« Frank Mir interview: Fedor should quit MMA | Home | The fur is flying between DirecTV and Comcast over Versus »
The UFC Middleweight title situation
By Zach Arnold | August 31, 2009
Naturally, one would think that Nathan Marquardt would get a shot at Anderson Silva’s Middleweight title after his dominating performance against Demian Maia at UFC 102. You’d be wrong.
And you’d be wrong too if you thought Yushin Okami would get a title shot in the near future.
Lots of interesting happenings going on with Anderson Silva these days. Dave Meltzer said that Silva’s camp isn’t keen on a fight with Dan Henderson for November (either for the UK show or the Las Vegas event) and that all Middleweight booking is up-in-the-air right now in UFC.
Okami, who is the legitimate #1 contender in the Middleweight division, has been sitting at home in Japan. The closest he’s getting to UFC these days is doing color commentary for their shows on WOWOW (which he did for the UFC 102 event). Marquardt, meanwhile, also deserves a Middleweight title shot and may not end up getting it against Silva.
The big question for Silva is what’s next for him? If he isn’t all that interested in a fight against Marquardt or Henderson, then who at 205 pounds interests him? Rampage Jackson wants to do a movie and Rashad Evans is ‘married’ to him in terms of matchmaking, so what’s next?
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 55 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I think Vera is the most overrated fighter ever. I don’t see why he keeps getting chances. His last fight was absolutely terrible.
I’ve been a proponent for a long time of instituting a rule where judges can decide that both fighters lose. Not a draw. But they both receive a loss. The McCully fight at UFC 102 should have ended the same way. So should Vera/Jardine.
Now that Sherk pulled out (which I guess makes him incredibly unreliable if he’s judged by the same standards that people are judging Okami), the UFC is going to have to choose between making Gleison Tibau vs. Josh Neer a main card fight on the L.A. show, or making Yushin Okami vs. Chael Sonnen a main card fight on the L.A. show.
Or they could just put Pat Barry/Antoni Hardonk on the main card since it’s sure to be a crowd pleaser.
I think I’ve had more than my lifetime’s share of Antoni Hardonk main card fights. Nothing against him personally, but he’s not one of the top ten best fighters in the world in his weight class. Yushin Okami is.
And now we have our answer: http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=EventDetail.FightCard&eid=2324
Gleison Tibau vs. noted criminal Josh Neer is on the main card. Yushin Okami vs. Chael Sonnen is a prelim.