I"m liking the Charles money fight angle more and more. Since he’s not officially the champion, he can go take the money fight.
Islam/Dariush can be for the title. And let’s face it, they will need it to be a title fight in order to even attract any non-hardcore fans.
Everyone gets what they want and there’s still plenty of awesome match-ups left for the future.
I see both sides.
Charles has been fighting the elite for several fights in a row and wants the money fight to build his name. Nate is on his way out, time for him to pass the torch. Charles should be the biggest star in the sport, a household name.
Beating Nate could help him gain popularity with the normies. Although a Conor fight would be more effective for that.
Islam is also saying exactly what he should be saying in response to Oliveira. However, the UFC told Charles (I assume) he would fight the winner of those two, and they haven’t fought. Also neither of them has a big following.
Charles will fight Islam eventually and I hope he smashes him, so that Charles looks better than Khabib, and we get to say Khabib retired too soon and would have lost to Charles also. If Charles wins that is.
I’m under the impression that all these big Dagestani MMA stars get taken care of beyond just their UFC paychecks?
Charles grew up in the favelas. He knows his worth is at an all-time high. And he’s absolutely right to capitalize on that. I’m guessing there’s no one taking care of him outside of himself.
If you’re an “mma purist” then you know this IS the fight to make lol I need to see grappling exchanges between them. They’re both so high level at their respective craft
I’m a Diaz fan boy but he simply doesn’t deserve to fight either of them. Plus I don’t think he’s even interesting in making 155 ever again anyways
Charles can just claim he wants to take on the challenge of going up to 170 to fight the weight-class’s biggest star, lol.
And he wouldn’t even have to put on any mass. He would just basically not cut weight.
I mean… he’s technically not the champion so I suppose he’s not currently stuck at 155 then 
lol actually admitting this.
Khabib really did steal the UG’s soul
Not his fault his opponents keep pulling out…he’s beating the guys in front of him.
Sure…let Charles take a money fight with Nate Diaz at 170 and have Islam fight someone else for the undisputed title at 155…then Charles can come back and challenge for Islam’s belt if he wants to.
I hate it when champs ignore obvious contenders saying they aren’t worthy, then call out a popular guy who has one win since Obama left office. It’s ridiculous.
Islam pulled out vs RDA with a staph infection as well…that’s how we got Felder making weight in a couple days to save that event
Welcome to the world within the UFC…where star power means more than deserving a title shot. Not saying I agree, I want Charles vs Islam. I just don’t expect it. Charles had to work way too hard to get his shot. Even Khabib needed a signature win before he got his shot at Conor
To be fair, RDA pulled out 2x vs Makhachev, Hernandez did as well and then Dariush also. Plus then there are the rumors of all the guys that won’t even sign to fight him to begin with. Like Gillespie just refused to fight Tsarukyan and expected to get the Tony fight even though he is only 1-1 vs top 15 comp.
These guys like Oliveira, Makhachev, Tsarukyan when they are climbing the ranks they just struggle to get the “names” to agree to fight them until someone like Lee, RDA, Gamrot comes along and actually signs to take the fight.
We heard Chandler and Tony turned down that Islam fight on short notice that Green took and now we got Chandler saying he don’t want the Dustin fight now because Dustin did not want the fight in the past. Makes ya miss the PRIDE days when fighters signed up for the 16 man GP and the whole fucking thing was done in five months and nobody looked for the fight with the best risk reward ratio.
Upcoming LW fights:
Cowboy vs Lauzon
Kutateladze vs Ismagulov
RDA vs Fiziev
Moises vs Giagos
Tsarukyan vs Gamrot
Klose vs Ferreira
Green vs Miller
Of course that RDA fight winner is gonna be right there for a huge fight but so is that Tsarukyan vs Gamrot winner.
Gillespie back in January speaking of Tony turning down fights against him and not needing to accept every fight the ufc offers him, as he only wants to fight people ranked above him. He’s totally discounting Dariush’s winning streak here in his complaints about moving up the ladder though, and also the fact he was brutally knocked out by Lee the fight before stopping Ferreira. Whoever his manager is needs to make him realize he has to take a fight soon or the ufc may very well remove him from the rankings
On a 0-4 skid Michael Johnson was sure to be released from the UFC if he lost tonight so I was happy to see him win. Johnson beat Ferguson back in 2012. They could do that rematch next. Why not? Both fighters are now in their mid to late 30’s and 1-4 in their last five UFC fights.
At one point Johnson fought Barboza, Dariush, Diaz, Dustin, Khabib and Gaethje back to back but because the Diaz loss setup Conor Diaz, the Khabib loss setup Khabib’s Barboza fight and then title fight vs Iaquinta and Johnson fought Gaethje in Gaethje’s UFC debut he is sort of most remembered for those losses. KOed Dustin right before Dustin went on his big LW run.
Its easy to forget Johnson beat Ferguson, Castillo,Lauzon, Tibau, Guillard, Barboza, Poirier, Lobov etc…
Johnson was removed from the fightmatrix rankings because he did not fight for over a year but he was last ranked #172 in the world earlier this year after having been ranked as high as #7 in the world after he KOed Dustin back in 2016.
Khabib’s win over Johnson actually set up his first interim title fight with Tony but that fight was called off due to Khabib not being able to make weight.
Also happy to see Johnson do well. Would love to see him vs Tony that’s a good call.
Wow that is interesting. Gregor should fight some low ranking last minute opponents and get pole vaulted into the top 5 like Islam did.
I hope Michael Johnson vs Tony Ferguson is up soon.
