AJ McKee, Usman Nurmagomedov, Roberto de Souza and the UFC title

Underground
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1

Time will tell if McKee can make the transition to LW and if he beats Carlyle he will set his sights on the Bellator title that will be held by either the current champ Patricky or Usman Nurmagomedov the challenger. Former RIZIN GP champ Musayev is in the mix as well as is ROAD GP winner Barnaoui but fans seem to be hoping either McKee or Usman win the LW title.

I think we see all the Bellator LWs compete in a stacked GP next year before see any of them even think of leaving to compete in the UFC but it would not surprise me at all if we see McKee, Usman, Barnaoui or Musayev make the transition in two years.

Alvaraz, Brooks and Chandler are all former Bellator LW champs who made the jump to the UFC in the past.

Another fighters thats fans wondered about having a UFC future was Christian Lee, he attempts to reclaim his LW title in a couple hours here from Ok. Lee is only 24 but since he has been there since he was 17 and having his 1st pro fight… I don’t think we ever see Lee transition to the UFC.

Now 14-1 in MMA I don’t think be see Roberto de Souza ever leave RIZIN. Ya never know though, Jiri, Nemkov, Moldavsky left RIZIN and have won either Bellator or UFC titles.

Aubien-Mercer and Ray fight for the PFL LW championship soon, I see the winner and loser remaining with the PFL next season.

None of the ACA/ACB LW champs have ever made the jump to the UFC. From other weight classes though we have seen champs, Askarov, Yan and Magomedsharipov crossover to UFC. Other champs like Tumenov captured the ACA title after they left the UFC already.

Gamrot left KSW a dual LW/FW champ to compete in the UFC.

Cage Warriors LW champs often leave the promotion for the UFC. Conor won the FW/LW titles before becoming UFC FW/LW champ. Pimblett won the FW title but came up short in his LW attempt and had already lost the FW title by then. After that he left for the UFC before ever competing for another CW title.

Whether its Askren, Conor, Pimblett, Chandler or whoever, its always interesting to see popular champs make the jump to compete in the largest talent pool in the sport and as Chandler and Askren proved, for the fans and sometimes themselves, better late than never.

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Its gonna be a real shame if in ten years we are looking at the top 50 LWs spread out in five promotions who each have around 20% of them.

UFC having a concentration of like around 50% or 60% of the top 50 in most weight classes is the only thing the sport has going for it in that regard.

We for sure don’t want to see a MMA world where ten promotions are popular enough to each have 10% of the worlds best fighters. The possibility of matchups would be so terrible and limited. Thats already a problem with what you see with Bellator, ONE, PFL, ACA, RIZIN etc… there are only so many good matchup options for the top talent in those promotions.