5 Champions Yet No Title Fight At UFC 85
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Anderson Silva, BJ Penn, Quinton Jackson and Georges St-Pierre. 5 incredible fighters with all having 2 very key things in common:
1) They are all currently UFC champions in their respective weight divisions
and…
2) None of them, or their titles are on the card for UFC 85
Now before I get into this too much let me lay down this disclaimer right up front. The card for UFC 85 looks fantastic with several very interesting fights lined up… obviously headlined by the Matt Hughes Vs. Thiago Alves fight (as a side note, it amazes me how many people are counting Matt Hughes out as being too old and being “done”, when he’s only lost to one guy in recent memory who just happens to go by the name of Georges St-Pierre, arguably the best pound for pound fighter in the world. I think Huges is going to destroy Alves).
But as good as this card looks, it feels more like a “UFC Fight Night” card to me for one very important reason. Not one of the 5 current UFC champions has their titles on the line. And to me, there’s just no excuse for a situation like that unless the rest of your card with filled with 2-4 legitimate main event type fights… which UFC 85 does not have.
Granted, BJ Penn Just fought at UFC 83. Rampage Jackson defends against Forrest Grifin at UFC 86 which will be followed by St-Pierre taking on Fitch at UFC 87. Ok that account for 3 of the 5 Champions. So where are Silva and Nogueira? We haven’t seen Silva since he fought Henderson a couple of months back, and Nogueira has been AWOL since beating Tim Sylvia back at UFC 81.
To me, with 5 Champions and only roughly 1 UFC event per month, there really is no reason each event shouldn’t have at least one title on the line.
I’m looking forward to UFC 85, and the card does look exciting, but aside from the participation of Matt Hughes, it lacks any really marquee match ups for legitimate headliners, and a Title match would have changed that and made the event for more complete.
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