Hw division has never had someone truly, satisfyingly dominant in ufc. I remember there was speculation that some top looking wrestler from the Olympics might join UFC after Olympics but doesn't look like it's happened. Any hints as to someone who has the pedigree and could fit the bill is looking to join the UFC?
That ship has sailed. The Living the Dream Fund was put together by Wall Street guys that wrestled to pay $250,000 for gold medals, $50k for silver..before that wrestlers had no option other than MMA so that talent pool has shrunk. IMO Stipe Miocic chin and power is going to be pretty dominate for a few years.
There is absolutely no depth or elite level new talent out there at heavy in mma. Why else do you think the ufc has kept journeymen like Roy nelson and old fighters like Arlovski around for so long. The heavyweight division is pathetically thin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilyal_Makhov This guy is going to debut at some point. Apart from him there's Vitaly Minakov and Blagoy Ivanov. Of the two Minakov has the potential of being a top 10 fighter where as Ivanov is a solid gatekeeper kind of fighter like Nelson. I think we're lucky that Miocic came around when he did lol... His probably the only good grassroots HW talent that the UFC have acquired in the last 5+ years.
It is interesting to note too that a guy named "Blagoy Ivanov" or "Stipe Miocic" is never going to get much PR in the US. People are so bias against foreign sounding names and especially weird sounding slav or a middle eastern names that I don't think the UFC even wants those guys unless they can't be denied. It is like if Khabib Nurmagomedov name was "Tony Ferguson" instead his title shot would be in the works right now. Instead he is going to fight Tony Ferguson and bet your ass the UFC wants Ferguson to win because "Khabib Nurmagomedov" is basically the worst name possible for promotion in the UFC, middle eastern and slav sounding at the same time. Miocic should change his name to "Bader Diaz" or something like that and he would be a huge star. Right now they are just waiting for someone to beat him that they can actually bother promoting. That is also why I think there is a lack of talent across MMA. These are the type of guys that don't want to do this bull**** dance with the UFC and start at min wage.
Bilyal is the one I was thinking of but couldn't remember the name. Very intriguing prospect and looks like he could dominate but I just searched him and nothing about him since the Olympics. Is he still planning on UFC? Any news there?
It's just a revolving carousel of the same mostly terrible dudes. Stiopic will be champ for a long time.
