Opinion: #GoBig and the Ever-Present Threat of MMA Disaster

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Over the last two weeks, Zuffa has revealed the schematics for the Ultimate Fighting Championship schedule up to Jan. 2 of next year. It's damn fine engineering, less a blueprint for a building than a battleship. If the UFC's final quarter of 2015 stays largely as scheduled and goes off without too many hitches, it could easily prove to be one of the hottest streaks the company has ever enjoyed, reminiscent of the mini-boom periods Brock Lesnar's bouts at UFC 100 and UFC 116 created several years ago.

Better than just putting provocative fights on paper for the final three months of the year, Zuffa has cleverly crafted its schedule, finessing fine details that give it the potential flexibility to deal with injuries or adversity. The UFC doesn't always learn from its mistakes -- hello, Anthony Johnson's mandated counseling and charitable donation -- but now deeply entrenched in the post-UFC 151 world, we've been forced to realize how quickly the best-laid plans can go turn into hell in a hurry. Zuffa is doing everything possible to protect its newborn “#GoBig” promotional baby, leaving as little as possible to chance, but this is MMA, a volatile, capricious nightmare at the best of times.

The month of November is a curious piece of this careful plan, as it is entirely an international proposition, with cards in Brazil, Australia, Mexico and South Korea immediately following the UFC's Oct. 24 return to Dublin. Despite the implicit diss that “international UFC card” carries with it, the Dublin card and the Sao Paulo show following it on Nov. 7 will give rich opportunities for Conor McGregor and Jose Aldo to rattle their sticks in the swill bucket of fight hype in front of their home countries. If you were the sort of person who loved the UFC's international press tour for the first attempt of Aldo-McGregor, where both fighters had to stand on stage while fans yelled obnoxious and insane things at them, then this should be right up your alley.

The key component to the UFC having a successful November will be the success of UFC 193. The UFC has finally broken into Melbourne, where it has wanted to run its shows in Australia all along. However, the company is promising 70,000 fans inside Etihad Stadium on a Sunday morning to watch mixed martial arts in a country where boxing and even kickboxing still have more cultural cachet. The headliner between Robbie Lawler and Carlos Condit could prove to be an epic clash, one of the few fights with a chance of unseating Lawler's July bloodbath with Rory MacDonald as “Fight of the Year,” but does it magnetize 70,000 people?

“Under-promise, over-deliver” is one of those lessons the UFC still hasn't quite learned. However, the real threat to the UFC's potential holiday bonanza isn't whether or not it get an “Oi, oi, oi!” chant going 70,000 voices deep. The threat is injuries, drug-test failures or anything else that could kill a fight on the vine. This is where Zuffa has actually been especially shrewd.

The UFC 193 card is actually solid beyond Lawler-Condit, but the hook is a stadium show headlined by a championship bout. If some tragedy befalls Lawler or Condit, the UFC can pluck either Johny Hendricks or Tyron Woodley from their UFC 192 bout; and if said tragedy occurs after that card transpires on Oct. 3 in Houston, it can option its winner. If Lawler was pulled and the winner of Hendricks-Woodley wasn't interested in the quick turnaround, we could still end up with the Nov. 21 bout between Matt Brown and Kelvin Gastelum being scuttled and finally be granted the orgasmic violence of Condit-Brown. The Plan B possibilities aren't exactly endless, but backup power options exist for the UFC should some circuits get fried between now and Melbourne.

Given the event's paramount importance to the company, the insulation of UFC 194 is more profound. Given both Aldo and McGregor's injury histories, especially the Brazilian's lengthy one, this fight getting screwed up would hardly shock anyone. Hell, we already saw it happen two months ago. To combat this potentially cold reality, the UFC has lined up Frankie Edgar-Chad Mendes for “The Ultimate Fighter” 22 Finale on Dec. 11, the night before UFC 194.

First, the UFC has finally figured out putting a TUF finale the night before a major event is the way to go, rather than doing it the night after and ending the weekend on a flat note, as was the case with the TUF 21 finale trailing UFC 189 in July and the TUF 19 finale following up UFC 175. In these cases, the event after the PPV tends to feel like a hangover meal at best -- and not necessarily a good one. Many international media members leave after the Saturday night. It's why the “main event” is not the first fight on a PPV card.

Second and more importantly, should anything happen to Aldo or McGregor, Edgar will be waiting in the on-deck circle. Aldo-Edgar 2 is nowhere near as compelling as Aldo-McGregor or Edgar-McGregor, but it is still a fantastic rematch of a competitive contest and one that might have a different complexion given the directions in which both fighters have been trending. With Edgar waiting in the wings, already preparing for an elite opponent at 145 pounds on the same weekend, any injury situation that could arise before Aldo-McGregor is a more digestible situation to the UFC getting blindsided in the run-up to UFC 189 and forcing Mendes into a dangerous fight on two weeks' notice.

The exact same provisions have been made for the UFC 194 co-feature, as Aldo and McGregor are not the only championship competitors with worrying histories of bumps and bruises. UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman has a long history of knee issues, with a half dozen procedures dating back to his wrestling days, plus his low-percentage rib injury that delayed his bout with Vitor Belfort. His challenger, Luke Rockhold, has stayed fit as a fiddle since 2014 began, but prior to that, his career was characterized by the concern that his constant physical infirmity could rob him of the chance to be an all-time great. Weidman-Rockhold is a perfect pairing of two prime prizefighters and one of the most significant middleweight bouts in history, but it's at least an Amber Alert on the injury watch -- a dark amber.

However, just minutes before Weidman and Rockhold (hopefully) take to the cage, their body doubles Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza and Yoel Romero are set for battle in a de facto title eliminator. In a perfect world, it is as easy as the winner of Weidman-Rockhold facing the winner of “Jacare”-Romero, but even in a complicated world where the champion or his challenger get waylaid, “Jacare” or Romero are deserving, viable substitutes. The MMA world is fond of handing out lemons, and the UFC has multiple lemonade recipes on call.

A week later, hopefully cresting high on the buzz of UFC 194, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone is set to finally challenge for the UFC lightweight title, live on Fox, against the last man to beat him, Rafael dos Anjos. Once again, should anything jeopardize the UFC on Fox 17 main event before the TUF 22 Finale eight days prior, the promotion can plug in either the streaking Tony Ferguson or the unbeaten Khabib Nurmagomedov, as they are scheduled for action on Dec. 11.

Would that be ideal? No, of course not. Nurmagomedov himself is coming off a knee injury that has kept him away from action for a year and a half, and Ferguson, despite his track record, remains largely anonymous. Yet, even in the deepest division in MMA, a rusty Nurmagomedov or under-the-radar Ferguson are valid, worthwhile opponents who could help conduct the kind of fight necessary to capture and keep an audience on Fox. Again, it infinitely trumps wrangling an overzealous 155-pounder with no fight scheduled on two weeks' notice.

Preparedness is all we can really ask for. Preparedness, however, is a means to an end, not the end itself. To prepare is to acknowledge uncertainty, anxiety, fear, potential consequence and harm. The UFC has showed a heady response to its recent logistic shortcomings, creating not just another hashtaggable multi-event campaign but a potential fight season that could be immortalized even with an injury here or there -- an electric fantasy that has much-needed auxiliary power.

The curtains are drawn, the doors are locked and there's a gun under the pillow. The UFC is prepared, however, and the good preparation is proportional to the problem it seeks to address. You can do all you want to try to stop the MMA boogeyman, but he is cruel, cold and spontaneous. When he knocks, he knocks. I know he will be back to reap again, but I'm hoping he stays quiet until January.