The other night at UFC 135: Jones vs Jackson, we got to witness Jon Jones pick apart a Rampage Jackson that is now well beyond his prime. In any case, it was the best Rampage we’ve ever witnessed throughout his illustrious career. Never before have I seen Rampage with the kind of head movement he displayed, ducking under at least 3 or 4 lethal spinning elbows from Jones. Elbows that have even fighters like Shogun Rua have fallen victim too. Rampage was at his best and Jon Jones made it look easy picking him apart the way that he did. The only problem that I saw with Rampage was that he spent too much time working on his defense in an effort to not get hit, and forgot to let his lethal hands go. If he had gone on the offensive the way we all know and love to see, it could have been a different fight. Jones, most likely, would still have come out on top, but it would have been nice to see a better fight.
With that said, Jon Jones has now gotten credit from Dana White who says that Jones may be one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in MMA. So now Mr. White has a promoters’ dream - holding the contracts of 3 of the greatest fighters in MMA: Georges St. Pierre, Anderson Silva and Jon Jones. He’s stayed clear of saying anyone of them will face each other in the foreseeable future, claiming that none of them have cleared out their division yet and the list is long before they actually will look into one of these “super fights”. My personal opinion on this is White is trying not to compromise his organization, and is really embellishing the talent in each division from welterweight up to light-heavy weight. From lightweight down and the heavyweight division I believe Dana White may have an argument. Let’s take a look at the weight classes in the UFC and the talent in each one.
In the bantamweight division we have champion Dominick Cruz. Cruz is by far the best bantamweight in the UFC, but he has a tough match coming up next month against Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson. Johnson is a viable contender and should make it a great fight with Cruz. But because the division is so small and still being built, it is hard to say that Cruz will actually be cleaning it out anytime soon. There are a lot of guys, up and coming and the weight class will continue to grow. So for this I can go with Dana’s theory about having a long list.
In the featherweight division we have champion Jose “Junior” Aldo. The man is lethal on his feet and with his hands. His last outing didn’t look too impressive but we can chalk that up to a long layoff due to injury, first octagon fight jitters, or maybe even underestimating Mark Hominick. Whatever the case, his next fight is against Ken “Ken Flo” Florian. Kenny Florian is hungry for a title that has eluded him throughout his stint in the UFC. Just when it looks like he had a chance, the champion dominates him and makes him look mediocre. Now with his move to the featherweight division, Florian becomes one of the bigger and stronger guys in his weight class and could finally reach his destiny. But aside from Florian, the featherweight division is pretty much like the bantamweight division. It is also growing but at a faster rate. This is because there are a lot of people in a deep, deep, lightweight division. A lot of fighters who didn’t want to jeopardize their careers by leaving the big stage in the UFC, stayed in a deep lightweight division and were really out classed by bigger and stronger fighters. Now because there is no chance of leaving the UFC short of a losing streak, these same fighters are dropping down in weight to where they belonged in the first place. This alone will keep this division growing at a rapid pace. So Jose Aldo will be gamefully employed trying to clean out his division for a while, as will any other person who may dethrone him.
Now that brings me to the most stacked weight class on the planet: the lightweight division. I am a huge fan of Frankie Edgar being from New Jersey and he has the daunting task of fending off all of the world class contenders as champion of this division. Because of this you will never hear his name as one of the sport’s pound-for-pound best fighters… at least not anytime soon. He should be held in high regard considering he is a featherweight competing with and beating the world’s best lightweights. However, it’s been a struggle for him to get the recognition he deserves with the likes of his next opponent Gray Maynard, a slew of other contenders (Ben Henderson, Melvin Gullard, Clay Guida, Anthony Pettis, Edson Barboza, Donald Cerrone, Jim Miller) and, thanks to their recent performances, Nate Diaz and Evan Dunham can be thrown into that mix as well. Not to mention there are also people that are not in the UFC that should be. Namely, Gilbert Melendez, who is arguably the best lightweight, and some can make a case for Eddie Alverez even though his competition has not been that of the UFC competition. In any case, this division does not have a shortage of talent. Dana White can make a whole card of lightweights and it would be stacked. I would pay top dollar for it. The top of that division is really unclear. It will take a couple of years to sort this one out.
