At UFC 156, perennial welterweight contender Jon Fitch suffered defeat for the second time in three contests. While Fitch’s loss to Demian Maia was much different from his previous loss—a 12-second knockout by Johny Hendricks—it was ju…
At UFC 156, perennial welterweight contender Jon Fitch suffered defeat for the second time in three contests.
While Fitch’s loss to Demian Maia was much different from his previous loss—a 12-second knockout by Johny Hendricks—it was just as thorough. The Brazilian utterly dominating from bell to bell.
In spite of his recent struggles, Fitch remains one of the 170-pound division’s premier competitors, and he will be looking to reposition himself near the top of the heap by getting back on track next time out.
Here we’ll take a look at five potential opponents for Fitch as he tries to right the ship.
Anderson Silva has finally run out of excuses for not fighting Chris Weidman.One by one, every obstacle standing in Weidman’s way has been eliminated from the equation.Michael Bisping, Hector Lombard, Tim Boetsch and Alan Belcher have all fallen in the…
Anderson Silva has finally run out of excuses for not fighting Chris Weidman.
One by one, every obstacle standing in Weidman‘s way has been eliminated from the equation.
Michael Bisping, Hector Lombard, Tim Boetsch and Alan Belcher have all fallen in their bid for middleweight supremacy. In a way, it feels like Weidman has been touched by the hand of fate. Even a proposed super fight between Silva and Rashad Evans couldn’t stand in the way.
At UFC 156, Evans lost a surprising unanimous decision to Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Immediately after the fight, Weidman took to Twitter to once again challenge Silva for the UFC middleweight title.
Silva has expressed little interest in defending his belt against Weidman, who has been campaigning for a title shot ever since knocking out Mark Munoz in July 2012.
In an interview with CageFanatic.com, Ed Soares, Silva’s manager, was adamant about the search for marquee fights. While Weidman is a great talent, Soares feels like the 28-year-old prodigy needs more fights to build his name before granting him a UFC title shot.
Luckily for Weidman, the decision isn’t up to Silva or Soares. UFC President Dana White finally gave a definitive answer on who fans can expect to see Silva step into the Octagon against later this year:
“I would have to say yes, [Chris Weidman is next for Anderson Silva],” said White at the post-fight press conference for UFC 156. “Going into this fight anyway we wanted to wait, we wanted to see what happens, and I liked Weidman for this fight anyway, so yeah.”
The details surrounding the title bout have yet to be ironed out. Silva was hoping to return to action around April, but the date could get pushed back. Weidman is just now getting back into the swing of things after undergoing surgery on his right shoulder.
Stylistically, Weidman presents a lot of interesting challenges for Silva, but things are never quite so simple when dealing with the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
UFC 156 was a night of big surprises, as upsets were plentiful throughout the card. It began on the prelims and continued over to the main card where Antonio “Big Foot” Silva went into beast mode to drop Alistair Overeem in the third round and when Ant…
UFC 156 was a night of big surprises, as upsets were plentiful throughout the card. It began on the prelims and continued over to the main card where Antonio “Big Foot” Silva went into beast mode to drop Alistair Overeem in the third round and when Antonio Nogueira “won” against Rashad Evans.
Plenty of people are talking about Silva’s comeback win against Overeem, and for good reason. Silva was controlled for the first two rounds in every facet of the sport but turned up the heat in the final frame, scoring a devastating knockout in under 30 seconds.
Yet one fighter stood out before Silva humbled Overeem and should without a doubt be considered the one who stole the show at UFC 156.
Jon Fitch is an accomplished Division I wrestler and has one of the best grappling games in the UFC. Unfortunately for him Demian Maia has one of the best grappling skills in the entire world. Few guys are as decorated as Maia is in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Maia put on a show against Fitch.
It began right away as Maia stormed across the cage and took Fitch down with ease. The rest of the first round saw Maia riding the back of Fitch, looking for a choke. Fitch not only had to fend off the threat of a rear-naked choke but also had to carry Maia’s weight for the better part of the first five minutes.
I know 10-8 rounds are reserved for rare occurrences and Maia didn’t inflict any damage, but he without a doubt dominated Fitch for the first round. The dominance continued in the second and third rounds as Maia controlled the AKA fighter on the ground.
A popular line going through the MMA world describes this fight perfectly, “Fitch got Fitch’d.”
It showed when Fitch came to his corner prior to the third round. His cornermen knew their fighter was behind on the scorecards and urged Fitch to brawl in the final minutes to look for a KO victory. When was the last time you’ve heard anyone tell Fitch to stand with his opponent?
Maia was a legitimate title contender at 185 pounds, but welterweight is clearly where he belongs. His dominant performances against Rick Story and Fitch are proof of that. Now, not only do fighters have to worry about Maia’s dangerous BJJ skills but have to contend with his strength and size advantage as well.
Fitch may have fallen off the map following the loss to Johny Hendricks, but he reminded everyone of how good he is against Erick Silva at UFC 153. The AKA fighter is still one of the best fighters in the world at 170 pounds, but Maia made him look like an amateur at UFC 156.
I’m anxious to see Maia face some of the welterweight elite and see if he can continue to be as dominant against guys like Hendricks, Ellenberger and Martin Kampmann.
Jose Aldo is a valuable commodity for the UFC after winning the UFC 156 main event against Frankie Edgar. Aldo, UFC’s featherweight champion, scored arguably the biggest win of his MMA career by warding off Edgar on Feb. 2. But where does he go f…
Jose Aldo is a valuable commodity for the UFC after winning the UFC 156 main event against Frankie Edgar.
