Deepest Division In UFC

[Marcus]

in terms of amount of talent in general and in terms of legitimate threats to beat the champ.

weigh in

[NZB2323]

I'd say LW. The #15 ranked LW is Rustam Khabilov, who is 17-2, and 3-1 in the UFC with his one loss being to Benson Henderson. Benson just lost 2 in a row, but he's a very good fighter.

In terms of legitimate threats to beat the champ, I'd say WW. I see Robbie Lawler losing before Pettis. He could lose the rubber match against Hendricks.

[CPT]

LW. Not close.

[Marcus]

LW. Not close.

who do you see in that division with a legit shot at DEFEATING Showtime?

[NZB2323]

LW. Not close.

who do you see in that division with a legit shot at being Showtime?

No one else can be Showtime.

[Marcus]

LW. Not close.

who do you see in that division with a legit shot at being Showtime?

No one else can be Showtime.

damnit. i'll go edit.

[Cammo101]

in terms of amount of talent in general and in terms of legitimate threats to beat the champ.

weigh in

I think I'd take Welterweight for both parts of the question.

[Jasen777]

who do you see in that division with a legit shot at DEFEATING Showtime?

Khabib has a shot. Lots of guys if Pettis has a bad day.

WW and LW are close, IMO. FW and MW are good, but not as much depth.

Lawler is way more vulnerable than Pettis, but I don't think that has so much to do with the division, just the champ.

[Bernman]

It's a fluid situation.

A little while ago I'd have said ww. But 4 of the top 13 on FightMatrix are outside UFC, and a 5th in Condit is in major limbo now. Everybody else but Rory in the top 12 is in their 30's. Factoring in his age he may be the only established special fighter in the division, but the jury is still out on him too. GSP was by far the most special fighter in the division, and he retired early. Diaz is on a MW adventure.

I think ATM it's LW. The only fighter in the top 14 who is not in the UFC is Will Brooks. You have a mix of ages, 20's and 30's. Outside of Thomson, the oldest is just 32. At minimum, Tony is a special fighter.

I actually think FW may have considerably more special fighters between Aldo, Edgar, maybe McGregor, etc. But beyond that there is such a split between them and Bellator because they paid their fw's the same as their hw's. They have 4 of the top 14 at fw.

Beyond the highly ranked fighters, I think you can pick just about any 2 mid-tier LW's and make an interesting enough match. 39. Ferreira, 40. Gomi, 41. Chiesa, 42. Felder, 43. Prazeres, 45. P. Hallman, 46. L. Santos, 47. Dunham, 48. Maynard, 49. G. Burns, 50. Patrick, 53. Vick, 55. Parke, 56. Noons, 57. Trujillo, 58. Krause, 59. Martins, 60. Cruickshank

I think if it wasn't called "light"weight then it might well be the division that got the most attention in MMA. After all, look at all the "welter"weights and "middle"weights who've been popular over the years in boxing.

[cowboyronnie]

FW has a claim. IMO Cub, Bermudez and Lamas could take any of the other contenders on any given day.

Aldo is head & shoulders like Pettis is head & shoulders. It'll take an all-cylinders performance for anyone in either division to take either guy out.

[CPT]

I don't think legitimate threats to beat the champ is a good measurement of depth. Most divisions have a champ who looks unbeatable until he isn't. BW and WW are the only ones without. MW may actually have a good number of legit challengers, but it's because Weidman hasn't fought many of them. HW probably has the least, but IMO Cain is among the most likely to lose, just because that's what happens at HW. Pettis probably has the best ratio of "aura of invincibility" to quality wins. He seems to get credit for clearing out the division already, just because we think he would. I mean that as a compliment, so settle down.

For me, LW is the deepest, but that's probably just because I have a different way of thinking about depth. As Bern mentioned, take two random guys ranked 30-50 at LW and it's probably a half decent fight. One that seems important even. Fights between top 20-30 guys are worth looking forward to.

[REDDzone]

LW is the deepest, followed by WW. Fortunately for us, 145 and 185 are as deep if not deeper than they have ever been. I don't care nearly as much about other divisions. LHW is terrible, HW is terrible.

