Last week, the UFC staged three back to back events in Las Vegas. Over thirty two fights took place including two championship fights and number one contender fights in a number of divisions. With the historic events that transpired on Saturday night at UFC 194, a lot of significant news has slipped through the cracks that would normally be the main topic of discussion on any other day of the week. Below will be a brief fly through of some of the main headlines you may have missed over the weekend and what it next for the fighters involved.
So starting off with Fight Night Vegas that took place on Thursday night at the Cosmopolitan at the Chelsea Hotel. The main event between Rose Namajunas and Paige VanZant ended with Namajunas submitting upcoming Team Alpha Male prospect Paige VanZant. Namajunas looked decisive, calculated and showed that she has matured massively since her loss to Carla Esparza almost a year ago to the day. For Rose there are very few little options for her other than a title shot. She is ranked number three in the strawweight rankings. UFC President Dana White has confirmed that current champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk will be defending her belt against Claudia Gadhella next, which leaves Rose with the option of taking another fight in the mean time or waiting for a shot at the belt. A rematch with Esparza when she returns from her shoulder injury or against her Ultimate Fighter teammate Jessica Penne would keep Rose sharp in the meantime should she look to challenge the dominant Jedrzejczyk for the title.
VanZant showed us two things, the first her toughness and her resilience, the second was her lack of experience against more talented fighters. She found herself in some really difficult positions, Rose almost submitted her a couple of times but Paige somehow held out from tapping but had little to offer in terms of a game plan to counter Namajunas, in one submission attempt you can see her elbow popping out of place and then back in. In the press conference she alluded to the fact that she was completely outclassed by Rose in all aspects of her game. Going forward for VanZant., despite suffering a devastating defeat she is still young, has shown that she has strong potential and that she has something in spades that can't be thought, Heart. I would like to see her fighting Joanne Calderwood next, the woman she was originally scheduled to fight last Thursday night or maybe Randa Markos. Randa sits similarly ranked to VanZant, one below at number eight. She came up a little short in her split decision loss to title challenger Jessica Penne last December and overcame Ireland's Aisling Daly at UFC 186 in April. She fights this weekend against UFC newcomer Karolina Kowalkiewicz in Orlando. A win her could set her up for a bout with VanZant very nicely in terms of timing and a move up the rankings.
The Ultimate Fighter Season 22 Finale took place on Friday evening. The card was headlined by UFC Featherweight No.1 Contender Frankie Edgar and former title challenger Chad Mendes. Frankie Edgar established himself as the number one contender to challenge McGregor for the featherweight championship. Edgar knocked out Chad Mendes two minutes and thirty two seconds into the first round of their main event fight. Frankie, a former champion in the lightweight division is now on a five fight winning streak since dropping down to featherweight and challenging Jose Aldo for the belt in February 2013. It seems that Edgar can't catch a break. After dominating Cub Swanson over five rounds before submitting him with seconds to go in November last year, many believed that Edgar was the next in line but he was passed up when the shot was given to the now champion Conor McGregor.
Now that McGregor is the champion, he has spoken about his desire to move up to lightweight, meaning Frankie will now have to wait even longer for his long awaited shot at the belt. However at thirty fours old and with a young family, Edgar doesn't have the time others have to be waiting around for a shot. Assuming that Conor doesn't move up to lightweight, his first defence will be against Frankie Edgar. A date hasn't been set but Frankie did say if he had his way, he would love to fight Conor in Madison Square Garden, in New York on the rumoured event set to take place on April 23rd 2016. That is of course assuming that MMA is legalised in the state by then.
For Chad Mendes, where does he go from here? Three loses in his last four fights, two of those by knockout in the last five months. He faces a tough road back to the top. What he needs to do is take some well earned time off. His last four fights over the past fourteen months have all been main events, which brings with it an extra workload of media on top of training for five round fights. He had a massive payday in July this year when he fought McGregor for the interim belt at UFC 189. He shouldn't financially need to step back into the octagon any time soon. With both fighters coming off losses, perhaps a trilogy fight with Jose Aldo would make sense but not for a good while, assuming Aldo even remains at featherweight. If not a non main-event fight against Jeremy Stephens towards the middle of next year would suit both fighters.
Like the featherweight division, the middleweight division was also turned on its head on Saturday night. Champion Chris Weidman was defeated by way of a forth round TKO by former Strikeforce Middleweight Champion Luke Rockhold. In the preceding bout before the middleweight championship, number three ranked Yoel Romero upset the odds to defeat number two ranked Jacare Souza in a slightly controversial split decision win. Weidman, the now former champion was undefeated coming into his forth title defence. He had beaten Anderson Silva twice, Lyoto Machida and Vitor Belfort. He was the betting favourite to overcome Luke Rockhold. The first round went the way of the champion early on, with Weidman taking Rockhold's back and managing to get him to the ground, however Rockhold escaped and began landing heavy shots. By the third round, both men seemed tired resulting in Weidman throwing a totally out of character wheel kick. Rockhold easily countered, getting Weidman to the ground and into full mount. From full mount, Rockhold landed strike after strike unanswered. Weidman was saved by the bell but was completely out on his feet to the point were he barely made it back to his corner. Rockhold finished the job a little over three minutes into the forth round making him the UFC middleweight champion.
In the post fight press conference, Rockhold was asked if he wanted Romero next to which he replied that he wasn't too impressed by the Cubans performance and that he wants 'Vitor Belfort on a silver platter'. Rockhold suffered his only UFC defeat to a TRT fuelled Vitor Belfort in May 2013 when the Brazilian former Light Heavyweight champion defeated the American by a vicious TKO. Vitor is now a different fighter, he no longer (allegedly) receives testosterone replacement treatment. Because of this, the once incredible physique of Belfort is now gone and replaced by a deflated figure of his former self. Vitor is back to winning ways after his first round knock out of Dan Henderson in November in Brazil. It is a very sellable fight to make. Vitor is still a big draw, especially in Brazil, add in the factor that he is the last man to beat Rockhold and you are onto a marketable winner. However with the controversy surrounding the whole Jon Jones vs Vitor Belfort fight and if the UFC knew at the time that Belfort was a drug cheat and elected to do nothing about it. The UFC approach this topic with a no comment so it is safe to say if they make that fight, they will have some tough questions to answer to.
To avoid this the UFC will probably look to book the new number one middleweight contender Yoel Romero for Rockhold's first title defence. Romero has been a figure of controversy in his last three wins, the stool incident in the Tim Kennedy fight at UFC 178, the 'Gay Jesus' comments after the Machida fight in June plus his poor behaviour in Saturday nights fight with Jacare Souza. Behaviour including multiple incidents of grabbing the fence when Souza tried to take the fight to the ground and his corner pouring excess water over himself to make him more difficult to grapple with / waste time drying him down with a towel just so he could get his breath back. Weidman may also get another shot at Rockhold, particularly if MMA gets legalised in New York.
However given the amount of damage Weidman took on Saturday night he will probably receive a lengthly medical suspension that would probably put him out of the running to be fully fit for a potential April 23rd fight in Madison Square Garden. If Weidman isn't given an instant rematch against Rockhold, I would like to see him fight Jacare Souza. Jacare as mentioned earlier is coming off a loss to Yoel Romero on Saturday night. He like Weidman was the betting favourite on Saturday night so most people were expecting the pair to meet after UFC 194 for Weidman's next title defence. With both fights coming off a loss perhaps they will meet each other next but in a number one contender fight, not a championship one.