Damn the LHW division is so shallow.

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Sickplicity

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It's definitely a shell of its former self.

So I've been thinking about how the division has been playing out & the division pretty much lacks in all aspects.

Gustafsson & Glover are the only guys that look ready to fight Jones.

The possible contenders in Machida & Mousasi are dropping to MW.

Rashad is 1-2 in his last 3, his recent win coming off Dan Henderson who is also coming off a loss. Hendo is riding a 2 fight losing streak.

Vitor & Sonnen jumped up to the MW division but both got beat by the LHW champ already.

Shogun is riding a 2 fight losing streak.

Bader is 1-2 in his last 3 fights.

What's happened to the formerly beloved LHW division?

Adding someone like DC don't mean nothing seeing as how he hasn't even competed in LHW & he hasn't looked exactly spectacular in his last outting & Davis won a controversial decision over Machida, Davis is far from elite.
 
Anderson Silva lost. This is what happened '-'...
Lets face it, half of the LHW division top contenders were MW's who didnt want to fight the spider (Such as Machida), or, fought him and lost. (Chael, Vitor).

With Weidman as champion... Hopes of reclaiming the MW belt sparked again and people started an exodus back to the MW.
 
#1 Jones
#2 Gustaffson
#3 Davis
#4 Lil Nog
#5 Rashad
#6 Hendo
#7 Glover
#8 Sonnen
#9 Mousasi
#10 Shogun

Bader, Wand, Te-Huna, Jimmo, Thiago Silva, Manuwa, Cavalcante, Hamill, Perosh, OSP, Drysdale, Diabate, Maldonado, Prokrajac and Beltran.


So shallow huh?
 
But let me guess, you think divisions like lw, fw and bw are so stacked tho right? Ha. Lhw is fucking stacked. Having a great champion doesn't change that
 
It wasn't that long ago that the division was considered stacked but now it's in a transitional period. Shogun and Minotoro are declining, Bader's chin continues to let him down, Machida is declining and moving down, Davis hasn't developed as quickly as hoped, Rashad has already been handled by Jones, and several other key players have had injuries and a plethora of other drama. Add to that the fact that we have a dominant champion who, after setting the record for LHW defenses, just had his first competitive fight and it makes it look far worse than it is. In my opinion, if Jones wasn't the champ the division, while obviously no longer the UFC's flagship, would be seen as far more competitive. Gustafsson, for as well as he did against Jones, appears far more beatable to the better guys at 205.
 
mmanut said:
It wasn't that long ago that the division was considered stacked but now it's in a transitional period. Shogun and Minotoro are declining, Bader's chin continues to let him down, Machida is declining and moving down, Davis hasn't developed as quickly as hoped, Rashad has already been handled by Jones, and several other key players have had injuries and a plethora of other drama. Add to that the fact that we have a dominant champion who, after setting the record for LHW defenses, just had his first competitive fight and it makes it look far worse than it is. In my opinion, if Jones wasn't the champ the division, while obviously no longer the UFC's flagship, would be seen as far more competitive. Gustafsson, for as well as he did against Jones, appears far more beatable to the better guys at 205.
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A champion comes down from 2 rounds down to win a 5 round title fight, does it while being busted up, and does it in spectacular fashion in the fight of the year

and your conclusion is that this means the champion is weak and the division looks bad because of it?
 
It's not shallow, it is stagnant.

Enter the list below, not necessarily my feelings, but just sort of the "feel" I get from reading online:

The best winning streak (Gustaffson) was just snapped in an exciting 5-round title bout.

Davis is not impressive in his victories and is not seen as someone who will take the belt.

Glover is questioned every time he wins and the general feeling is he may have been overly hyped.

Fighters like Rashad failed to take a round emphatically off the champ and end up having close decisions at the top of the division.

Fighters like Bader are good fighters, but in the same way guys like Overeem and Mezger were in PRIDE FC... not going to be in title contention, but will fill out a card.

Shogun has not been consistent since he left PRIDE.
When UFC legends got old and hung around, like Ken Shamrock (King of Pancrase), Don Frye (UFC Tournament Champion), or Mark Coleman (UFC Heavyweight Champ and PRIDE Grand Prix Champ), they actually posted similar results before they dropped out of contention.

And Jones is winning, but outside of his last outing, he has been a predictably dominant champion.

With all of that said, every fighter is really really good.
 
spid3yo said:
A champion comes down from 2 rounds down to win a 5 round title fight, does it while being busted up, and does it in spectacular fashion in the fight of the year

and your conclusion is that this means the champion is weak and the division looks bad because of it?
Click to expand...

Your reading comprehension is pure shit if that's what you got out of that. I'm saying that Jones is so damned good that him beating the teetotal shit out of everyone he's faced, aside from Gustafsson who he nearly finished despite it being a close fight, makes everyone else look terrible. There's literally no one who should or would be the favorite against him and that makes for the illusion of a division with a bunch of nobodies. We've already seen Jones smash Evans, Machida, Bader, Shogun, and eke out a decision in a gut check war with Gustafsson and while Teixeira, Minotoro, Hendo, and Davis are top notch dudes, two of them are on the downslide and two just don't appear to have the goods to make it competitive. Gustafsson is the only challenger that I'm actually curious to see make another run of it and I don't think he pulls it off either.

Tl;dr - I'm saying Jones is incredibly dominant, the division isn't what it once was, and the fact that the viable challengers have nearly all been beat up by the champ combine to make the division look worse than it is.
 
A) Frequent events
B) Perfect records
C) Meaningful matchups against tough opponents.

Pick two.
 
Sickplicity said:
It's definitely a shell of its former self.

So I've been thinking about how the division has been playing out & the division pretty much lacks in all aspects.

Gustafsson & Glover are the only guys that look ready to fight Jones.

The possible contenders in Machida & Mousasi are dropping to MW.

Rashad is 1-2 in his last 3, his recent win coming off Dan Henderson who is also coming off a loss. Hendo is riding a 2 fight losing streak.

Vitor & Sonnen jumped up to the MW division but both got beat by the LHW champ already.

Shogun is riding a 2 fight losing streak.

Bader is 1-2 in his last 3 fights.

What's happened to the formerly beloved LHW division?

Adding someone like DC don't mean nothing seeing as how he hasn't even competed in LHW & he hasn't looked exactly spectacular in his last outting & Davis won a controversial decision over Machida, Davis is far from elite.
Click to expand...



Boy.. Was that last part 100% wrong or what.

The merry-Go-round guys are losing now, the division needs to transition, and it is. It's not that shallow, really. Bellators LHW division is shallow...
 
BrainLeakage said:
A strong champion does not make a division weak.
Click to expand...

but a weak 2 through 10 does. Don't get me wrong Jones has some good wins, but the elite have been fading of late except gus and glover. Jones did beat many of them in their prime or semi-prime but they are either getting too old (hendo/lil nog/shogun body wise) or gone to other orgs or divisions rampage/machida. Btw a lot of my favorite fighters are in that division. Its just not as stacked as it once was
 
JD Harmeyer said:
when a champion clears out a division that's what happens. Still wouldn't say it's a shallow, it's just that the champion so far is light years a head of the rest.
Click to expand...

He doesn't appear to be light-years ahead of the rest anymore. If he would not have hot the guillotine against Machida, that fight would have been close. Chael and Vitor were defeated before the bell rang IMO.
 
If it seems shallow to you... It's because sadly Jon Jones made it that way.
 
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