Most Realistic PPV Timeline for 2016 & UFC 200 Line-up

[ironball]

UFC will manage to line-up a huge show for the historical 200 card like they did in the past. It may take place in New York, Cowboys stadium, or Vegas like all of the biggest fights ever. It is very realistic that the next 9 PPVs will be stretched out til mid-2016, making a perfect time for a UFC 200 in July, as was 100, 189 and all other massively-marketed fights.

So what do you think is the most plausible, realistic fight line-up 11 months from now?

Heavyweight Title

Arlovski vs. Werdum II (or if cain wins a rematch & mir beats andrei) would be suitable but that seems like it would be it's own card, probably for May, several months after Arvloski/Mir and Cain/Werdum II happen (around oct I assume)

Light Heavyweight Title

D.C. and Gustaffson are going to fight, and the winner of that will have adequate time to train and hype a rematch with Jon Jones when he returns.

Middleweight Title

..along with Weidman/Rockhold winner vs. Yoel Romero around may or June.

Welterweight Title

In the next few months or early new year, Lawler & Hendricks will both fight again, probably the likes of Hendricks/Condit II for a titleshot and Lawler defending against Woodley or something in Oct-Dec, which would potentially set-up Lawler Hendricks III.

Lightweight Title

RDA comes back around UFC 193 and beats the next contender, then either fights Khabib, Cerrone or has a rematch with Pettis around August for a big follow-up card to 200

Womens BW Title

Rousey is going to fight and likely destroy Meisha again in a few months while Cyborg gets a fight at 135 and beats the likes of Holly Hohm or Cat Zingano for a title-shot (or if cyborg STILL cant, those 2 fight for a title-shot)


Featherweight Title

Meanwhile who knows when McGregor vs. Aldo actually happens, it may be delayed til 2016 even with the whole McGoob/Edgar/Faber triangle. However, that seems like a good bet for New Years Card.

Flyweight Title

Probably thrown in around March or April where MM beats another prospect handily

Womens Strawweight Title

Around the same time, maybe Feb

So we could potentially have:

IMO, the 2 most important and realistic main & co-main event fights:

MAIN CARD:

LHW Championship: Jon Jones vs. DC/Gustaffson
Womens BW Championship: Ronda vs. Cyborg
Welterweight Championship: Robbie Lawler vs. Condit/Hendricks III
Rampage vs. Rumble (Holy SHIT)
Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping II (it was on 100, why not)
Michael Johnson vs. Anthony Pettis for no.1 contender
Jeremy Stephens vs. Frankie Edgar (whether stephens deserves it or not)

FOX PRELIMS:

Matt Brown vs. Hector Lombard
Alistair Overeem vs. Mark Hunt II
Nate Diaz vs. Tony Ferguson
Thiago Alves vs. Gilbert Melendez
Paige Van Zant vs. Some marketable hot chick fighter for titleshot

[SIZE="5"EARLY PRELIMS[/SIZE]

[Size="4"]Joe Lauzon vs. Bobby Green
Edson Barboza vs. Al Iaquinta
Travis Browne vs. Ben Rothwell to kick off the card
[/SIZE]


Thats 15 right there so atleast 3-4 are interchangeable



Then we have, excluded from the timeline above, other possible title candidates for UFC 200

Mens BW Championship: Dominick Cruz vs. T.J. Dillashaw
Mens FW Championship: Jose Aldo vs. Conor McGregor

+ Wildcard chance of Fedor/GSP returning and CM Punk finally fighting

Some other fights to be made around Summer 2016 that I doubt will be forced onto the 200 card, so probably 199, 201 .etc .etc:

Anderson Silva vs. Weidman/Rockhold loser OR Hendo/Belfort winner
Evans/Bader winner vs. OSP/Glover winner
Tim Kennedy vs. Gegard Mousasi
Stipe Miocic vs. Cain Velasquez
Junior Dos Santos vs. Arlovski/Werdum II
Renan Barao vs. Jonny Eduardo/Thomas Almeida/Michael McDonald
Lyoto Machida vs. Tim Kennedy or some other scrub


thoughts?

 

[WhalingDan]

anything can happen really, conor and ronda can lose twice and lose lots of popularity. Been a crazy year for MMA so far.

 

[NumeroUno]

Well McGregor/Aldo should take place at UFC 195. I do expect McGregor and Rousey to fight on the card and I think you're right with 3 title fights.

 

[ConradMcgilcuty]

men's bantamweight...
But no way Jones headlines against guys he already beat. I do see three title fights though.

 

[ironball]

men's bantamweight...
But no way Jones headlines against guys he already beat. I do see three title fights though.

How do you not see him headlining against guys he beat?

