The Best Fights the UFC Can Make Right Now
The UFC is at a crossroads.
Ronda Rousey, one of its two biggest stars, has lost two fights in a row and might never return. Conor McGregor, the biggest draw in the sport's history, is in no hurry to return to the Octagon. Its early offerings in 2017 have been underwhelming at best and downright bad at worst. The schedule looks like it will pick up in the second quarter of the year, but it's still on pace to lag far behind 2015 and 2016.
What can the promotion do to right the ship?
It still has a tremendous amount of talent on its roster, and if put together in compelling matchups, there's no reason the ship can't be turned around. In this piece, we'll take a look at the seven best fights the UFC could put together, from a returning Georges St-Pierre to McGregor himself. We'll weigh marketability alongside pure stylistic joy, seeking a balance of fun and profit.
Let's take a look at each fight.
Georges St-Pierre vs. Anderson Silva
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Georges St-Pierre is finally set to return to the UFC after a retirement that lasted more than three years and a contentious, public back-and-forth with the UFC that included Dana White publicly stating he didn't think St-Pierre wanted to fight anymore.
The former welterweight champion has a plethora of options for his first engagement, including current middleweight champion Michael Bisping, the winner of the upcoming welterweight title rematch between Tyron Woodley and Stephen Thompson, either Diaz brother or even Conor McGregor.
The fight that makes the most sense both for St-Pierre and for the box office, however, is the super fight that never was: Anderson Silva.
Rumors about a matchup between the two longtime champions swirled for years. While Brock Lesnar burned brighter for a brief period, Silva and St-Pierre were the UFC's most reliable draws for half a decade. It was their substantial efforts that powered the promotion's highest-selling shows after Lesnar's retirement.
Neither fighter is the man he was back in 2011, and there's no sense in pretending otherwise.
St-Pierre took a serious beating at the hands of Johny Hendricks while scraping out a decision win, and his fights with Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz before that weren't exactly cakewalks. Silva notched a win over Derek Brunson, his first official victory since 2012, after a stretch of losses both pedestrian (Daniel Cormier) and devastating (Chris Weidman).
None of that means the fight is meaningless, though. Silva has shown flashes of his former greatness even in his losses, knocking down Bisping and stinging Cormier with a few good shots. St-Pierre had slowed down a bit, but he was hardly shot before he left. Both fighters have enough left in the tank to make it a compelling stylistic matchup.
More than anything else, it's still a potentially enormous box-office attraction. The UFC is desperate for headlining fights that can draw interest, and this could draw the kinds of eyeballs the promotion has struggled to pull in for anyone other than McGregor and Ronda Rousey.
The fight simply makes sense, and the fact it would offer two legends a chance to write the narratives of the end of their long and illustrious careers is the cherry on top.
Yair Rodriguez vs. Chan Sung Jung
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Yair Rodriguez is one of the most promising up-and-comers in any division, an athletic marvel with an exciting style and serious upside. Chan Sung Jung is an action fighter extraordinaire, a puncher and submission artist who combines the willingness to bang with the technical chops to do so with elite competition.
Put the two together, and you have the recipe for a fight-of-the-year contender with serious implications for the top of the UFC's featherweight division.
With Conor McGregor presumably gone for good and a title fight between Jose Aldo and Max Holloway scheduled for UFC 212 on June 3, the next shot at the belt is up for grabs.
Frankie Edgar is still lurking, but he's had two bites at the championship apple and is unlikely to get a third. Ricardo Lamas has lost to both Aldo and Holloway, as has Cub Swanson. Jeremy Stephens is highly ranked but not a contender, while Anthony Pettis is heading back to lightweight and Charles Oliveira has lost three of his last four.
There's no natural next contender for the winner of the Aldo-Holloway fight, so why not put Rodriguez and Jung together and let them make beautiful music?
The sheer potential of the fight is hard to overstate. Both work fast and both are dangerous in every phase, but they're different enough in their approaches and preferences to force each other to adjust and adapt. In other words, it's unlikely to devolve into a simple haymaker-throwing brawl but would offer a more refined smorgasbord of diverse, quick-paced violence for the sophisticated palate.
We can only hope the UFC sees reason and puts the fight together.
