Do Almeida vs Gane for next title shot and then Pavlovich vs Volkov?

[BJ_Penn_Forever]

So Aspinall has the title. If Jones and Stipe are just gonna fight and retire… their belt don’t matter too much. When they finally fight and retire Aspinall becomes champ and he is gonna need an opponent.

Almeida is 19-2 and has a big win streak.
Gane just returned off the Jones loss and beat Spivak.
Volkov has a three fight win streak and is 4-2 in his last six but lost to Gane and Aspinall in that time.

I say either fast track Almeida to the title right now without another fight and book Aspinall vs Almeida for the official title as soon as Jones retires after Stipe or just do the Aspinall vs Almeida fight in the next four months if need be.

UFC makes the rules up as they go, they can have an interim champ defend that title, no issue there.

Meanwhile let Pavlovich return vs Volkov.

UFC is gonna have to be careful how they book Aspinall, Pavlovich, Gane, Almeida, Blaydes and Volkov.

Thats the top of that division and there are not six great HW’s surging up the ranks that are gonna stop some of those guys from fighting two, three or even four times at the top of that division there. Those six are not just gonna go away anytime soon.

Hell we have already seen a lot of them fight.

Volkov has fought 3 of them.
Gane has fought 1 of them plus Jones and Ngannou.
Blaydes has fought 3 of them.
Aspinall has fought 3 of them already and just got the belt.

With Ngannou not returning, Jones and Stipe retiring, if Aspinall can get a couple defenses the top of that UFC HW division is gonna look pretty cleaned out pretty damn fast.

Seriously, say Jones and Stipe retire and Ngannou never comes back and Aspinall defends vs Almeida, Blaydes and say Gane… thats it, nothing much to do besides a Pavlovich rematch in the current lanscape.

Guess thats when Jones has the option to return but time will tell. Hard to say if Jones would rather fight Aspinall after Stipe, in a year or so or never.

[BJ_Penn_Forever]

The honest truth about Ngannou, Gane and Aspinall over the past few years is I’m a little surprised at their titles, broadly speaking, it is not that I didn’t see them as surging contenders early on because it was easy to see.

What I’m seeing is we watched the Americans and the Brazilians and Russians completely dominate HW MMA since the NHB era and now here are fighters from Cameroon, France and England grabbing gold.

Just pretty interesting when the majority of tops HW’s have always been from American, Brazil and Russia and only very slowly over the past twenty years have fighters from other nations put themselves on the map at HW. Sure Japan had a couple solid HW’s and Netherlands always did as well but overall its been all about the US, Brazil and Russia at HW.

[Bearhugger]

Gane never held a title. At least I don’t think he did.
Basically just Ngannou and Aspinall to your point but England has been top of heavyweight combat sports over the last decade with guys like Fury, Joshua, Aspinall.

[BJ_Penn_Forever]

Yes he did.

As soon as Ngannou won the title and was having more issues with the UFC the promotion went and did an interim title fight with Gane and Lewis that Gane won.

The belt then got unified with Ngannou.

[BJ_Penn_Forever]

I would not say England has been top of HW combat sports.

Look at HW MMA, kickboxing, wrestling, sambo, BJJ, judo etc… as well.

Does the U.K. have Fury, Joshua and Aspinall? Sure but I just saw Joshua lose to to Usyk and Ruiz Jr. who are not from the U.K. and the man won’t even fight Fury or Wilder.

England overall being at the top of HW combat sports is a laughable concept just because you have Fury and your first HW MMA champ ever.

[dinkledorf]

They should give Almeida someone who can wrestle so he doesn’t screw up another main even. Really Blaydes is the only option.

[yulaw]

I’d rather see Blaydes vs Gane.

[BoydBucky]

I like this matchups.

What others could be made at HW

Here is current top 15

[dinkledorf]

Romanov Lewis sounds like fun

[anon36747578]

I would love to see Malhadinho vs Curtis Blaydes. lets see him try to dry hump Blaydes. And if he actually wins, sure, give him a title shot.

[BoydBucky]

[check_hook]

After his last performance, that may very well still happen.