They for sure won’t give the shot to Gamrot if he wins but it will be interesting what they do if Dariush and Chandler win in impressive fashion. I can see them just ignoring Dariush while Chandler gets another shot.
When you look at Charles, Makhachev, Conor, Chandler, Gaethje etc… and then Dariush, thats just the last guy they would want as champ.
100%…Dustin has had an amazing run, and I’m sure he’s made HUGE money when factoring in the fights with Khabib, Charles and Conor twice. 5 out of his last 6 fights were PPV headliners, and the only fight that wasn’t a PPV headliner was an ESPN headliner against Hooker.
He’s been taking tough fights, and has gone 7-2 since the Alvarez NC, and has looked damn good. I think he’ll go down in history as one of the best ever to not win an undisputed title.
Like you said though…what’s next? If it’s Chandler, great. That’s a big name, a big fight…but if not that, IDK WTF to do with him. He’s not being anyone’s stepping stone, and there’s really not a ton of big fights for him. Diaz would be fun, but he’s leaving the UFC. I think Colby is likely his only option for a PPV headliner, and I think Colby is pretty obviously avoiding fighting in general right now.
We might be getting to the point that he walks away because there’s not any more HUGE fights for him. If he loses to Chandler, I think he walks away, even though he’s still pretty clearly top 5.
I don’t think he will agree to fight Colby. Not now anyway.
If Gaethje wins a fight after surgery he might be willing to headline a Fight Night vs Gaethje if he were to lose the Chandler fight. Who knows, a lot of moving parts, guess thats why Dana always just says “lets see how this thing plays out” when asked about potential matchups by the media all the time.
I’m just glad the title fight and the Dariush fight are booked and hopefully this Chandler fight is announced soon.
I think the Oliveira Makhachev fight is the most I’ve been interested in a fight since Khabib vs Gaethje was booked. I’ve seen it as a highly likely title in the future since Khabib was champ and here we are, finally.
I could see him taking the Colby fight, because it’ll sell well due to the grudge match aspect, and it would headline a PPV…and even though Dustin acts like he’s not all about the $, he pretty clearly is.
Wtf? 5 meaningful fights on the same card? They think they’re Pride or something?
Gamrot and Makhachev are Merridew Locks for the event
Lol @ Dana acting like that’s the 1st time hes thought about Chandler vs Dustin
With only five fights in the UFC Gamrot has really punched his ticket to the bigtime. Its almost impossible to put yourself in the LW title picture with 5 fights but Gamrot has done it. Just needs to beat Dariush and another top five fighter and he could be in a title fight.
Other guys with five or less fights who have put themselves on the map are 5-0 Ismagulov, 1-1 Kutateladze, 4-0 Madsen, Claudio Puelles is 5-1 but throw him in there anyway because kneebah and 3-0 Paddy Pimblett,
He’s Polish and they need someone to replace Joanna, plus he’s really good. They need someone they can sell as a contender to Islam once he wins the title and Gamrot is just that.
Drew Dober showing once again he is that fucking nightmare that is going to wreck you if you want to try to crack into the LW top 20.
8-3 in the UFC in the past five years with his only losses being to Dariush, Makhachev and a FOTN performance vs Riddell.
Has won by KO/TKO in all five of his most recent wins.
Its crazy how Gillespie is still sitting out at 7-1 and saying he won’t fight down in the rankings.
We watched Khabib, RDA, Tony, Oliveira, Makhachev and perhaps soon Dariush all fighting down in the rankings to get their title shots.
Gillespie wants the Conor/Chandler/Gaethje/Pettis treatment but I don’t see it working out too well for him. UFC has endless LWs to promote, guys willing to be active.
RDA was already 12-5 when he finally got his LW title shot and the division was less stacked then than it is now. 7-1 is not shit compared to that.
After winning, defending and losing the belt, RDA then went just 3-1 to get his second title shot in another weight class so you add in the title fights and that means RDA was 14-6 after he lost the LW title and then 17-8 after he lost his bid to win the WW int. title. Still got the chance to beat Usman and be right back in the title hunt right after losing the int. title fight too. Won a fight vs the guy who just KOed Gillespie and was right back in there vs Edwards headlining a card and if he had beat Edwards, he would have been right back in the mix. After Edwards he was 18-9 in the UFC and was still fighting top 10 guys right after that.
