MMA: Sometimes a gimmick that rockets you to the top isn't enough: The Tai Tuivasa story

A lot of people have been noticing that there is one thing that can get you the big fights and therefore the big paydays faster than actually being the best at fighting. Having a gimmick that gets the crowd on your side will land you in fights that a fighter may not actually deserve. This has always been upsetting to me because it bypasses a lot of non English-speaking fighters and holds them back because they are unable to participate in the gimmick as well as the ones who speak English can. I can't say for sure who first started this but Chael Sonnen was the first one that I remember. He landed fights that were many places above his own ranking simply because he had a good mouth on him. This has resulted in him landing a lucrative commentator position so I guess it paid off.

Conor McGregor mastered the craft of boosting his numbers by having wonderful microphone skills and for a while there, I found it entertaining as well but the allure wore off and along with it, his actually performance in the octagon. I think that a lot of these guys are so interested in developing a gimmick that they forget that ultimately, you are going to have to perform well in the actual fights as well.

The story of the rapid rise and fall of Tai Tuivasa is in my mind a case of a gimmick that got him to the top too quickly, and now more is expected of the guy than he is actually capable of delivering.

src

His gimmick, in case you missed it, was after a win, which was normally well down on the undercard against another person that we have never heard of, he would drink beer out of a shoe. Later, this would turn into him drinking a beer out of a random fan's shoe and well, that is just disgusting.

src

This backfired one time when a fan actually laced the beer that he put in the shoe with hot sauce. Not just any hot sauce either, it was one that is manufactured by Dustin Poirier and it was one of the hottest ones they had.

I found this very gross but it did work out for the man. All of a sudden and simply because of this gimmick Tai found himself on the main card and being heavily featured in the UFC promotional materials mostly because of the "shoey" and not necessarily because he was a contender in the heavyweight division. From 2020 to 2022, he was on a hot streak of non-defeat but there was a part of me that felt that he was intentionally being given "easy" fights that were tailor made for him to win. The fans wanted to see "shoey" and I feel as though UFC intentionally gave him fights that he could win so that he could be put into a potential championship shot spotligt.

Things would go horribly wrong for him from that point forward.

src

It began with a brutal KO vs Ciryl Gane in September of 2022 and I don't know if that just seriously rang the dude's bell and messed up his brain, but he hasn't been the same ever since. He has been finished in all 3 fights that he has had since then, and his name keeps moving further and further down the card as he in now relegated to Fight Night events and well, he may not even be getting much more of that.

src

Despite getting a few good shots in, once Marcin Tybura got Tai on the ground, it was a quick submission of shoe-beer guy. He has pretty terrible submission defense on the ground and this has been showcased in his last two losses that both happened before the end of the 2nd round. The most recent one took only 4 minutes.

Tuivasa is not a victim of age. He is only 31 years old. So why is it that this guy who looked like he was going to be in the championship picture quickly fading from the scene? Well I would say it is because he gimmicked his way into the picture in the first place. When he started doing shoey's people took notice of him without giving a great deal of attention as to whether or not he actually belonged near the top of the rather lackluster heavyweight division. Once he defeated a rather fading Derrick Lewis in 2022, this was used as proof that he was ready for the big time. Unfortunately Gane was able to put a stop to that nonsense pretty quickly.

Tai has already been relegated to headlining Fight Night events, which do not pay anywhere near as well as PPV's. After this last lackluster performance, it wouldn't surprise me all that much if he gets relegated to mid-card or even prelims. When you sink that low it is very difficult to pick yourself back up. Maintaining a team is an expensive endeavor and normally the entire purse for all fighters in a Fight Night is what ONE of the fighters would be paid in a Pay-per-view event. Mostly, everyone is paid under $100,000 at these events, which sounds like a lot but when you consider a fighter generally only gets 2-3 fights per year, this is not the superstar sort of money that you might think. Once you take out taxes, the percentage that goes to your team, and other payouts that have to happen such as camp travel expenses and just the cost of maintaining an entourage of people to train with you, there isn't a lot left at the end of it all.

Tai was shot to the top by a gimmick and now we are seeing that he doesn't really belong there. I feel as though UFC rigs events for crowd pleasers rather than the fighters that are actually the best in the business. Tai is the latest fighter to fall victim to this. If it wasn't for the beer-shoe stunt, I think there is a good chance that we wouldn't even know who the hell he is for the most part.

I hope that Tai banked a lot of the money that he was getting during his rise to the top, because I think things are only going to get a lot worse from this point forward especially if he loses his next fight. You can't do a shoey if you don't win and that is the main reason why anyone even bothers to go to the events Tai is in. It's stupid, but it is true.