Cong steps up to the injured Valentina ShevchenkoWHO relinquished his title after a nasty shoulder injury about a month ago. While neither woman is a superstar and it’s not the fight people were expecting in Salt Lake City, both Silva and Cong have fan-friendly striking styles and should make for an entertaining title fight.
Do you see it? This is an example of fight selling (also known as promotion), which requires some general knowledge of the athletes involved. As UFC CEO and former promotion president, Dana White’s job is to convince people that events headlined by fighters like Wang Cong are worth watching.
Unfortunately, White doesn’t seem to know much about Chinese Cong, highly rated candidate with six UFC bouts. In the last 24 hours, White has been wrong twice when talking about “The Trickster.” First, he attributed the opponent’s three wins to Cong, although at least he remembered his history with Shevchenko.
“The charts are good… If you look at what he’s done in his career,” White explained to justify Cong’s title shot. “He’s 10-1. I just said he beat Rose in Namajunashe beat (Jessica) Andrade, she beat (Alexa) Grasso. And she beat Valentina Shevchenko in a kickboxing match. If you look at the roster and see who Shevchenko has beaten and cleaned, he’s the one who should be fighting on Saturday night.
To reiterate, Natalia Silva is a woman who has defeated Namajunas, Andrade and Grasso on her current winning streak. Cong, on the contrary, wins significant advantages Tracy Cortez and Ariane de Silvawhich is nowhere near the same resume.
On the bright side, Cong is truly 10-1 as a pro.
On Thursday pre-fight press conferenceWhite again struggled to promote his headliner. Asked why Cong deserved a second shot, White didn’t make the same mistake twice. Instead, he gave a complete no-answer!
White responded, “We’re always trying to find out who’s the best. That’s what we care about. When we made this fight, we made Wang’s decision. Obviously Natalia’s on a 14-fight streak, we’ll see.”