Robbie Lawler vs. Donald Cerrone
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The UFC briefly teased us with a matchup between Donald Cerrone and Robbie Lawler at UFC 205, and at the time, I wrote an entire article calling it a perfect fight. Of course, the MMA gods are fickle creatures, and mere days after it was announced, the bout was pulled from the card.
A fight between Lawler and Cerrone makes even more sense now, with Cerrone coming off a loss to Jorge Masvidal, than it did last year when Cerrone was riding a three-fight winning streak. The loss to Masvidal paradoxically frees Cerrone to do what he does best, get in fun action fights, rather than face down the pressure of working toward a title.
We last saw Lawler suffer a quick, emphatic knockout loss to Tyron Woodley in which the veteran relinquished his title, but that came on the heels of an epic run that saw him emerge victorious in fight-of-the-year contenders with Rory MacDonald and Carlos Condit.
Whatever the implications for a welterweight division that has yet to find its footing in the post-Lawler or even post-GSP era, this is a fight that has to happen for the sake of its sheer entertainment value.
Cerrone has a strong claim on being the greatest action fighter of all time, considering his accomplishments spread over two UFC weight classes and 24 fights with the promotion in the last six years. Lawler is a terrifying knockout artist, one of the greatest in the history of MMA, and his late-career accomplishments only add to his understated mystique.
This is the right time to make the fight happen. It offers a way forward for both fighters in a wide-open division. Its inherent potential as a fight-of-the-year contender makes it a necessity.
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Joanna Jedrzejczyk vs. Jessica Andrade
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Joanna Jedrzejczyk has established herself as the dominant champion in the women's strawweight division in the last two years, brutalizing Carla Esparza to win the crown and then defending it four times against Jessica Penne, Valerie Letourneau, Claudia Gadelha and most recently Karolina Kowalkiewicz.
Aside from Gadelha, who has given Jedrzejczyk a pair of tough fights, nobody has truly troubled her. Even the rematch with Gadelha turned into an increasingly wide decision as the fight wore on.
Can anyone trouble the champion?
Enter Brazil's Jessica Andrade, a former bantamweight who has looked like a wrecking ball in three fights at 115 pounds. She's an aggressive, in-your-face kind of fighter who loves to walk her opponent down and unload heavy punching combinations to the body and head. She has a powerful takedown game and does brutal work from top position. Submissions can catch unwary opponents at any time.
Andrade's pace is ridiculous. Per Fightmetric, she landed 131 strikes in 15 minutes against Angela Hill and 117 in just under eight minutes against Penne. She has the footwork and pressure to walk her opponent down, the power to hurt her and the killer instinct to be sure the fight will end.
That's a recipe for a fantastic stylistic matchup with the champion.
Jedrzejczyk is one of the best strikers in the sport, a technical marvel who punishes her opponent with a heavy jab, sharp combinations and slashing kicks. Her game depends on maintaining distance, however, and while her footwork is excellent, she has never faced as aggressive or dangerous a swarmer as Andrade.
It's the right fight to make in the strawweight division. Andrade has earned her shot at the crown, and she's the most compelling stylistic matchup with a seemingly invincible champion. Luckily for us, this appears to be the plan, with a future title fight between Andrade and Jedrzejczyk reportedly scheduled for UFC 211 in Dallas on May 13.
Tony Ferguson vs. Nate Diaz
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One of the less expected storylines of 2016 was Nate Diaz's emergence from his older brother's shadow and his blossoming into a star in his own right following two fights with Conor McGregor. He has always been an action fighter extraordinaire and a tough out even for the best at 155 and 170 pounds, but his personality and style finally seemed to click on a broader level.
Diaz is in no hurry to fight and told MMA Fighting's Ariel Helwani in December that he wasn't getting out of bed for less than $20 million. Still, there's a whole world of possibilities in front of him now, including a trilogy fight with McGregor and high-profile matchups with a variety of opponents.
If he deigns to grace the Octagon with his presence against someone other than McGregor, though, there's no better option than lightweight contender Tony Ferguson. Yes, Ferguson is scheduled to face Khabib Nurmagomedov for the interim lightweight title at UFC 209 on March 4, and he stands a good chance of winning that fight. If he does, a unification match with McGregor would presumably loom.
