What's next at 205?

Oki so I guess shogun/Machida III ?

Mousasi needs to get his ass in the UFC...

And roy Nelson is coming !

 

:deal

 

Take the rematches away and 205 is pretty much dead in the water. Fresh talent is needed ASAP across the board,but we will probably just get another few seasons of TUF

The UFC is having real difficulty making new stars, and most of the up comming cards are remtaches of fights from a couple of years ago. Yes Anderson v Chael is highly anticipated, but Forrest v Tito and Cruz v Uriah are going on their 3rd go around, Mir got the title shot at HW because he's the least **** in the division atm and they still cant find a decent opponant for Aldo

Take away the depth at Lightweight with Benson seeming having a never ending list of viable contenders waiting in the wings, and Condit/Diaz v GSP, there aint many exciting matches we aint already seen before tbh

 

Haha Id pay to see Shogun fight himself though

 

Isn't Shogun fighting Rampage next? Anyhow after watching Jones / Evans I'm confident Hendo will be able to land a H bomb. The only problem is Jones chin seem granite.

 

Thats why its vital for the sport that stars are made elsewhere in rival promotions. Helps add the mystique that keeps anoraks like us talking. Now we've seen all the fights and there's only sooo many that can be recycled.

 

You've only got to look at the new life the WEC guys have given the LW division and Diaz and Condit to the WW's to back this up

That wont happen again

 

Surely if you have multiple promotions you get more rematches because the talent pool is divided between rival organisations? It wasn't like you didn't have plenty of rematches in the UFC/Pride era i.e. Sylvia-Arlovski, Fedor-Nog, Liddell-Couture, Wanderlei-Sakuraba, etc.

And ironically we're still in a era when the UFC will be benefiting from rival orgs - there's a good chance that Alvarez and Lombard follow Shields, Diaz and Overeem as high profile signings by Zuffa. And of course at some point Melendez and the Strikeforce GP winner will be freed from Strikeforce.

I would agree the UFC feels flat at the moment and I think a large part of the problem is that **** keeps going wrong - GSP getting injured, Diaz getting defeated and then suspended, Overeem failing his test, the Brazil stadium show likely falling apart, etc. Imagine how much better this year would have been if you'd have had GSP-Diaz in February and we could all look forward to JDS-Overeem. Equally you had Henderson being a whiny ***** about being made to fight Pettis which robbed us of two great summer fights.

I also think the featherweight and bantamweight divisions are a different issue. Featherweight is suffering because for whatever reason lightweights are refusing to drop down unless they're on a losing streak - really the likes of Edgar and Guida should be providing Aldo with his next big challenge but they're happier to stay at 155Ibs. Bantamweight there were other options (Baro and now McDonald) but they wanted to make the Faber fight for marketablity reasons.

 

Except its already started to happen with Bellator.

I dunno to me there seems something strong about citing the UFC no longer being able to benefit from raiding rival promotions for their talent as an argument against the UFC monoplosing the world's talent. Surely the former is a consequence of the latter? If there's genuine competition then like Pride the dream fights don't get made because the promotions can hold onto their fighters.

What has to happen is the UFC gets better at hyping fighters who rise up from the regional promotions. The emphasis they placed on the Mc/MacDonalds on this weekend's show was a welcome demonstration of them doing this. Still work to do though.

 

Dana should call Vince...

In all seriousness all sports seem to ebb and flow with regards to momentum.But if the best they can offer us is Tito v Griffin 3 in the meantime...well...Im not liking ''the best fight the best'' that the one org era is providing tbh

 

To be fair that's a bit of a straw man. Its Tito's retirement fight and they've both been clear that they wanted the fight because they see the other as an easy, marketable opponent. I doubt its the match that the UFC would want to make for either man.

 

It's about choice really isnt it. Im finding the same problem with Bellator as I am with the UFC tbh. It's turning into ''Who's wrestling is the least ****, and if that is even in that regard, then we'll wing wild right hands at each other'' Now that's a generalisation, but it does have some truth to it.

The last two main events have been won with jabs and leg kicks...

 

If you think it's a straw man then you are missing the point about building new stars. The only up & commer on that card is Barao