I think people are giving Pettis too much credit in this thread tbh. He has one title defense. Yhat said, I do think Lawler is more likely to lose against WHOEVER he fights next in the WW top 5 as opposed to Pettis losing against RDA.

[cowboyronnie]

Pettis probably has the best ratio of "aura of invincibility" to quality wins. He seems to get credit for clearing out the division already, just because we think he would. I mean that as a compliment, so settle down.

[Bernman]

It's not anywhere near an Aldo or Jones in terms of resume, but I think it's very underrated when it comes to quality wins and clearing out the division.

Pettis didn't just beat Joe Lauzon, he beat him in the first round. The narrative before that fight was Lauzon was a 1st round beast (decisively beat Florian, Pulver, Guillard, Stephens, G-Sot) who Pettis probably had to outlast like the previous opponents who actually beat him. Then he just knocked his head into the stands right off the bat. The revisionist history though is he just beat Lauzon.

Roller was also a much different fighter when Pettis faced him. He won 7 of his other first 8 Zuffa matches, the only other loss coming against Bendo. He had higher testosterone at the time.

Pettis also won the WEC title outside this current run with "one title defense". Doubled down on Bendo. Legitimately 3 for 3 in major title fights and 5 rounders against elite opposition.

As far as clearing out the division, Pettis has already beaten 3 of the top 5 ranked fighters outside him in Bendo (twice), Melendez, and Cerrone. That leaves Khabib and RDA of the rest of the top 5. Beyond that, who is even on the cusp of warranting a title shot? I don't see anybody. You have to start moving up fighters from fw like Aldo, Edgar, and Conor.

That's not that big of an indictment of the lightweight division though. There has just been a lot of parity and disputed decisions that have made the pecking order unclear. But that doesn't mean the other fighters toward the top aren't very good. Anyway, we're talking about depth here.

[REDDzone]

His resume is awesome but this isn't heavyweight or light heavyweight where there is nobody on the horizon and no reason to expect contenders to emerge. In such a deep division things can change fast, we had title eliminators going on between Nate Diaz and Jim Miller just a few years back.

Obviously RDA is next, with Khabib on the horizon, it will probably be 2016 by the time we are looking for challengers beyond those two if Pettis beats both guys. So nobody has to be 'on the cusp' as of this moment. Aldo/Conor/Edgar could be ready to move up, as you mention, in a year-ish. Maybe a Barboza/Thomson/Green/Khabilov gets a few wins and can challenge, or maybe Alvarez gets a win or two and gets his shot. Or maybe younger dudes like Jury or Michael Johnson put it together and get a title shot, or hell some prospect that isn't even in the ufc yet. Lightweight is one of those divisions that will never lack credible contenders, just based on the fact that its a division that has normal sized adult males in it.

[Bernman]

If the Khabib/Cerrone winner in May is Cerrone, who he already beat of course, Pettis will already have basically cleared the division at that time with a prior win over RDA.

And I'll bet you that Pettis doesn't face the Khabib/Cerrone winner next even because of the timing of that fight happening 2+ months after Pettis', and they'll already be looking at a fw like Frankie for his next challenger because the thinness of viable contenders with good enough resumes at LW. Guys like Alvarez and Thomson have 0-fight winning streaks. The Barboza-Johnson winner is the best alternative and it's a bit of a stretch at this point. They'd just make it to keep Pettis busy, and if Edgar, Aldo, and McGregor were all booked at the time.

It's going to take a little time to rebuild the LW stalwarts, rebuild the prospects like Felder and Magomedov, or transfer over guys from other orgs like Brooks, Chandler, and Gaethje; before there are other legit title challengers natural to the division.

[cowboyronnie]

If the Khabib/Cerrone winner in May is Cerrone, who he already beat of course, Pettis will already have basically cleared the division at that time with a prior win over RDA.

And I'll bet you that Pettis doesn't face the Khabib/Cerrone winner next even because of the timing of that fight happening 2+ months after Pettis', and they'll already be looking at a fw like Frankie for his next challenger because the thinness of viable contenders with good enough resumes at LW. Guys like Alvarez and Thomson have 0-fight winning streaks. The Barboza-Johnson winner is the best alternative and it's a bit of a stretch at this point. They'd just make it to keep Pettis busy, and if Edgar, Aldo, and McGregor were all booked at the time.