As for the welterweight division, they don’t have that problem. Georges St. Pierre is the champion and he has dominated in every way possible. His major downfall is his inability to finish. He seems more content with not losing than winning. In the eyes of most fans he is the poster boy for “lay and pray”. In GSP’s defense, he does stay active in this position and is definitely trying to finish, but he doesn’t have the ability to do so. In my eyes, GSP has 2 fights left before we can say he cleared out the division. Those two fights are, his upcoming bout with Carlos Condit, and his biggest challenge, in my opinion, Nick Diaz. Unfortunately, Diaz didn’t want to play ball and instead played hard ball and now it’s going to be another couple of months before we get to see this dream match. Other than those 2 fights, the only other viable contender could be Jake Ellenberger who had an eye opening performance against Jake Shields. With one more big name fight, Ellenberger may slip into that mix. I don’t think GSP has much more competition than that, but I also don’t think GSP should be in the mix for a pound-for-pound dream match either.
Now we have the middleweight division. This is by far the weakest division period in the UFC. There is the champion Anderson Silva and then there is everyone else. The only contender that may dethrone him is Chael Sonnen, and that is only if Chael learns how to stay out of submissions. Chael first has to get by Brain Stann, who has made a name for himself recently, and if he can get by Sonnen, then a match with Silva would be appealing. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening. The only other middleweight that could pose a threat may be Hector Lombard who is not even currently in the UFC and most likely will never be as he continues to defend his Bellator title against lesser competition. As long as he remains the champ there, he has no reason to go anywhere near the big leagues of the UFC. So with the only match being Silva vs Stann/Sonnen, the middleweight division is cleaned out. Although I would like to see Michael Bisping eat a couple knees for some giggles.
The light-heavyweight division is much like the middleweight division with one huge difference. They have a huge talent pool but, aside from Rashad Evans and, maybe, Dan Henderson, the champion Jon Jones is just another level above the rest. Rashad Evans is the only intriguing matchup because, like Rampage said, Evans and Jones were training partners and thus there is history there. Other than Rashad, nobody has the skillset to defeat Jones. Dan Henderson would be interesting for a unification bout, but I don’t see him posing much of a threat. Hendo had problems with welterweight Jake Shields, who doesn’t have half the tools of Jonny “Bones” Jones. With that said, after Rashad, I see a cleaned out division.
With the heavyweight division, champion Cain Valasquez doesn’t have a shortage of competition. His biggest test to date will be on Fox when he defends his title on national television against Junior Dos Santos. Santos could very well win the title and end the dominating start to Cain’s career. But in the event that he doesn’t, the UFC has a plethora of talent with the newly acquired Strikeforce brand that will keep the champion busy. The UFC already acquired Alistar Overeem and that immediately creates another challenger for the champ as long as he gets by Brock Lesnar which I am betting he will. Eventually, Strikeforce will be absorbed by the UFC and there is always Daniel Cromier and, if the UFC swallows their pride, Josh Barnett. So the heavyweight division will be busy for a while.
With all of this in play, it would seem to me that Anderson Silva and Jon Jones are one win from legitimately cleaning out their respective divisions. For some reason Dana White doesn’t think his viewers are smart enough to see this and wants to push everyone in his organization. The fact of the matter is that this might work for the newer audiences that are coming into the UFC fold, but for us old heads that have watched from UFC 1 through the blackout years and Pride, we are probably a little wiser to this then he thinks. Boxing had a popular hypothetical dream match back in the late 80’s when people wondered who would win between Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali. It’s a question that never had an opportunity to get answered. Today boxing continuously gets ridiculed because they can’t get their premier super fight together, which is a possible match between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather. Dana White is the first president/promoter to finally have the chance and the power to do put that type of dream match together. Anderson Silva is not getting any younger and he is only going to get older, slower, and weaker as time goes on. Right now he is on top of the world. Why not make that type of fight within the next year? Everyone wants to see all of these guys at their best, not when they are old and don’t stand a chance. I have a feeling that is what Dana is doing. He is waiting until Anderson is insignificant to the UFC and not needed anymore before tarnishing his legacy to build up a new pound-for-pound king. The fans are the only ones who lose in this situation and Dana seems not to care. He cares more about making money off the UFC’s best fighting lesser competition than giving us what we want to see. Now don’t get me wrong, I like Dana White and if we are talking about routine fights in each division nobody delivers better. But as far as super fights go, the UFC is no better than boxing. I cannot fault White because if it was going to lower buy rates for the losing fighter and I was going to lose money, I might second guess it too. But since this article is me writing as a fan, I don’t want to wonder the rest of my life who was the best pound-for-pound fighter when I can see them physically battle it out themselves.
Let’s make it happen Dana. Sooner rather than later. Let us old fans see something special.
The "Cazmanian Devil" Rick Caswell
tapsnaporsleep@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=684803340
-
No comments:
Post a Comment