It isn't a given that McGregor will fight the winner of that interim title bout, though, and win or lose, Diaz would make sense as a next fight for Ferguson.
The biggest reason to make that fight is pure stylistic mayhem. Ferguson is a madman in the cage in every phase, a creative, aggressive and violent mixture of crisp, potent striking with technical wrestling and a nose for slick chokes on the mat. Diaz is a rangy boxer and an extremely technical and fundamentally sound grappler.
What makes this a great fight is the pace at which both fighters prefer to operate. Both routinely throw more than 20 strikes in a minute and can maintain that wild output for a full 25 minutes. Whether Diaz is interested or it makes real sense for the lightweight division, it's hard to see how putting the two of them together could be anything other than a potential fight of the year.
Cody Garbrandt vs. TJ Dillashaw
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Thanks to an infusion of young talent in the last couple of years, the bantamweight division has quickly become one of the most intriguing in the UFC.
No fighter better represents that trend than newly crowned champion Cody Garbrandt, who beat the stuffing out of Dominick Cruz to win the title at UFC 207 last December. Garbrandt danced his way around the longtime kingpin, blasting Cruz with big punches and generally showcasing his superior athleticism, speed and fundamental striking technique. It was a shocking upset that marked the beginning of a new era.
We need to slow down just a bit before we elevate Garbrandt, though. Lurking in the future is former champion TJ Dillashaw, who lost a razor-thin decision to Cruz, along with his title, just over a year ago. Dillashaw and Garbrandt are currently coaching The Ultimate Fighter and are set to fight later this year.
It wasn't long ago that Dillashaw looked like the future as well as the present of the bantamweight division, before Garbrandt's three first-round knockouts in 2016 anointed him as the next big thing.
Dillashaw will get his chance for redemption in a crackling matchup. It's compelling on many different levels: Dillashaw's hunt to regain his title, the bad blood around Dillashaw's departure from Team Alpha Male (where Garbrandt trains) and of course the fact that it's a fantastic stylistic clash.
Garbrandt's speed and power are off the charts, and he combines them with slick boxing technique that far outstripped the unorthodox but lacking Cruz. Dillashaw isn't the counterpuncher that Cruz is, but he's far better equipped to push a pace on Garbrandt without exposing himself to the kinds of risks Cruz did when he tried to outwork the younger man.
It's the best fight that can be made in a division full of great fights, and we can only hope neither man gets injured before they can make it to the Octagon.
Conor McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov
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Conor McGregor is the biggest star in the history of MMA, with the power to pick and choose the fights that interest him, suit him and draw the largest paydays. Trying to pin down his next opponent is always going to be like solving an equation with a series of unknown variables: The Irishman might pick the returning Georges St-Pierre, a trilogy fight with Nate Diaz or a boxing match with Floyd Mayweather. We don't know.
With all of that said, the most intriguing stylistic matchup and the one that could generate the longest-term benefits for the UFC is the one sitting right under his nose: Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Although hobbled by a series of injuries, when healthy the undefeated Russian has run through the lightweight division with ease. Contender Michael Johnson landed some good shots but fell to brutal ground strikes and a mercy submission. Future champion Rafael Dos Anjos looked ineffectual. Stalwarts like Abel Trujillo and Gleison Tibau couldn't get any real offense going against him.
Creative, diverse takedowns and stifling top-control grappling combine into a potent mixture that sucks Nurmagomedov's opponents in like quicksand. Once he gets his hands on his opponent, there's no escape.
McGregor, by contrast, is a puncher par excellence. The southpaw pops his opponents with crisp, technical counters, and every left hand has the potential to end the fight. He sticks his opponents at distance and punishes them when they try to get inside.
That's the recipe for a simple but compelling stylistic clash as old as MMA itself. Could McGregor keep Nurmagomedov outside, or would Nurmagomedov walk through his punches, rag-doll McGregor to the canvas and work him over from top position?
The lead-up to the fight would be as compelling as the action inside it. The sport has never seen a trash talker of McGregor's caliber, someone who can spin marketable narratives out of thin air, while Nurmagomedov's scary, icy charisma has a magnetic attraction all its own.
Put the two men together, and let them do what they do. McGregor will draw the eyeballs, but win or lose, Nurmagomedov will keep them afterward.
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