Best UFC division

So we know the Middle Weight and Heavy Weight division could use some improvements. The Lightweight division has sooo many new faces it's hard to tell who the top guys are but the fights are always exciting and loads of upsets happen so it's a divsion on the rise.

The two most talented divisions are the Light Heavyweight and Welter Weight divisons with a lot of big name fighters in each division.
so which one is best in the UFC?
can they be improved?

I'm gonna attempt to look at them and decide.

The Light Heavy Weights

What's going right with this division: Well it's the star power. Chuck Liddell the poster boy of the UFC is there as is the man who’s beat him twice and is the current LHW champ Quinton Jackson, better know as Rampage. Marico ‘Shogun’ Rua is there and was considered a contender for the #1 ranking at LHW after winning the Pride Grand Prix tournament in 2006 until his loss to another star Forrest Griffin. He’s a star because of the UFC’s reality TV show The Ultimate Fighter and because like Rampage he’s a charismatic guy. The man who dominated Pride’s LHW division for 5 years is there as well, Wanderlei ‘The Axe Murder’ Silva. He’s lost 3 in a row but as his long, looong anticipated fight with Chuck proved, he’s still a good fighter and can hang with anyone in the division. Another TUF alum making a name for himself is Rashard Evans, a fighter who has yet to lose and yet MMAweekly doesn’t have him ranked in the top 10.. perplexing. Dan Henderson is fighting Anderson Silva for the middle weight belt but he’s also fought a lot at 205lbs and has said that’s where he prefers fighting. Facing North American fighters who cut weight more than Pride fighters do may change his mind as he’d be giving up 15-20 pounds each fight. Tito Ortiz is in limbo and has agreed to fulfill his contract facing Lyoto Machida, but he wants to be a contender and have a shot at the title but as usual with Tito he wants a title shot because it means more money, not because he wants to fight the best.
With all of those stars as well as interesting newcomers Houston Alexander and Rameau Sokoudjou, TUF alum Keith Jardine and enigma Lyoto Machida it’s easy to see how stacked this division is. In fact the only 205’er of consequence who is missing from the UFC is Ricardo Arona, a man who has given just about all of the former Pride fighters a tough fight and beaten some of them including Wand and Dan Henderson.
This makes the LHW division so great because almost every conceivable match up is a good one and it’d be inexcusable for any of these top fighters to face a relatively new fighter with all of these possible match ups.
There’s so much talent in this division they could have back to back pay-per-views of only 205er’s and both cards would be great. There’s no reason that there shouldn’t be at least 1 great fight at 205 per pay-per-view unless the UFC is going to sort of follow their current lead and keep the majority of their PPV’s to one or two weight classes as they seem to do at times. Still who doesn’t want to see Chuck vs Shogun for the right to challenge the winner of Forrest vs Rampage?

What can the UFC do to improve: Stay the course, don’t stray away from having all of the big name former Pride and UFC fighters fight and make the newcomers to the division prove themselves before joining the group mentioned above. It sounds simple, let’s hope Dana doesn’t try and make it too complex. Adding Arona who appears to be in limbo right now would be the cherry on top too.
I do have one other suggestion but that will be shown in my next post.. what the UFC can do to improve as a whole.


The Welter Weights

What's going right with this division: The welter weight division has star power as well, not as many known stars but one of the brightest in George St. Pierre and one of the most decorated with Matt Hughes. Matt Sera made a name for himself winning the veteran themed Ultimate Fighter then came through in shocking fashion with his earned title shot by stopping George St. Pierre (GSP) in the first round to become the current welter weight champion. TUF season 1 winner Diego Sanchez was a rising star being undefeated and claiming he was going to be the champ. Then he ran into superb athlete Josh Koscheck and was out muscled and out wrestled to a decision loss and has since experienced his second career loss when he faced Jon Fitch.
Hard to say if Diego will be able to bounce back as confidence was a huge part of his game and it’s now been shattered. Fitch and Koscheck are the guys waiting to see who is the champ once GSP and Serra fight and one or both will have most likely have to face Matt Hughes in order to prove their worthy of a title shot. Both are not that known by non-hardcore fans but both have proven to be worth of title consideration. The other well know commodity in the Welter Weight division is Karo ‘the heat’ Parisyan who has put on some stellar fights but missed his chance to have a title fight when he got injured during training. Actually I’m not sure why he’s called The Heat anymore, the guy has only finished one of his last 10 fights. Still he’s only lost to Sanchez and GSP in that time and he’s a talent. Marcus Davis has made a name for himself and he keeps getting opportunities from the UFC. It remains to be seen if he's good enough to challenge for the title anytime soon though.
After these fighters there’s a lot of good but inconsistent talent who can look great one fight then get dominated the next. Partially because they’re not as good as the above mentioned fighters, partially because of the depth and talent level of the tier below the top fighters in this divison. Fighters like Josh Neer, Josh Burkman, Chris Lytle, John Alessio, Shonnie Carter, Kurt Pellegrino, Drew Fickett, Thiago Alves and Jonathan Goulet.
Recent additions of Ryo Chonan and Akhiro Gono from Pride and an soon to be seen influx of recent TUF alums will make this division deeper.
The most interesting prospect right now is Mike Swick. He looked very good at 185 until facing a much stronger Yushin Okami, Swick figures to be near or in the top echelon of fighters but it’s too early to tell. If he explodes on the scene, he could be in the title mix by the end of the year.
This division is deep as the lighter weights attract more fighters due to the fact that really in shape fighters tend to be lean and not muscle bound so 155-185 is the proper weight when you’re in this good of shape for the average person.
The name recognition isn’t as deep as the LHW division but the most fights at 170 pounds is very exciting and GSP is a jaw dropping physical specimen handling the best wrestlers in the division with ease and prompting Sean Sherk to drop to 155 he was man handled so easily by GSP. So long at St.Pierre is focused and takes all of his fights seriously it’s hard to see him losing anytime soon.. but then BJ Penn wants a rematch and is highly motivated to get one. Adding one of the 5 best fighters in the world to a division that already has one of the 5 best fighters in the world could make the WW division the clear cut best division for sure.


