The UFC Fight Night 63 main event was an interesting featherweight bout between former contenders Chad Mendes and Ricardo Lamas. On paper, it was one of the best pound-for-pound non-title fights we’ve seen in a long while but in the cage, the two men seemed worlds apart.
Mendes, as one would expect, charged out of the gate, throwing his devastating punches with a complete lack of respect for his opponent. Lamas was clipped quickly and just couldn’t get his legs back under himself. While referee Dan Miragliotta allowed the fight to go on for an uncomfortably long time, in the end, Mendes would earn the victory at just 2:45 of Round 1.
It was yet another scary win for Mendes but, more importantly, it was yet another meaningless win for him. While Money has dispatched formidable featherweights with ease, he finds himself backed into a matchmaking corner right now. With two losses to Jose Aldo already on his record, we are incredibly unlikely to see him get another shot at the belt.
It would likely take a minimum of two years and the perfect alignment of stars just to set up another title shot for Mendes. He knows it, too, acknowledging this fact at the post-fight presser and lamenting that he has nowhere to go from here.
It’s not unfamiliar territory for him, mind you. With this win, Mendes finds himself in the same position he found himself in back in 2012, when he went from a title bout to facing the likes of Cody McKenzie and Yaotzin Meza. There are no serious challenges for Mendes, and no room to advance.
So what did we learn from this fight? Not much. But we learned a lot after, specifically that he needs to move to bantamweight. Right now.
On Fox Sports 1’s post-fight show, Mendes expressed a willingness to fight his teammate, Urijah Faber. While Mendes has always been a smaller featherweight (he actually wrestled in college at 125 pounds), a move to bantamweight has felt disappointingly unlikely, given Faber’s steady presence in the top five of the division and the eventual rise of his teammate, T.J. Dillashaw, to the championship. That said, if he is willing to open the door to a fight with some of his fellow Alpha Male teammates, a top contender bout at 135 pounds opposite Raphael Assuncao is a must-make fight.
It’s not an ideal circumstance, of course. One would like to have a pileup of ready-made talent able to step up to a title shot and one would like to have a continuing stream of challengers for top fighters.
Unfortunately, the UFC doesn’t have the cards for that. The UFC, and Mendes alike, need to make the best out of this relatively bad situation.
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