Aldo, UFC’s featherweight champion, scored arguably the biggest win of his MMA career by warding off Edgar on Feb. 2. But where does he go from here?
The iron is hot for the 26-year-old Brazilian mixed martial artist. He has an opportunity now to headline more UFC cards and face some of the best competition the sport has to offer.
Those offers have already begun to come.
Let’s take a look at a couple of potential fights for Aldo that will further his career and backup his fearless reputation.
Anthony Pettis, Lightweight
Moments after UFC 156 concluded, UFC president Dana White received a text message from Anthony Pettis claiming he wanted to drop down to 145 to challenge Aldo for the featherweight title, according to the UFC (via Twitter):
Dana says that Anthony Pettistexted him 10 mins ago and said he wants to move down to 145 to fight Jose Aldo at featherweight.
Aldo doesn’t back down from challenges and isn’t about to start now.
“It’s up to Dana, but it’s an interesting fight,” Aldo said (h/t ESPN’s Brett Okamoto). “I train to fight the best. I respect them all. I think Pettis is close to a title shot in his own division.”
Pettis (16-2), who is believed to be next in line for a shot at the lightweight title, is coming off of a UFC on Fox knockout of Donald Cerrone. That win lined him up to be the next in line for the title, pending the result of the Benson Henderson and Gilbert Melendez title bout.
Ricardo Lamas, Featherweight
Featherweight Ricardo Lamas (13-2) is potentially the first in line in the division for a shot at Aldo’s title. He’s coming off four straight wins, including a second-round TKO of Erik Koch on January 26’s UFC on Fox.
White said Lamas would fight another contender if Pettis drops to 145 to challenge Aldo, according to Okamoto. That contender may possible be Chan-Sung Jung.
Chan-Sung Jung, Featherweight
As mentioned, Chan-Sung Jung (13-3) is another top-tier contender in the featherweight division and could be in line for a shot at Aldo in the not-so-distant future.
His last three fights were all wins, his most recent win at UFC on Fuel TV in May 2012. The win, an upset of rising star Dustin Poirier, was named the fight of the year for 2012 by Sherdog.com.
Believe it or not there was an actual fight for UFC 156’s co-main event. Well. there’s one scheduled at least. Rashad Evans was supposed to showcase his skill set against an aging Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Evans was supposed to walk through the Brazili…
Believe it or not there was an actual fight for UFC 156‘s co-main event. Well. there’s one scheduled at least. Rashad Evans was supposed to showcase his skill set against an aging Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Evans was supposed to walk through the Brazilian and call out Anderson Silva for what was sure to be a big payday for everyone involved.
Unfortunately, nobody delivered those memos to either fighter.
In the first round, the two men began a game of patty-cake that would last the majority of the 15 minutes of the fight. Evans looked to load up on his powerful right hand and tried to set it up for most of the first round.
He was able to land it but the right hand barely fazed “Little Nog.” Perhaps it shook Evans’ confidence level as the former light heavyweight champion looked nothing like himself against Nogueira.
We’ve seen Evans look for the KO blow, before but he failed to display his usual athletic ability. Evans is (or used to be) one of the most explosive fighters in the 205-pound division, but you’d never know that from his performance against Nogueira.
Evans was able to score a takedown in the waning moments of the first round but was unable to do anything with it as Nogueira quickly bounced back to his feet.
Regardless of how ineffective Evans’ striking and takedowns were, Nogueira was equally inept. No matter how much Joe Rogan wants to hype up Nogueira’s boxing background, it simply hasn’t translated to success in the Octagon. He’s a technical striker but doesn’t have the power or speed to do much with the technique.
The Brazilian was able to utilize a jab and mix in some kicks to score points against Evans on the feet, but the strikes were hardly anything I’d consider to warrant a fighter winning a fight.
In the final minutes, it seemed as if Evans woke up out of his coma and decided to throw more than one punch at a time, but it was too little, too late for the former champion. None of the strikes in his flurries managed to do anything and it only made Evans look worse.
I’m predicting Evans or his camp to come out and say he was injured because that’s honestly the only way to explain his performance. He looked extremely lethargic on the feet and failed to transition his strikes to takedowns, something few fighters do better than Evans.
Fans looking for a technical breakdown of how Nogueira won the fight or how Evans lost it need only look to the closest elementary school playground. I’m sure one of the little kids there will explain how to properly play patty-cake with one another.
Jose Aldo managed to hold on to his title at UFC 156 by taking an unanimous decision over Frankie Edgar. It was close, but Aldo managed to inflict enough damage to sway the judges in his favor.Now Aldo will look to the future in which a new set of titl…
Jose Aldo managed to hold on to his title at UFC 156 by taking an unanimous decision over Frankie Edgar. It was close, but Aldo managed to inflict enough damage to sway the judges in his favor.
Now Aldo will look to the future in which a new set of title challengers will emerge. The Brazilian has been on the shelf for quite some time prior to UFC 156, which has given opportunity to a number of guys to step up and warrant a title shot.
Edgar could make a claim for a quick rematch, but that would mean jumping ahead of the guys on this list and a surging lightweight as well.
I’m not ready to call any of these fighters as being the guy to take out Aldo, but they certainly have earned a title shot and could provide an interesting matchup for Aldo.
Jose Aldo is a valuable commodity for the UFC after winning the