(“Who wants some?”)
When it was announced yesterday that Mike Kyle sustained an injury, forcing him out of his planned Strikeforce: Tate vs. Rousey main card bout with Gegard Mousasi on March 3, speculation arose that Mousasi would likely be scratched from the event. If the UFC brass would sign off on a crossover bout between Gegard and one of its fighters, the fight could be salvaged and Mousasi could get an upgrade opponent in the process.
Check out who we’d like to see step up on three week’s notice to take on “The Dreamcatcher.”
Glover Teixeira:
(Video courtesy of YouTube/PitBlackBelt)
The 32-year-old Brazilian juggernaut is now living stateside again after a few years of working through visa issues in Brazil and is negotiating a contract with the UFC. Why not give him a litmus test to see if he’s ready for the big show with a fight against one of the best from the promotion’s feeder organization?
Rich Franklin:
(Video courtesy of YouTube/39SakurabaKazushi)
Franklin is a guy who has stepped up on short notice time and time again for the UFC and he has expressed his desire to take one more run at the title, so why not give him a fellow former champion to give him the opportunity to attempt the climb back into contention? His KO win over Chuck Liddell and the fact that he’s only been finished once since 2007 and there is some debate as to the legality of the blows that prompted the referee to stop the fight, shows he’s up for the challenge if the UFC will throw him a bone.
Lyoto Machida:
(Video courtesy of YouTube/shownig)
Machida needs an emphatic win to rebound from his devastating loss to Jon Jones and he has all of the tools to beat Mousasi wherever the fight goes. He doesn’t like taking last-minute fights without Anderson Silva money being thrown at him, but coming off of a loss may have lowered his negotiating power a bit.
Mauricio “Shogun” Rua:
(Video courtesy 1910Shogun)
The question is, who do you match “Shogun” up with at this point? Jones and Evans are tied up, Davis just lost a one-sided fight and he has already fought (and most would agree, beaten) Machida twice. Another fight with Dan Henderson makes sense, at least from a fan’s standpoint, but it probably won’t happen, so why not have him take on Mousasi? That’s a fight we’d all pay to see.
Davis is a guy who is good, but will likely never be good enough to wear a UFC strap, at least not with the talent pool that sits ahead of him in the UFC rankings, so moving him to Strikeforce would open up new possibilities for him. Step one in reinventing him under the SF banner would be seeing where his skills match up. Mousasi would provide the perfect bench mark for “Mr. Wonderful” to do just that.