraes fight? Of course! But I don’t enjoy watching him kick someone’s leg into oblivion for 25 minutes. I also am not interested in watching Okami in mount for a whole fight. WSOF needs to find better competition for their top fighters.
Guys like Moraes, Gaethje and Newell need better competition so they can test themselves and move forward with their careers. I do give credit to the WSOF for booking Gaethje vs Newell, but continuing to give their other fighters lower level competition could potentially damage the reputation of the WSOF.
Ali Abdel-Aziz has stated that the WSOF is not a feeder to any organization, to keep this true he MUST make better match ups for their future stars.
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