Brydon on UFC 143: Heavyweight boost
Posted February 2, 2012 6:42 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The focus of Saturday’s UFC 143 has been all about Nick Diaz vs. Carlos Condit and rightfully so. (Actually one might say it’s even been more about Georges St-Pierre, but I digress).
All the drama aside, Diaz-Condit is a fantastic fight on paper, and it should be fantastic in the cage.
But one must not overlook the co-main event. It is one tremendous matchup of two top-10 heavyweights that could be a precursor of what to expect in the new UFC heavyweight division.
I say the “new” heavyweight division, because it recently got a big bump with the merging of the roster from Strikeforce. Once all the fighters have moved over, it will effectively double the number of competitors, at least in the upper echelon of the division, and most importantly, create many more contenders.
Before, the top of UFC’s top class consisted of Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin, Cain Velasquez, Junior Dos Santos, Frank Mir, Big Nog and Roy Nelson, and chances are those half-dozen or so fighters would be fighting each other over and over with the belt playing a game of hot potato.
But with the addition of guys like Alistair Overeem and Fabricio Werdum, who takes on Roy Nelson Saturday in Las Vegas, as well as Josh Barnett, Daniel Cormier and Antonio Silva sometime in the future, things will get all the more interesting. They certainly help make the sudden retirement of Lesnar more palatable, if not forgettable.
This is not to mention more up-and-comers like Chad Griggs, Shawn Jordan, Devin Cole and Lavar Johnson. We already got a small taste of what’s in store in the UFC’s heavyweight ranks when Johnson stopped the experienced Joey Beltran in the first round of their tilt at last weekend’s UFC on FOX show, earning Knockout of the Night in the process. He was officially the first heavyweight from the merge to win in his Octagon debut.
Yes, Overeem had already beaten Lesnar in the year-end event, but he was released by Strikeforce well before announcing it was abandoning the division. Perhaps his release was part of the impetus for the decision to move all the heavyweights under the UFC banner.
Bottom line, if there was one division in Strikeforce whose talent rivalled that in the UFC, it was the heavyweight division. And, while this isn’t quite what is meant by the old adage, “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” we’re going to go ahead and apply it here.
The former Strikeforce fighter featured in Saturday night co-headliners definitely agrees.
“Before it was kind of a split division, split between two great events (the UFC and Strikeforce),” Werdum told sportsnet.ca. “But now everybody is in the UFC and we’ll be able to see who really is the No. 1 in the world. Having all the top fighters in the UFC will be much better for everybody.”
Werdum (14-5-1) makes his return to the organization after more than three years since a first-round loss by knockout to Junior Dos Santos. Following that bout in October 2008, he was released by the promotion. He said that was the lowest point of his career.
“That was the worst time of my life, but a time that I learned a lot,” Werdum admitted. “It’s never good to lose, it’s even worse when you lose and you lose your job as well.”
Knowing that while he was left to ply his trade elsewhere while Dos Santos eventually went on to become UFC champion — he dethroned Velasquez in November and will next face Overeem for the belt — Werdum definitely has some regrets on how he approached that fight.
“I could see a different end if I had trained more, or put more of myself into it,” he said. “But that fight brought me to the guy I am now.”
He certainly didn’t waste the opportunity he soon received with Strikeforce. The black belt in jiu-jitsu, judo and Muay Thai won his first three fights with the organization, submitting Mike Kyle and outpointing Silva before what he called the biggest win of his career. He handed Fedor Emelianenko the first true loss of his career with a tremendous armbar from guard as he absorbed the vaunted striking from the Russian.
It was quite a statement win for him, but it couldn’t have been what organizers wanted, its marquee name losing. However, Werdum then got to face just as tough a test: the Strikeforce heavyweight champion. He fought hard against Overeem for three rounds, losing a close decision that some thought should have gone his way.
But he was more disappointed with his performance in what was a somewhat pedestrian fight for the two guys with explosive abilities.
“I was training a lot for that fight but that got me into overtraining. That was my mistake,” Werdum said. “It was a very close decision. It could go either way. But I was not very happy with how the fight went and that was not a good fight for the fans.” However, Werdum won over the UFC’s brass and earned a trip back to the world’s top MMA promotion. And he doesn’t want to waste it.
“I’m very happy for the opportunity to show everyone that I’m top 10 in the world,” Werdum said.
As for where a win puts him in the “new” UFC heavyweight division, the 34-year-old Brazilian still thinks he has work to do before he can mix it up with the champion.
“As far as the rank, I’m No. 4, and Roy Nelson is around No. 8. I see that I have to do kind of 2-3 more fights before I get a title shot,” Werdum said. “And I’m not in a hurry about that.”
No need to hurry anymore, because the UFC heavyweight division has gotten a lot more loaded.
NOTES: Nelson, 35, is a little more eager to fight for a title, but doesn’t think the addition of all the Strikeforce heavyweights makes the path too much harder.
“I think it’s still on the landscape of styles and all about timing. For myself, that’s all I do, I fight world champions,” Nelson said. “I have a whole lot of world champions in front of me and that’s who I have to fight.”
The American, who was the first person to take current champ Dos Santos the distance when he lost by decision in August 2010, looks back at the fight as somewhat of a missed opportunity (if you believe in his supposed clairvoyance).
“When I fought Junior, I just thought I was fighting for the belt then,” Nelson said. “It’s one of those things, I thought whoever won that fight was going to be the champ.”
