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One can only imagine what three losses in a row could do to a once promising career in a sport where the wrong side of a streak could leave you unemployed. Now picture how much tougher it is to go from being featured on a Wheaties box and walking around with the UFC lightweight title to a life of injuries and not getting your hand raised in over a year.
This is the predicament that now faces former champion Anthony “Showtime” Pettis.
After taking a five-round beating and broken orbital bone — at the hands of current 155-pound belt holder Rafael dos Anjos — Pettis has looked afraid to pull the trigger on his offense against Eddie Alvarez and Edson Barboza. He has been lackluster at best, becoming a more defensive fighter since joining the Jackson-Wink camp and looking lost in the Octagon. But there is hope after he took to Instagram to announce that a move to 145 was “in the works.”
Such a move may not have been obvious to most, but it was the only one to make. Similar to the way Frankie Edgar did when his lightweight career stalled after dropping the belt, it opens up new possibilities to regain his footing against smaller fighters while putting on exciting fights, like a bout versus the 16-3 Max Holloway, who is coming off a dominating win over Ricardo Lamas at UFC 199.
Holloway, who is on a nine-fight winning streak, proclaimed that he was looking for big fights. And as of right now, Jose Aldo and Edgar are booked in an interim featherweight title match and Conor McGregor is locked into two matches (versus Nate Diaz at UFC 202, and then the winner of Aldo-Edgar), which opens up a chance to jump into the spotlight with Pettis.
However, if that does not happen, Showtime could line up matches with Cub Swanson (22-7), Lamas (16-5) or Chad Mendes (16-4). Those are all better than taking losses against a strong lightweight class, plus he can always play it off as just chasing the mega fights like he tried to do with Aldo in August of 2013.
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