UFC 270 Aftermath: A Division in Disarray
Frequent championship rematches and "next man up" fights leave few interesting new options in the UFC heavyweight division
Set aside for a moment that newly re-minted undisputed champion Francis Ngannou is at odds with the UFC over the terms of his contract. Toss out the fact that “The Predator” is most likely going to need knee surgery to repair the pre-fight damage that should have, by all accounts, kept him from competing on Saturday night against Ciryl Gane.
Just look at the heavyweight division in terms of the athletes that make up its ranks, the fights that are already booked, and the previous results between those competitors, and what do you see?
Surveying the landscape, I see division that is in disarray after years of championship rematches and frequently pitting the “next two guys in line” against one another, leaving a limited number of fresh matchups to be made as the weight class looks to move forward.
What’s on Tap and How We Got Here
Here’s a list of all the heavyweight bouts that are currently booked or rumoured to take place in the coming months:
Derrick Lewis vs. Tai Tuivasa
Andrei Arlovski vs. Jared Vanderaa
Ilir Latifi vs. Alexander Romanov
Serghei Spivac vs. Greg Hardy
Alexander Volkov vs. Tom Aspinall
Sergei Pavlovich vs. Shamil Abdurakhimov
Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs. Marcin Tybura
Chris Barnett vs. Martin Buday
Alan Baudot vs. Parker Porter
The matchups between Lewis and Tuivasa and Volkov and Aspinall each make a ton of sense, but they’re also emblematic of the problem that has plagued the heavyweight division (and various other weight classes) for a number of years.
Lewis is 17-6 in the UFC and the only members of the Top 10 he has yet to face are former champ Stipe Miocic, Jairzinho Rozenstruik, and Tom Aspinall. He holds a victory over Ngannou from their staring match at UFC 226, lost to Gane last August, and already counts wins over Curtis Blaydes, Volkov, Chris Daukaus, Abdurakhimov, and Tybura amongst his conquests.
Tuivasa has now won four straight to move back into the Top 15, following his win over Greg Hardy in July with a second-round knockout finish of Augusto Sakai in December. The big kid from West Sydney is rolling again, and has only one previous appearance opposite a currently ranked fighter: a loss to Blagoi Ivanov, who currently sits at No. 13 in the rankings, two spots behind Tuivasa.
Yes, there is tremendous upside to Tuivasa beating Lewis, who has been positioned as the last level boss you have to beat before facing the big boss to finish the game for a couple years now, but only one fight (Gane) has managed to pass that test lately, and there are an insufficient number of positives that come from Lewis toppling another ascending heavyweight to make this bout worthwhile.
The fight between Volkov and Aspinall is less problematic because Volkov isn’t consider a barrier to title contention at this point as he’s lost to three of the four men stationed ahead of him in the rankings, which makes him more of a late-level boss to continue the video game analogy, but it’s still a fight where only one result has real upside.
Aspinall winning would be outstanding, as the 28-year-old British heavyweight is currently 4-0 in the UFC, riding a seven-fight winning streak overall, and profiles as a future contender. Beating Volkov would carry him to the fringes of contention, where a win over one of the other members of the Top 5 would put him in position to challenge for the title.
But what good comes from a Volkov victory? He’s already lost to Blaydes, Lewis, and Gane, and isn’t someone that Miocic would have any interest in fighting, so now he’s knocked off one of the few fresh emerging names in the division, earned two straight victories, and his next fight is against who?
A rematch with Lewis? Tuivasa coming off a loss to Lewis? The winner of the tilt between Sergei Pavlovich and Shamil Adburakhimov?
The fighter who best illustrates the current situation in the heavyweight division is Blaydes, who has two losses to Ngannou, one to Lewis, and has already beaten Rozenstruik, Volkov, and Abdurakhimov. He’s 10-3 (1 NC) in the UFC and has been in the Top 5 for a number of years now, yet still has a difficult path back to title contention because he’s already been stopped by Ngannou twice, and couldn’t get by Lewis last year in a fight that could have, give how things played out, potentially put him in an interim title fight with Gane had he won.
But what do you do with him when he’s ready to return? He’s been calling for a fight with Miocic for some time, dating back to when the former champ was still atop the division and readying for a third straight fight with Daniel Cormier, but it seems like a fantasy matchup that is never going to come together. He’s the most obvious candidate to face Gane when the 31-year-old Frenchman is ready to step back into the Octagon, but that just further exacerbates the problem, doesn’t it?
Everyone already knows where Gane stands in the division, and beating Blaydes doesn’t change that, while a victory for Blaydes puts “Bon Gamin” on consecutive losses and leaves the American wrestler still staring down two logical options that probably aren’t going to materialize: a fight with Miocic or a third date with Ngannou.
