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Gilbert Melendez thinks that if he beats Eddie Alvarez he could be the #1 Lightweight in the world
By Zach Arnold | May 17, 2010
KENNY RICE: “You still obviously under Strikeforce. You got their belt. Who else is left for you that you think you should defend it against, that they deserve the shot?”
GILBERT MELENDEZ: “As of now, that’s kind of up to Scott Coker to figure that out, but anyone in the Top 10 I’d like to fight, you know I think JZ’s (Calvan) up there, maybe KJ Noons who’s the Pro Elite champ, you know, anyone that could help me prove that I’m Top 10. Eddie Alvarez, who I just saw fight, I think he’s an amazing fighter and that’s why I do call you out, Eddie Alvarez, let’s unify those titles, I’d love to fight that guy and test myself. I think if I could beat him I could be maybe #1, you know, and vice versa.”
What’s interesting about this passage is that Melendez and Alvarez both look at themselves as guys who are right up there at the very top of the Lightweight division. When Bjorn Rebney (Bellator CEO) made the argument that Eddie Alvarez was #1, his argument drew nuclear heat online as “crazy promoter talk” for even making the assertion.
Topics: Bellator, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 17 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The UFC Champion is the #1 Lightweight in the world. In a weird kind of way, Melendez actually cemented that fact when he made the #1 Japanese Lightweight look mediocre and small in their April fight.
Melendez beating Aoki and Alvarez beating Kawajiri doesn’t get them to the #1 spot, even if they fight each other.
With that said…. How I rank fighters and what I think of them are two different things. I do think Melendez is the real deal. I’m not sold on Alvarez.
The biggest story out of all of this is Bellator’s willingness to potentially loan out their #1 fighter in to another promotion. That is not a sign of Bellator doing well.
There’s always some sort of murkiness here because the title was never really unified. People just assumed that BJ was the best because, hell, its BJ. And everyone knows he’d getting his title back too.
This is a great fight – better than any alternative on the horizon given how things are working out. The natural inclination for people is to rank the UFC guys high and argue that they are especially deserving, so I don’t see anyone that Melendez beating changing that. At this point, a UFC champion could leave with the belt and I think most of the internet would take the UFC company position anyways (or at least repeat it ad nauseum until it became true).
Hmmmm, I wonder why people think the UFC Lightweight Title represents the #1 Lightweight in the world….
Could it be….
1) They have a huge stable of fighters.
2) The fighters are constantly tested against good opponents.
3) When guys like Aoki, who is dominant in Japan, comes over here…. He looks like a Featherweight and looks like he would lose to Jim Miller….
It’s likely all of the above.
Melendez and Alvarez got their high rankings by beating guys in Japan. The same Japan that looks like amateurville now…. So by default, those wins have much less meaning then what is happening in the UFC currently.
Melendez’s wins against Japanese guys look like amateurville because Melendez won those fights. Well, that is an unbiased viewpoint. LOL
Melendez is cut from the same cloth as the other top tier American Lightweights. Same type of training facilities. Same type of weight cutting. Same type of skill set.
So you take those items, and you could place in 10+ American fighters in the UFC who could beat Aoki and make him look like a chump. The same Aoki who dominated Japanese MMA.
Then let’s not differentiate anyone in the division based on accomplishments. They are all 1A-1L.
The winner between an Alvarez/Melendez fight will not be the number one lightweight in the world. He would more than likely be number two though, especially if BJ Penn loses to Edgar again. No lower than three.
They will be number 1, the number 1 LW outside of the UFC which basically means he’s a top 10 LW at best. I know it must hurt people’s ego’s to hear this but come on people let’s not sugarcoat the truth here the top LW’s fight for the UFC.
I hope they can make this fight happen. I think it’ll be a real good one. It could and should answer questions about both guys.
I’m of the opinion that they’re both very good to excellent fighters and have been beating up on lesser compeetition for the past few years.
I think they’d both be at the very least right in the mix in UFC.
It’s tough to make an argument that the winner is #1 at 155 when the top guys in UFC fight big fights every fight out.
I think Alvarez would get picked apart in the UFC. He fights a wide open style and puts on too many unnecessary risks. He would get dominated by Florian, Maynard, Penn, and Edgar. I wouldn’t fair him any higher then 50/50 against the next 5 or 6 UFC Lightweights out there.
Melendez on the other hand I think would do well. Styles make fights. I think he would give a few guys fits. Not sure if he would be champion, but he would probably at least work his way towards a title fight.
Yeah. I think the problem they fall into is the same one as almost everyone in UFC’s 155lb division. They don’t have to the tools to decisively finish fights and thus it comes down to how well they wrestle and/or deal with the wrestling of the 155lbers.
I think 155 has become the least interesting division in MMA. They might as well wear singlets.
Yeah, it seems like the entire division has turned into solid wrestlers who aren’t good enough to take each other down…. So all they do is throw punches. And they don’t even mix it up with anything unique to make it fun to watch.
I remember when the LW division was awesome to watch. Seems like that is no longer true and Feather and Bantam are the real fun divisions now. Heck, Heavyweight has been more exciting then Lightweight over the last year….
So much hate for anything that is not the UFC. I think that every single MMA promotion world wide that is not the UFC should fold because their fights and fighters do not matter at all. Everything that is not the UFC sucks and does not count and never did count for anything.
The UFC is good. Everything else is bad.
That is the argument(s) presented here on this topic.
Obviously, Melendez and Alvarez, are horrible, useless, crappy fighters because they have not fight in the UFC. Right? Same goes with Aoki and Kawajiri. Because they are Japanese and NOT in the UFC, they suck.
That is not what is being said, despite you reading it as such.
Than what is happening exactly? From my perspective, everyone here has drank the UFC cool-aid and are ready to trounce everything that is not the UFC.
I am from Philly, but Eddie is not the top LW, not by a mile. I figure he would be .500 in the UFC. Maybe he gets a winning streak going and threatens to contend for a title shot, but that is about it. He isn’t good anough at anything, except perhaps boxing, to really be a top LW.
Nothing against him, just the truth as I see it.
[…] During an interview on Wednesday afternoon on Sherdog radio, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney made it very clear that he wants to talk to Scott Coker and get an interpromotional Lightweight fight booked between Bellator FC Lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez and Strikeforce Lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez. Talk came to a head when Melendez, on Inside MMA, called out Eddie Alvarez and said he wanted to see the fight happen. […]