I'm gonna look at each division and see what's coming up for the champions and is there any interesting match ups on the rise that could shake up the diviison. First up we got the fastest guys in the UFC, the manletweights....kidding, the Fylweights. Please don't beat me up Mighty Mouse.
Flyweight
The Flyweight division is basically Mighty Mouse's playground. Since dropping down to Flyweight Demetrius Johnson has been on a tear. He has cleaned out the division and is 3 fights away from tieing Anderson Silva's record for most consecutive title defenses(10). However, a challenger has appeared. Henry Cejudo. He is an 10-0 Olympic gold medal winner wrestler and is on a collision course towards the divisions inagural and current campion. After that? Who knows. Demetrius has looked dominant in all his fights, he's still improving, still very young and injury free. So the sky's the limit for the beared champion.
Bantamweight
Bantamweight division is currently all caught up in the Dominick Cruz/TJ Dillashaw/Urijah Faber love triangle. Dominick, the former champion, is finally coming back from numerous injuries and is set to face TJ, the current champion, for the Bantamweight belt in 2 weeks time. Cruz, never offically lost his bel. He was stripped of it due to inactivity and he wants it back more than anything. TJ left Faber's Team Alpha Male to go and train with the man that is credited for his improvments, Duane Ludwig. All this didn't make Urijah very happy and has stated that if TJ wins he WILL fight his former team mate and friend. Ludwig was Team Alpha Male's former striking coach but a disagreement between him and Faber caused a split and Ludwing formed his own team. Now if all that wasn't enough, Faber and Cruz have their own beef going on all the way to the WEC days. Faber and Cruz are 1-1 with the second fight being a close win for Cruz. Since Cruz and TJ are fighting early in the year, the winner of that fight should be ready to defend the belt (and maybe even squash the beef) against Faber just in time for the UFC 200 mega event.
Besides this threeway beef making rounds in the division, Raphael Asuncao is expected to make his return from an ankle surgery in 2016. Raphael is 7-1 in the UFC and holds a win over the current champ, TJ Dillashaw, and more than likely will face whoever is the champion at the time of his return.
Featherweight
Now this is the fun part.Since knocking out Jose Aldo in 13 seconds Conor McGregor has been playing with a couple of options. Option A: give Frankie Edgar his well deserved title shot, Option B: rematch wih Jose Aldo. Option C: move up a weightclass. Now let's break this down from the most likely to the least likely.
There has been quite some talk from both Conor and his coach about him going up in weight and facing Rafael Dos Anjos. Dos Anjos even called him out after his first round finish of Cowboy Cerrone and rumors are claiming that this fight is in the making
Frankie Edgar is on a 5 fight win streak and even McGregor stated that after Aldo the only fight that interests him at FW is Frankie Edgar. Dana has promissed Frankie a title shot, but he also did that to Miesha Tate, Ryan Bader and Tyron Woodley and as of January, 2016 none of them came anywhere near a title fight.
Now the least likely option is Jose Aldo getting an immediate rematch. The problem here isn't that he isn't worthy of a rematch, it's just that the UFC doesn't really want him as a champion. He gets injured often, isn't all that fond of talking trash (or talking in general), isn't all that marketable to the general audience, can't speak english and doesn't do any amazing ppv numbers. McGregor on the other hand is practically the polar opposite of this picture. He is a charismatic loudmouth who backs up everything he says come fight night, speaks english, gets a lot of mainstream exposure and doesn't get injured all that often(for now at least). Hell, Conor did about 90% promotion/build up for their fight. Remember his screaming at Aldo's face after he beat Denis Siver?
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| This alone ensured that their fight would be a PPV record breaker. |
Lightweight
Much like the situation in the Featherweight division, this division also has "Conor McGregor" written all over it. Conor has made it perfectly clear that he wants to be a 2 division champion and defend both belts simultaneously,. Also, just like I mentioned above, the current Lightweight ruler Raphael Dos Anjos is all for a Champion vs Champion match up. Even Nate Diaz also threw his name out there as a potential opponent for Conor McGregor's Lightweight debut, which for me would be a very good debut fight because of a two things. Firstly- these two would never shut up. Pre fight, during fight and post fight. Diaz brothers are one of the biggest trash talkers in MMA and Conor really gives them a run for their money. This fight could end up being the first ever full contact "yo mama" joke contest. That along with the fact that Conor is like a modern day King Midas, turning everything he touches into gold. There is no way in hell this fight doesn't make an insane amount of money. Secondly- Nate Diaz has been having a career resurgance and is putting one great performances and this would probably be his first(and maybe even)only time he ever headlines a major PPV fight card.
Moving away a bit from all this Conor McGregor talk, a very important fight for the Lightweight divison is happening on the Dillashaw/Cruz fight card. Former Bellator LW Champion meets former UFC LW Champion Anthony Pettis. Eddie is coming of a split decission win over Gilbert Melendez and Pettis is coming of a title fight loss to Dos Anjos. Both guys want to taste gold again and this fight has all the implications of being a contender spot eliminator.
EDIT: Almost forgot, Dustin Poirier. He went to war with Joe Duffy this past Saturday and now rides a 3 fight win streak. His medical suspenssion is 6 months, that's just in time to see the unraveling of the Alvarez/Pettis showdown that goes down in 2 weeks time. If Alvarez wins, I'd say he deserves a shot the champ, however if Pettis wins he would (im my opinion) need at least one solid win to get a rematch with Dos Anjos.Which directly puts him on a collission course with DDP himself(no, not this DDP), Dustin Poirier.
Dustin after the Joe Duffy fight
End of part one...
This marks the first half my write up. In the second half I will talk about WW, MW, LHW, HW and the Women's divisions, UFC comeptetion and a couple of other stuff. Part two will be hitting the web later this week, so keep an eye on that. I'll be seeing you soon everybody!
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