It’s a well-established cultural trope that many of history’s most brilliant artists -- be they painters, sculptors, poets, musicians or of some other creative profile -- are tortured, some personally or psychologically, by their trade. They don’t produce the “right” product from which their contemporaries profit and their genius goes unseen or unremarked until, if they’re lucky, long after they’re dead and gone.
When it comes to the “mixed martial” kind of afflicted artist, this sport’s history has punished the livelihood and legacy of many fighters, but none seem to suffer as harshly as those who happen to weigh in between 145 and 155 pounds, grace pound notwithstanding.