What can the UFC do to improve: Give Jon Fitch a title shot. Having Serra, Hughes and St. Pierre fight for the title all of the time may be accurate as they appear to be better than anyone else in the division, it will make the division more interesting by seeing who else may be in the top tier of the division and Fitch has been the most consistent performer of late. Koscheck got beat soundly by GSP and therefore has to win a match or two before getting another crack at the top guys.
There are two notable fighters missing from the UFC’s WW division. Jake Sheilds and Carlos Conduit. For some reason they’ve never been signed and continue to dominate in smaller orgs like rumble on the rock (now part of Elite XC).
Jake Sheilds hasn’t lost since 2004 is only 28 years old and was once a boring grind it out win by decision fighter but has taken strides to win his fights by stoppage and has stopped his last 5 fights. Ironically enough his last decision victory was over…. Carlos Conduit. Conduit is the WW champion in the WEC which is owned by the UFC so it may be a matter of time before he’s fighting in the bigger org. He’s 23 years old, fought 25 times (14 times since the beginning of 2005) so it’s looking like he may end up in the UFC sooner rather than later.. depending on if the UFC wants to run the WEC as a talent development league or not.
Other than that, it’s hope that GSP can dominate and become one of the main guys the UFC promotes. With the way he fights, I can live with that.


So who's better? Well the LHW's are more well known but with the performance so far of the Pride fighters it's hard to argue they're better. The WW division is top heavy with no one able to beat Hughes or GSP save for Serra surprising GSP.. or is he better than most ppl think? April will decide that. The middle to upper middle echelon of the WW division is deep and usually we get good fights from the fighters mentioned above. Will the UFC try and add more former Pride fighters to try and have more known fighters in the WW division? Hard to tell but it’s worth following.

Let’s try this;
A PPV card made up of 205er’s vs a PPV card made up of 170’ers. Which card do you want to see? Best matchups I can come up with trying to avoid recent actual fights.

PPV 205
Main Event
Forrestt vs Rampage (it’s gonna happen anyways)
Chuck vs Shogun Rua (Pride fanboys commence your drooling)
Tito Ortiz vs Dan Henderson (yow!)
Wand vs Rashard Evans (double yow!)
Lyoto Machida vs Keith Jardine (hmmm)

Undercard
Houston Alexander vs Remey Sokoudjou (who’s the real flash in the pan)
Stephan Bonnar vs Thiago Silva
Matt Hamill vs Alessio Sakara (lets see how good Sakara’s ground defense is now!)
Wilson Gouveia vs Kazuhiro Nakamura


PPV 170
Main Event
GSP vs Jon Fitch (some fresh blood for St. Pierre to toss around)
Hughes vs Serra (bad blood for this one)
Josh Koscheck vs Karo Parisyan (great athlete vs naturally talented)
Diego Sanchez vs Mike Swick (will Diego’s training with De La Hoya help?)
Marcus Davis vs Akhiro Gono (this will see if Davis is for real)

Undercard
Thiago Alves vs Chris Lytle
Josh Burkan vs Ryo Chonan
Josh Neer vs Kurt Pellegrino
Shonie Carter vs Jonathan Goulet


Please vote at the top and give feedback.. this took a while to write up

 

myself I went with the LHW card, with the huge influx of Pride fighters it's gone from flat to exciting in less than a year.
too bad Bisping dropped out of the division but maybe Brandon Vera is going to drop in

 

Hey I put Thiago on the card.. he just doesn't crack the main event card yet
it will be interesting to see what happens when they start to give him more challenging fighters.