The Miocic Challenge & The Jon Jones Situation
Let me say this right off the top: I’m all for competitors holding out in order to get the best deal possible, having specific fights in mind that they want and don’t want, and arguing for things to be equitable in a “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” kind of way.
So I get why Miocic, the former two-time champion who has fought two opponents across five bouts since the start of 2018, has quietly dug in, holding firm to wanting a third date with Ngannou given that (a) their series is all even at one win each, and (b) Cormier got an immediate rematch after Miocic knocked him from the top of the heavyweight division in the summer of 2019.
But right now, today, on Tuesday, January 25 in the year of our Lord 2022, it doesn’t look like a third fight with Ngannou is going to come together any time soon, which means the Ohio native is either going to have to move from his current position or continue to hang out on the sidelines, holding out for the one fight he wants the most.
Once again, I completely understand Miocic’s position and as someone who believes in reciprocity and equality, I can absolutely see why he feels a third fight with Ngannou is merited… but fair and equal and merit ain’t got nothing to do with booking fights in the UFC, and Miocic and his people have to know that by now, and decide what comes next.
A fight that might appeal to the former champion — and one that would make a great deal of sense from a divisional standpoint — is welcoming Jon Jones to the heavyweight division.
The former light heavyweight champion is literally two weeks away from the two-year anniversary of his last fight — a close, debatable decision win over Dominick Reyes at UFC 247 in Houston, Texas. He’s spent much of the time since that bout declaring his intentions to move up and compete at heavyweight, posting innumerable videos and imagines of him beefing up to enter the big boy ranks, and has tweeted repeatedly about different potential matchups or his thoughts on specific competitors.
But he’s also had a couple more incidents with police during his absence from the Octagon, and while he envisions waltzing right into a championship opportunity, Ngannou’s current situation — both surgical and contractual — seem like they would shift that timeline. I know he’s still relatively young (though he’ll be 35 in July), but does he really want to spend three years of his late prime hanging out on the sidelines, waiting for one specific opportunity that isn’t guaranteed to come?
A bout against Miocic would be a perfect way for Jones to enter the division and potentially earn a statement victory. Can you imagine how incredulous he could be if he marched into the Octagon after well over two years off and immediately took out the man considered by many to be the best heavyweight in UFC history? The number of vainglorious tweets he would send out and then delete would be astronomical, but the result would also put him in a position to either be the man that welcomes Ngannou back to the cage if things with the promotion can get worked out, or as one half of a matchup to determine the next interim champ or even potentially undisputed champ if “The Predator” and the promotion part ways.
Sadly, this solution seems too obvious, too entertaining, and too straightforward to come to fruition, but we can all dream, can’t we?
The Way Forward
So what’s the solution?
In terms of what is already booked, victories for Tuivasa and Aspinall would be massive, as both are fresh names rising through the ranks, and the division needs more of that. Wins for Romanov and Pavlovich would be great as well, though the former is still another win or two away from earning a spot in the Top 10.
Long-term, the UFC needs to get back to bringing two or three or four fighters along at the same time, and not always pairing the highest ranked available opponents against one another until everyone has already fought everyone and nothing feels fresh any more.
Doing so is certainly more difficult in the heavyweight division, but that’s also why it’s super necessary, to borrow a phrase from Jorge Masvidal. These things tend to sort themselves out organically in deeper divisions, where there is much more competition, but in shallow weight classes like heavyweight and light heavyweight and women’s bantamweight, where things tend to get bogged down and the tiers within the division are a little more pronounced, actively trying to manufacture paths forward for emerging competitors without getting booked into a corner is imperative.
Whether Ngannou remains or not, the promotion would benefit greatly from getting Miocic back in action, bringing Jones into the division, and hitting the reset button with some of the established names and Top 10 talents at the moment.
Don’t book Gane against Blaydes when he’s ready to return, and don’t get him in there with Chris Daukaus either, because saddling either of those fighters with a second consecutive loss is unnecessary. Let him face someone further down in the rankings, someone with experience and a little momentum, that would be a new addition to the title conversation if they were to spring an upset.
See if fighters like Romanov and Pavlovich and Tanner Boser can keep moving forward, and test them against increasingly established names, not each other. And don’t automatically book the winners of Lewis-Tuivasa and Volkov-Aspinall against one another in order to whittle that quartet of ranked fighters down to having a single competitor moving forward.
The heavyweight division is flush with talent, but several years of rematches and delays have created a situation where things are congested at the top and matchmaking decisions have become “limited upside” plays.
Now is the time to hit the reset button, to take a breath, and start laying out the best path forward for the division and its competitors because the UFC is at its best when there is an active, exciting, thriving heavyweight division.