Aside from the fact he's the GOAT LHW, still undefeated (aside from the Hammill incident), is coming off of a huge scandal and news story with the "recovery" and "regaining focus" angle, coming back for the belt he never lost...

His fight against Gustaffson was amazing and some people, myself included, gave the win to Alex.

His fight against Cormier was also very competitive for the first few rounds and the 2 hate eachother.

Either fight, for the title, not only makes the most sense contender & ranking-wise, but also story, hype and entertainment wise, especially after Cormier/Gus happens and, if Cormier wins, it would arguably be the most important LHW fight in history (much more important than before as Cormier will have wins over #1 and #2s in Rumble/Gus back-to-back, and would arguably be the only Champion vs. Champion fight in the same division, where they pretty much, both have the belt, and not just interim! Plus it would just be a giant shitstorm of drama and epic trash talk.

And I aint even a jones fan

 

[johncola]

It's interesting because it looks like there's only gonna be 4 PPV's between the New Year show (UFC 195) and UFC 200. Every year since 2008 there's been 6 PPV's in that window, except 2010 where they had the Abu Dhabi show and therefore had 7 PPV's in that window. What that means is that we should be seeing PPV's that are more stacked than usual.

We know they want to do the Dallas stadium show, and that could be either UFC 194 in early December or it could be in place of the usual Vegas New Year show that you'd expect would happen on January 2. Hopefully we find out soon. If the stadium show happens then it'll be McGregor/Aldo for sure plus probably 1-2 other title fights including Rousey/Tate. It could also feature CM Punk's debut too.

The Super Bowl weekend show is another big one that tends to be in Vegas. It'll probably be UFC 196. I think Werdum/Velasquez is likely for it, since Dana said at the post-190 conference that that fight should happen in Jan or Feb.

The Memorial Day weekend show is another usual big Vegas show. It'll probably be either UFC 198 or UFC 199.

The new MGM-AEG Las Vegas arena next to NY-NY and Monte Carlo opens in April, and Dana said UFC 200 would happen there. It's bigger than MGM and Mandalay arenas so going forward it'll probably be the arena for the biggest Vegas fights the UFC does. It's hard to speculate what fights could happen on the card because it's so far away, but you'd think they're probably gonna try and break their UFC 100 PPV record by stacking it with all their big names on Fan Expo weekend. By then, Conor should have fought Aldo, so it could feature either his first title defense (against Edgar or whomever), or his rebound fight (vs Faber or Nate Diaz or something like that). Ronda could fight anyone, but Cyborg would obviously be a preferable option. That's assuming she's beaten Miesha by then, and maybe Holly Holm or Julianna Pena at UFC 197 or so. Jon Jones could be an option by then, and if Cormier is still champ then that's the money fight for Jones.

I don't think New York will be an option until late that year, if it even happens at all.

 

[ironball]

It's interesting because it looks like there's only gonna be 4 PPV's between the New Year show (UFC 195) and UFC 200. Every year since 2008 there's been 6 PPV's in that window, except 2010 where they had the Abu Dhabi show and therefore had 7 PPV's in that window. What that means is that we should be seeing PPV's that are more stacked than usual.

We know they want to do the Dallas stadium show, and that could be either UFC 194 in early December or it could be in place of the usual Vegas New Year show that you'd expect would happen on January 2. Hopefully we find out soon. If the stadium show happens then it'll be McGregor/Aldo for sure plus probably 1-2 other title fights including Rousey/Tate. It could also feature CM Punk's debut too.

The Super Bowl weekend show is another big one that tends to be in Vegas. It'll probably be UFC 196. I think Werdum/Velasquez is likely for it, since Dana said at the post-190 conference that that fight should happen in Jan or Feb.

The Memorial Day weekend show is another usual big Vegas show. It'll probably be either UFC 198 or UFC 199.

The new MGM-AEG Las Vegas arena next to NY-NY and Monte Carlo opens in April, and Dana said UFC 200 would happen there. It's bigger than MGM and Mandalay arenas so going forward it'll probably be the arena for the biggest Vegas fights the UFC does. It's hard to speculate what fights could happen on the card because it's so far away, but you'd think they're probably gonna try and break their UFC 100 PPV record by stacking it with all their big names on Fan Expo weekend. By then, Conor should have fought Aldo, so it could feature either his first title defense (against Edgar or whomever), or his rebound fight (vs Faber or Nate Diaz or something like that). Ronda could fight anyone, but Cyborg would obviously be a preferable option. That's assuming she's beaten Miesha by then, and maybe Holly Holm or Julianna Pena at UFC 197 or so. Jon Jones could be an option by then, and if Cormier is still champ then that's the money fight for Jones.

I don't think New York will be an option until late that year, if it even happens at all.

word, good reply

also it looks like I was right they made Hendricks/Woodley and Lawler/Condit setting up the next WW title fight for around summertime.