Each week, our ESPN.com panel tackles hot topics in the world of mixed martial arts.
This week, UFC flyweight contender John Dodson joins our expert panel.
1. Who has had the more impressive career heading into this weekend: Frankie Edgar or Urijah Faber?
John Dodson: Urijah Faber. He was the star in the UFC and became the face of 145 pounds and below.
Brett Okamoto: This is like that "chicken or steak" question when you're attending a wedding. I usually check both boxes and hope to get one of each. There's really no wrong answer here, but if I have to choose one, I would also pick Faber. There's just that historical element to Faber's career that Edgar doesn't quite have. But then again, think about Edgar's three wins over B.J. Penn, who I consider to be the greatest lightweight of all-time. One could easily argue this is a tie.
Mike Huang: Look, it's probably easy to point to Faber's failure to win a UFC title and say his career is less impressive than Edgar's. Edgar wrested the lightweight title from B.J. Penn and survived a beating in his first defense against Gray Maynard in one of the greatest comebacks in UFC history. All of this is true. But Faber remains one of the sport's pioneers. He was dominant the WEC in the formative days of MMA. He was one of the first MMA fighters to cross over into mainstream product endorsement and capitalize on MMA's growth. In that sense, Faber's contributions are more impressive.
2. On the heels of Sports Illustrated naming Ronda Rousey the most dominant athlete in sports, what are the chances Bethe Correia can at least survive one round against Rousey on Aug. 1?
Dodson: I don't give Correia any chance, to tell you the truth. She's not very impressive. If I was going to give my Georges St-Pierre impersonation: "I am not impressed with her performance." I don't know if Rousey will finish her in 14 seconds like her last fight (against Cat Zingano at UFC 184), but I don't give Bethe more than about a minute.
Okamoto: Afraid I agree with Dodson here. Virtually no chance. Kudos to Correia for being here. She's never lost a pro fight and she's sold herself insanely well -- well enough to book a headliner fight on a pay-per-view event, opposite the company's biggest star. Not too shabby. But eventually that carriage is turning into a pumpkin. Come the night of the fight, I'll throw out a guess of 38 seconds.
Huang: I give her a 10 percent chance to go beyond the first round. There isn't a woman alive who is as accomplished in a particular discipline as Rousey is in judo. Combine that with her near-elite striking skills and it will be tough for Correia to have the same success that she had against Rousey's teammates, Jessamyn Duke and Shayna Bayzler.
3. How high should expectations be for the MMA career of three-time NCAA wrestling champion Ed Ruth, the recent Bellator MMA signee?
Dodson: I don't know, to tell you the truth. He's jumping into a game where he'll be thrown into the lion's den. I wish him the best. He'll need to step up his game really quickly. There's never a guarantee a good wrestler will be a good fighter. Ben Askren is an All-American and NCAA champion, and he's horrible standing up. Nobody wants to watch him. We've had other guys with great wrestling credentials come into the UFC and perform poorly. So there's no guarantee.
Okamoto: I don't think anyone really knows. Ruth's experience in MMA amounts to basically nothing. Is he a phenomenal athlete? I don't think there's any question about that. If he ends up having that ability to take a punch with some level of comfort, and he says he already knows that he does, then his wrestling alone will win him fights right off the bat. Exactly how many fights and against what kind of competition? It's too early to say. I like Bellator's creativeness in signing Ruth, though. I don't know what kind of financial incentives they had to give to do it, but it's not a bad thing to have this guy locked in when he switches to the cage after the 2016 Olympics.
Huang: Bellator has had success with collegiate wrestlers -- Ben Askren and Michael Chandler are only a couple of examples. And the organization signed a slew of them recently. It could be that Ruth learns quickly and has early success. He'll obviously rely on his wrestling heavily and fight some tomato cans to build momentum. But as with any wrestler, how quickly he masters his stand-up game will dictate what his real success will be (not manufactured by Bellator). Development takes reps and that simply takes time.
4. Should UFC heavyweight Mark Hunt's corner have thrown in the towel for him during his loss last weekend to Stipe Miocic in Adelaide, Australia?
Dodson: : I didn't see the fight, but no. A corner should never throw in a towel, unless their guy is just being beaten half to death. Mark Hunt is one of those dudes who will never take a loss and keep pushing. I didn't watch, but I'd expect Mark was trying to move or scramble and throw at least one shot. If it wasn't like that, I don't know. If a corner throws in the towel, it's for a very good reason. I can't say it's not a good thing if it's for the safety of a fighter. But I can tell you that no fighter is going to thank you right away for doing it. He might down the road, but not right away.
Okamoto: : It is absolutely ridiculous that they never did. Fighters in this sport are amazing. They'll take a beating and still walk out of the cage under their own power. I've been there live for thousands of fights, and what the human body is able to endure still amazes me. That doesn't mean these guys have to absorb that kind of punishment, though. This fight was done at the end of the third round. Completely finished. If I had been in Hunt's corner, understanding his ability to knock out an opponent at any time, I would have told him after that third round, "Mark, go out there and try to take this dude's head off with a left hook. You can do it. You can win this fight. But buddy, if you get taken down, I'm stopping the fight." Instead, Hunt's corner stood there and watched someone they presumably care about take about 100 additional unnecessary punches and elbows to the head. It was despicable.
Huang: Miocic is one of the UFC's most technically sound fighters -- and one of the most athletic. I thought it was a mismatch to start: Hunt, a plodding, forward-aggressive and largely immobile fighter, against someone who can land accurate jabs at will, despite Hunt's deceptive quickness. The fight was over by the third round and Hunt's face was a bloody pulp. I blame the referee for not stopping the fight. You honestly don't see corners throwing in towels much in MMA because the referees are usually mindful of stopping the fight.
5. Would a win against John Makdessi make Donald Cerrone a clear No. 1 contender in the lightweight division, or would he still have to beat Khabib Nurmagomedov?
(Cerrone was slated to fight Nurmagomedov, but he got injured, so Makdessi stepped in as Cerrone's opponent at UFC 187 on May 23.)
Dodson: I think Cerrone should already have been fighting for the title. I don't know why people kept thinking Khabib would give Donald Cerrone problems. In my eyes, Donald would have outwrestled Khabib. No one realizes how good a wrestler Donald is until they step in there with him. This is a new Donald Cerrone. He's stronger, faster, smarter -- he has been working on his conditioning, and he's keeping his mental focus.
Okamoto: I mean, it would be nice if he beat Nurmagomedov; there really isn't a better way to head into a title fight than beating an undefeated, trash-talking fighter who happens to be favored against you. But that said, yeah, Cerrone is the No. 1 contender if he beats Makdessi. We're living in a world in which it seems that no lightweight is able to stay healthy. And on top of that, it seems that no champion can stay healthy. Then there's Cerrone, fighting 871 times per year. The sheer volume of his appearances makes him a No. 1 contender, because apparently, it's pretty hard to fight as often as he does. I'm 100 percent on board with a Donald Cerrone title fight.
Huang: I guess ideally, it would be going through Nurmagomedov, but with another knee injury putting him out until October, you can't make Cerrone wait that long. The guy has done nothing but win and he's waited long enough.
