UFC always wanted Gaethje and Chandler in the title fights

Underground
, , , ,
1

Gaethje got a crack at Alvarez who had recently lost the UFC title when he was a 1-0 UFC fighter and the win was over a fighter who was 1-3 in his last four and 2-5 since then.

Gaethje got his int. title fight on a 3-0 win streak with the most recent win being over Cowboy after Tony and half the WW division had just beaten him. Cowboy is 0-3-0-1nc since then.

Gaethje then comes off the Khabib loss and takes a year off, beats Chandler and then gets another title fight.

Meanwhile Charles went 6-0 and had to fight down in the rankings the entire time just to headline a card vs Lee. Then had to beat Tony to be 8-0 to finally earn a title shot.

Makhachev was 3-1 in the UFC when he KOed Tibau who was 4-1 in his last 5 if he didn’t pop for steroids. Two fights later Makhachev was 4-1 in the UFC and he beat Tsarukyan who is now 5-1 in the UFC and 18-2… Then at 5-1 in the UFC he had to fight an ADCC champ who was 4-0 at LW in the UFC. Fast forward to now and Makhachev just stretched his win streak to 10-0 and just won 4 fights in 11 months and UFC wanted him to take a 5th fight over the year on a weeks notice vs RDA. Because he didn’t do it now they don’t want to give him a title shot.

Chandler had recently been KOed by a FW in Bellator, steps in the UFC and gets a title fight after going 1-0 vs Hooker who had lost his last fight.

Everyone saw Conor get his int. title shot that was supposed to be a UFC title fight coming off the Denis Siver win while he got to skip ahead of Frankie, Oliveira, Lamas etc… and he got another title shot soon after Nate Diaz beat him 2x.

Bottom line is UFC does not fix fights but they will make it as easy as possible for certain fighters to be in title fights while they make it as hard as possible for other fighters to get a shot at the belt.

Gaethje is a 6-4 UFC fighter. Islam is 11-1.Conor is 1-3 at LW. Chandler is 2-2 and his wins are over guys who are 2-8 in their last 10.

Title shot politics are a joke.

With tournament structure fans would have had a fair chance to see Khabib vs Oliveira in the past and they would have had a fair chance to see Oliveira vs Makhachev now. Not in the UFC though, not when they want to promote Conor, Gaethje and Chandler in title fights while Oliveira and Makhachev just won’t stop winning.

3 Likes
2

Jacare had an eight fight win streak starting in 2012 and was held out of the title picture. Went 10-1 in a period where the only loss was a split decision to Romero. Romero himself went 8-0 around then. Meanwhile Hendo was 4-6 in that time and was given their title shot. Vitor got one too even though he had not fought in 1 1/2 years when he got it and his last win was over Hendo up at LHW, not even in the MW division. We saw how that title shot went.

3

It’s an American sport man. No surprise to me they want a home grown murican champion

1 Like
4

Entertaining fighters are going to get some favoritism. It’s a business at the end of the day. The boring ones still get their shots eventually if they keep winning.

5

Would be great if they just tested a tournament in one division. Or playoffs. Or have a big tournament in every division every 4 years or sth. Anything to change things up

2 Likes
6

A big tournament every four years would be great. Like the UFC Olympics Grand Prix. Just every four years have the top 16 guys do a GP. The other three years of fighting would be around getting yourself into the top 16 or if you are already there then the focus would be on a title fight.

I’m not a big Bellator fan these days but I love their GPs. Their FW GP was the best thing Bellator has ever done IMO.

7

Bellator has the fucking worst PR department in the world outside of Amber Heard and Joe Biden.

Great fights. Impossible to know when or where they are on. The average Joe will watch what’s on, that ESPN contract gold for UFC. Bellator just has nothing like that. I’m a big fight fan, I often won’t even search it out. Even though I know it’s awesome. Same for one fc, maybe even more for me being a Muay Thai guy.