Let's Look at the Welterweight Division for a Second

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dudleydigges

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Alright, so we have Robbie Lawler as our champion. Johny Hendricks as a no. 1 Contender. The loser of the next fight (face it, Dana will not rest until they fight again, Rory be damned)

Rory MacDonald, Hector Lombard and Kelvin Gastelum are the only active fighters in the top ten who have not lost a fight in the last year. Rory has wins over Woodley, Maia and Saffeidine. Lawler beat Matt Brown and Jake Ellenburger.

Hector and Rory are fighting now, eliminating one of them as a title contender. Best case scenario would have been let Rory fight and let Hector get another fight and take on whoever is champ after Rory's fight.

Kelvin Gastelum is (or probabaly should be) the underdog in his fight against Woodley. If he loses, Woodley still has some work to do before he's back in contention.

So unless Gastelum beats Woodley, we have the champ vs. Hendricks, then winner of Rory/Hector and then that's about it for contenders for a while.


Congrats UFC, you've destroyed the welterweight division. You might want to look into signing Ben Askren...
 
i have to agree that after lombard and rory fight and if woodley wins then welter is basically pretty stale in terms of top contenders for a while, which sucks
 
dudleydigges said:
Alright, so we have Robbie Lawler as our champion. Johny Hendricks as a no. 1 Contender. The loser of the next fight (face it, Dana will not rest until they fight again, Rory be damned)

Rory MacDonald, Hector Lombard and Kelvin Gastelum are the only active fighters in the top ten who have not lost a fight in the last year. Rory has wins over Woodley, Maia and Saffeidine. Lawler beat Matt Brown and Jake Ellenburger.

Hector and Rory are fighting now, eliminating one of them as a title contender. Best case scenario would have been let Rory fight and let Hector get another fight and take on whoever is champ after Rory's fight.

Kelvin Gastelum is (or probabaly should be) the underdog in his fight against Woodley. If he loses, Woodley still has some work to do before he's back in contention.

So unless Gastelum beats Woodley, we have the champ vs. Hendricks, then winner of Rory/Hector and then that's about it for contenders for a while.


Congrats UFC, you've destroyed the welterweight division. You might want to look into signing Ben Askren...
Click to expand...

If Woodley beats Kelvin, he'll probably take another fight or two while the title is defended against Hendricks/Brown and Rory/Lombard, so he could very well be right in the mix by then. You also have Condit coming back. And they can always just give Diaz another shot.

Not that I don't want them to sign Askren too.
 
Don't forget guys like Story, Gunnar, Thatch, Wonderboy etc. At least one of those guys will emerge as a contender in the next year or so, IMO.
 
I forget how shortsighted the people in the heavies are. First of all, that situation offers at least three title contenders for at least the next year. If you follow anything about title shots, that ends up being enough title contenders for probably the next 24-months. That's not even going into the fact that divisional activity is a constant in combat sports. People neglect giving attention to the fighters outside the top-10, but they're the ones that end up being the sprig of contenders in a years time, not the ones that're in the top-5 right now.

Jordan Mein and Thiago Alves are fighting in two weeks, and the winner's gonna definitely end up being catapulted into contendership (especially since Alves was a title contender for almost five-years straight, before his 2012-14 stretch of inactivity, so he's got ranking tenure). Rick Story's unanimously ranked in the top-15 and, besides that, he's arguably on a five-fight winning streak (considering how controversial the Pyle and Gastelum losses were). Ryan Laflare's also ranked at #15 in the UFC's rankings, so if he keeps winning (or if somebody beats him and keeps winning), another contender is born. There's also the fact that, if Carlos Condit comes back, he's gonna end up right back in title contention (especially if Lawler, Hendricks, Rory, or Lombard are a champion by then, since those fights would all sell). If Nick Diaz also doesn't retire should he lose to Anderson (which he is wont to do after losses, historically) and he drops back down to 170-- better yet, if he beats Anderson and drops back down to 170, he ends up back in the stack of contenders as well. None of this is going into a return by Georges St-Pierre.

The point is that denigrating the 170-lb division's title situation for the next 12+ months based only on the matchmaking of the fighters ranked in the top-5 right now is being very shortsighted. Bordering on ignorance, even.
 
Askren would beat Lawler.

Hendricks would be a good match up for Askren.
 
eseseses681 said:
I forget how shortsighted the people in the heavies are. First of all, that situation offers at least three title contenders for at least the next year. If you follow anything about title shots, that ends up being enough title contenders for probably the next 24-months. That's not even going into the fact that divisional activity is a constant in combat sports. People neglect giving attention to the fighters outside the top-10, but they're the ones that end up being the sprig of contenders in a years time, not the ones that're in the top-5 right now.

Jordan Mein and Thiago Alves are fighting in two weeks, and the winner's gonna definitely end up being catapulted into contendership (especially since Alves was a title contender for almost five-years straight, before his 2012-14 stretch of inactivity, so he's got ranking tenure). Rick Story's unanimously ranked in the top-15 and, besides that, he's arguably on a five-fight winning streak (considering how controversial the Pyle and Gastelum losses were). Ryan Laflare's also ranked at #15 in the UFC's rankings, so if he keeps winning (or if somebody beats him and keeps winning), another contender is born. There's also the fact that, if Carlos Condit comes back, he's gonna end up right back in title contention (especially if Lawler, Hendricks, Rory, or Lombard are a champion by then, since those fights would all sell). If Nick Diaz also doesn't retire should he lose to Anderson (which he is wont to do after losses, historically) and he drops back down to 170-- better yet, if he beats Anderson and drops back down to 170, he ends up back in the stack of contenders as well. None of this is going into a return by Georges St-Pierre.

The point is that denigrating the 170-lb division's title situation for the next 12+ months based only on the matchmaking of the fighters ranked in the top-5 right now is being very shortsighted. Bordering on ignorance, even.
Click to expand...

Talking about short sightedness. You forgot that there is still Hendricks and Lawler. That is like 2 more rematches right there. Hell, if these guys fight for another 8 years then the next 16-24 championship matches are set.
 
Leave it to Dana to make one of the most stacked and contender heavy divisions into one with few title challengers. I don't understand the ufcs obsession with getting trilogies over with as soon as time allows. Don't they understand that if they wait a little it will benefit the division and the rivalry. Besides its not like a bunch of ppl were clamoring for the third right away. In fact it's opposite.
 
Let's see. We still have to see how Thatch-Wonderboy, Mein-Alves, Gastelum-Woodley, Hendricks-Brown and Lombard-RoryMac play out.
If Hendricks and Rory do end up winning out and taking the next two title shots, that's about a year for guys like Thatch, Wonderboy, Mein, LaFlare, Story, and Gunnar to be set up in fights with top 10/15ers like Maia, Brown (should he lose), DHK, Lombard, Woodley/Gastelum loser, and Saff. I'd say WW is in a relatively good place.
 
I don't see how the Welterweight Division being thin is the UFC's fault.
 
I don't understand how you come to the conclusion 170 is out of contenders. as others have mentioned there is a ton of good fighters who could easily make a title push. 170 is the most stacked division ever
 
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