It can be painfully obvious when the Ultimate Fighting Championship elects to put its promotional muscle behind one of its up-and-coming athletes.
That was the case heading into UFC Fight Night 236, when Dana White’s Contender Series alum Joe Pyfer appeared to be the focal point of the card. Jack Hermansson, Pyfer’s dance partner in Saturday’s middleweight headliner, was something of the forgotten man. That changed over the course of 25 minutes at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, as “The Joker” refused to play the role of gatekeeper in a unanimous decision triumph against the heavily-hyped Pyfer.