It's going to take a little time to rebuild the LW stalwarts, rebuild the prospects like Felder and Magomedov, or transfer over guys from other orgs like Brooks, Chandler, and Gaethje.

That's like showing up last to the Royal Rumble. He'll have 'cleared out the division' because he's been on the shelf long enough for every other fighter to have taken inescapable losses to someone he once beat?

[CPT]

In full procrastination mode, going to give the champ and top 10 according to the UFC (I like FightMatrix better, but I'm too lazy to sort out the guys who are outside of the UFC). Not including women because I can't be bothered to check who Carla Esparza has actually beaten.

FLYWEIGHT
Champion : Demetrious Johnson
1 John Dodson (w)
2 Joseph Benavidez (w, w)
3 Ian McCall (w, d)
4 John Moraga (w)
5 Jussier Formiga
6 John Lineker
7 Ali Bagautinov (w)
8 Kyoji Horiguchi
9 Chris Cariaso (w)
10 Zach Makovsky

BANTAMWEIGHT
Champion : T.J. Dillashaw
1 Renan Barao (w)
2 Dominick Cruz
3 Urijah Faber
4 Raphael Assuncao (l)
5 Michael McDonald
6 Takeya Mizugaki
7 Eddie Wineland
8 Iuri Alcantara
9 Johnny Eduardo
10 Bryan Caraway

FEATHERWEIGHT
Champion : Jose Aldo
1 Chad Mendes (w, w)
2 Frankie Edgar (w)
3 Conor McGregor
4 Ricardo Lamas (w)
5 Cub Swanson (w)
6 Dennis Bermudez
7 Dustin Poirier
8 Nik Lentz
9 Charles Oliveira
10 Jeremy Stephens

LIGHTWEIGHT
Champion : Anthony Pettis
1 Rafael dos Anjos
2 Khabib Nurmagomedov
3 Donald Cerrone (w)
4 Gilbert Melendez (w)
5 Benson Henderson (w, w)
6 Edson Barboza
7 Josh Thomson
8 Myles Jury
9 Bobby Green
10 Eddie Alvarez

WELTERWEIGHT
Champion : Robbie Lawler
1 Johny Hendricks (w, l)
2 Rory MacDonald (w)
3 Tyron Woodley
4 Carlos Condit
5 Hector Lombard
6 Matt Brown (w)
7 Kelvin Gastelum
8 Demian Maia
9 Tarec Saffiedine
10 Dong Hyun Kim

MIDDLEWEIGHT
Champion : Chris Weidman
1 Anderson Silva (w, w)
2 Jacare Souza
3 Lyoto Machida (w)
4 Vitor Belfort
5 Luke Rockhold
6 Yoel Romero
7 Gegard Mousasi
8 Tim Kennedy
9 Michael Bisping
10 CB Dollaway

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT
Champion : Jon Jones
1 Anthony Johnson
2 Alexander Gustafsson (w)
3 Daniel Cormier (w)
4 Rashad Evans (w)
5 Ryan Bader (w)
6 Phil Davis
6 Glover Teixeira (w)
8 Ovince Saint Preux
9 Jimi Manuwa
10 Mauricio Rua (w)

HEAVYWEIGHT
Champion : Cain Velasquez
1 Fabricio Werdum (Interim Champion)
2 Junior Dos Santos (w, w, l)
3 Travis Browne
4 Stipe Miocic
5 Mark Hunt
6 Josh Barnett
7 Andrei Arlovski
8 Antonio Silva (w, w)
9 Roy Nelson
10 Ben Rothwell (w)

[REDDzone]

Thanks for doing that. By my quick and dirty count, Anderson Silva is 1-2 against the middleweight top 10 (and his win came 4 years ago). How is that even possible. Its nuts how quickly the guard changed at middleweight in the ufc, just crazy.

[GSP]

Just Ufc? Id agree with Lightweight i dont think its top tiers are on the level of middleweight, feather or light heavy but its depth is insane
talking all of Mma? I might say feather. Curran, Pitbull, Straus, Georgi, Weichel are serious. U got mofos like Palmer, Glenn, Buchinger, Gafurov too