UFC 130 Results: Is the Middleweight Division About to Change Forever?

UFC 130 will go down in the books as a card that was at best mediocre and at worst a disappointment. Already the focus of the MMA community is shifting towards the Ultimate Fighter finale and UFC 131.

However, there is one very important implication of UFC 130 that hasn't yet been discussed: The fact that the event has shown the start of the middleweight division's changing future.

There were two key middleweight fights at UFC 130, Tim Boetsch vs. Kendall Grove and Briann Stann vs. Jorge Santiago.

Boetsch demonstrated that he is an extremely powerful fighter at middleweight and can out-muscle those fighters that aren't cutting a lot of weight. He may well become a staple at middle weight over the next few years.

Stann too performed extremely well. He ruthlessly picked apart Jorge Santiago en route to a second round TKO.

While both of these men may not be able to top middleweight champion Anderson Silva or other top men like Vitor Belfort, there is one thing that's important to note: Anderson Silva as well as several other perennial middleweight contenders are getting up there in years. Soon they will either retire on top or their skills will diminish and they will lose to the Brian Stann's and the Tim Boetsch's of the world.

For argument's sake, lets say that Anderson Silva retires while still the champion on his 37th birthday (which will be April 14th, 2012).

If this were to happen, there would be an ample amount of challengers for the vacant title, all of whom would be relatively close in skill. There would be Demian Maia, Michael Bisping, Mayhem Miller, Brian Stann, Tim Boetsch, Yushin Okami, Mark Munoz, up-and-comer Chris Weidman, maybe Chael Sonnen (pending on his suspension status), and Nate Marquardt and Jake Shields could possibly reenter middleweight if they chose to.

The important thing to note is that is not one "Anderson Silva" in the bunch, meaning that there is not one fighter there that is leaps and bounds ahead of the others.

Thus, when Anderson Silva retires (or loses the belt), the road to the top will be open and the traffic on that road will produce numerous classic fights. Perhaps the middleweight division will become like the light heavyweight division after Chuck Liddell and before Jon Jones, where every top fighter in the division was a legitimate threat.

It was UFC 130 that brought this to light by the strong showings of two middleweights; Anderson Silva won't be around forever, but when he leaves, there will be many good fighters to make the division the most volatile in MMA.