Before I talk about the potential fights to make I’d like to point out that Chris Weidman was the only person on this card who took a fight on 10 days notice. Yes Maia, Bisping, and Sonnen were all thrown a curve ball their weight cutting shouldn’t have been an issue due to the fact they knew they had to make weight for their original fights anyway. After saying that we need to all acknowledge that Maia, Bisping, and Sonnen all had to drastically change their training and plan for their fights just ten days out and to give credit to any fighter for doing it and not another is utterly ridiculous. Moving on.
Chris Weidman looked pretty good for cutting 32 pounds in 10 days and beating a ground specialist in Demian Maia. Weidman shot himself through the rankings of the middleweight division and should get another fight fairly soon since he didn’t appear to suffer any injury. Maia on the other hand got taken to school by a complete underdog and looked pretty bad considering his opponent had no idea he was going to fight 10 days before the fight. Maia should get a fight against Rousimar Palahares in Brazil. Weidman however should get a match up against a top level guy but there’s no telling how far the UFC is willing to let him jump in the rankings. Some people are saying give him a fight against Mark Munoz, but I don’t see how an injury makes a guy go from number one contender fight to fighting an unranked guy.
Sonnen v. Bisping was a close fight but I believe that comes from both of them not training to fight each other. They both looked to be out of their element in round one, round two closely went to Bisping and round three was controlled by Sonnen. Bisping should get a match against Mark Munoz or Yushin Okami two top guys who would be able to give him claim to number one status with a victory. Sonnen gets Silva in Brazil however if all this Silva talk is true Sonnen really seems content to fight at any weight to win a title.
Rashad Evans showed the world why Phil Davis isn’t the guy to beat Jon Jones. Phil Davis should get a fight against Rampage/Bader winner or loser depending of the outcome of the match, other possibilities are Machida or Gustafsson if he beats Lil Nog. Rashad fought a clean, controlling fight that left him unharmed and ready to fight Jones in April.
Now on to the broadcast team, Curt knows nothing about MMA and his lack of vocabulary in the sport was hard to watch Jay Glazer can hold his own on big Fox and should. Randy did great while Jones looked like he was a 14 year old talking to his friends about how he’s the best. Sit up straight and quit reading your notes every 5 seconds. If FOX had monthly fights and sold national ad space I believe they could easily dominate the time slot from 9-11:30 and easily fit 5 fights in they could replace PPV forever in the UFC and put them on the Top League level in the U.S. which is one of the only countries left who cannot get a channel for 10bucks a month in their cable package and also get the fights. Overall the Fuel card was much more entertaining and Fox should reconsider their air time to allow more highlights to draw in the casual viewer to watch more.
The Now 