Now he is 20-11 in the UFC and I guarantee the UFC is not done offering RDA fights that can advance him to another big fight and I don’t see it happening with his age and miles but if he were to win enough, he would be right back in the title picture.
Put another way, RDA has fought 24 guys who were ranked in the top 15 at some point in his UFC career and 8 of them were at some point the world or int. UFC champ.
Gillespie is sitting out while he has fought 2 guys ranked in the top 15 at some point in his career and neither of them ever won the world or int. title.
RDA is only two years older than Gillespie to put it in perspective.
Yeah…insane. On the bright side, he’s unranked now so he should have no trouble getting a higher ranked opponent.
It’s about as poorly as I’ve seen anyone play a hand ever. He’s currently on a one fight winning streak, and the guy that beat him is no longer in the UFC…and the ranked guy that he beat is on a 3 fight losing streak.
I really like him as a fighter, but he has one win in the last three years. He’s not in a position to demand anything. He could have fought 3 times while sitting out demanding a higher ranked opponent because he doesn’t have the time to fight down. It makes no sense. Guys like Oliveira and Chandler both fought the same month Gregor last fought, and have fought twice since AND have another fight booked.
It’s the worst holdout I can remember. It makes no sense.
Was lucky to get by Arman but guess fight was close enough. This is an interesting fight for Dariush as I find him one of the biggest overachievers in the UFC. It’s good to see guys with primary grappling come back to the top (khabib, Islam, Gamrot). Arman is too rounded to be considered a primary grappler? Charles has the most subs in the UFC but TKO’d Chandler and went to war striking with Dustin and Gaethje, sending Gaethje to the congas worse than he ever has been floored in his career.
LW div is always cooking.
Even look at the guys who seemed to get the faster road to the title shot in terms of their UFC career than Khabib, RDA, Tony, Oliveira and Makhachev… they all still had a much more impressive resume than Gillespie.
Conor had already upset Mendes and Aldo for the title and was coming off the Diaz win.
Chandler was coming over a Bellator tourny champ, 3x Bellator LW champ and he had just KOed Outlaw and Bendo most recently. He had been in 11 Bellator title fights at that point and was usually exciting as hell. Gaethje came over the WSOF champ and he was the most exciting fighter in WSOF. When he got to the UFC he won FOTN in his first 3 UFC fights. POTN in his next fight and then FOTN again in his 5th UFC fight. Won another POTN in his 6the UFC fight and then FOTN once again to capture the int. title vs Tony. Even after losing to Khabib he earned FOTN once again in defeating Chandler to earn his next title shot. Pettis earned SOTN to earn his WEC title shot and then won the title in a FOTN. Even after a UFC lose he earned KOTN 2x to get his title shot where he won SOTN and then SOTN again in his first defense. Beat Oliveira to later earn a int. FW title shot.
You can look at the 72 active UFC LWs that are under contract right now, all Gillespie has done is beat #17 and #30 out of those 72 fighters. That don’t exactly scream punching your ticket to a Tony or Chandler fight. Gillespie needed to keep fighting like Oliveira and Makhachev if he wanted to get somewhere.
This resume should not get you into the top ten. Especially when you consider inactivity. I like Gregor but it’s bizarre behaviour. Most casuals won’t even know who he is, he has no bargaining power right now. As was already mentioned he’s on a one fight win streak, he needs to just fight. He’d be a good test for Madsen
He’s got some great finishes though at least
Terrance McKinney is becoming a LW to watch. 3-1 in the UFC at LW with all wins in the first round. I see that 12/13 of his career wins were 1st round finishes.
He was calling out Pimblett last night but I don’t see that happening next. Prior to last night’s win he was the 44th ranked UFC LW at the rankingmma site.
McKinney, Pimblett, Puelles, Madsen, Dawson, Soleki, Riddell, Kutateladze, Alvarez, Turner, Tsarukyan and Ismagulov all have less than 8 fights in the UFC and I’m enjoying watching these guys climb the ranks right now.
Its a division where the UFC has around 80 fighters under contract and you probably don’t want to miss the fights of anyone good enough to crack the top 40 of the rankingmma rankings.
McKinney vs Alexander Hernandez would be fun next.
I’d say McKinney, Pimblett and Puelles have been my favorite LW newcomers to watch over the past year.
Guys like Turner, Tsarukyan and Ismagulov have been around longer
