By Brad Taschuk
Anderson Silva notched his tenth consecutive UFC title defence last Saturday by defeating Chael Sonnen. Doing so has further cemented Silva as the greatest mixed martial artist we’ve ever seen. Silva showed once again that he is without doubt a cut above the rest of the middleweight division. He has now held the 185-pound title for nearly six years, with Sonnen being the only fighter that was remotely close to taking his belt.
This begs the question, who can give the champion an interesting fight in the middleweight division at this point? Sure, there are some superfights out there which are incredibly intriguing, but Silva has already shot down a potential light-heavyweight bout with Jon Jones and the much talked about fight with Georges St-Pierre never materialized, and seems less likely than ever at this point.
To be frank, the middleweight division is a wasteland beyond Silva. Fighters like Chris Weidman — who dominated Mark Munoz in the UFC on Fuel 4 headliner — and Hector Lombard are good fighters, but not ready to challenge someone like The Spider. The options for interesting fights for Silva simply aren’t at 185 pounds anymore. Jones and GSP seem to be the only fights people care to see Anderson in, unless Rashad Evans drops to middleweight and asserts himself as a contender there, which would take a while anyways. This means that we can expect to see Silva successfully defend his title a few more times and make the top of the middleweight division rather uninteresting.
As fascinating as it is to see a fighter compete at Silva’s level, watching a fight where his opponent has a legitimate shot is far more interesting. That’s part of what made his series with Sonnen as popular and dramatic as it was, whereas fights against the likes of Thales Leites, Patrick Cote and Demian Maia only succeeded in vilifying Silva. A champion without viable challengers certainly loses some of his lustre.
Unfortunately for the UFC, this is not a phenomenon isolated to the middleweight division. Jones has run roughshod over the light-heavyweight division. Should he add Dan Henderson to his list of victims, he will have completely wiped out any credible challenger to his title. Jose Aldo has done even more in the featherweight division. Finally, let’s not forget welterweight kingpin St-Pierre, who at one time had wiped the cupboard so bare at 170 pounds that Dan Hardy was given a title shot. The only reason GSP’s division isn’t looked upon in the same way as the others mentioned is because his knee injury has allowed a backlog of challengers to form.
The problem with this lay in the UFC’s ability to consistently make and promote intriguing fights. The organization’s business is predicated on selling their biggest stars, as evidenced clearly in Brock Lesnar’s tenure. However, they also need to create interesting fights for their top level contenders. In the cases of Silva, St-Pierre and Aldo, we’ve seen the decreased fan interest and even criticism they have been subject to when fighting lesser competition, especially if they don’t finish their opponents. Jones has found himself so dominant to this point that he hasn’t run into the same issue, but rest assured that were he to fight Alexander Gustafsson or Phil Davis and go to decision, he would be faced with the same backlash.
UFC 148 showed the type of interest that MMA is able to generate when champions are put into interesting fights. Major media outlets had coverage for a UFC card the likes of which had not been seen since UFC 100. Had it not been for Sonnen’s skill and intrigue as an opponent for Silva, this fight could have been just another in a string of UFC events met with rolled eyes and shrugged shoulders, as both UFC 147 was and UFC 149 will be.
There is no easy fix for the UFC here either. They are both blessed and cursed with four incumbent champions who happen to be four of the best fighters the sport has seen. Silva and St-Pierre are already considered all-time greats, while Jones and Aldo both have cases to be made as the top fighters ever to grace their respective weight classes. As the sport continues to mature, we are unlikely to see such a collection of supremely dominant athletes at one time. In a sense we are lucky to bear witness to what we have now. On the other side of the equation, it means that out of eight divisions, four are essentially held hostage by their champions.
This isn’t tennis, where tournament after tournament we get to watch Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic compete against one another in one of the greatest eras that sport has ever seen. MMA fans instead just have to sit tight and hope these champions either: aren’t as good as advertised (don’t hold your breath on that), get old (even Silva at 37 shows no signs of slowing down), or have contenders emerge who are able to push them. The third option is the most likely, as things develop faster in MMA than almost any other sport. However, until the dream of these contenders becomes a reality, fans should get ready to watch the same guys have their hands raised time and time again.
A word of advice: Don’t get bored if nobody can challenge any of these four men. We as fans should focus on how lucky we are to watch such spectacular fighters — even if it means Jones is going to dismantle Henderson, Aldo amputates Erik Koch’s leg, and St-Pierre completely shuts down Carlos Condit. If you’re looking for parity, go watch hockey because right now in MMA it’s the time of the dominant champion, and it’s not going to be over any time soon.
Brad Taschuk is a freelance writer and blogger for tazmma.wordpress.com.
