He might do something like fight Silva for the belt (if Silva wins in Brazil) but I doubt he fights a legit top 5 MW like Rockhold, Gegard, Yoel. Most interviews I've seen nobody expects him to do that.

Yeah Cruz/DJ makes sense, Garbrandt/TJ are still young, you can do them vs DJ later.

He's gotta be tired of not making much $ beating up on relative no-names. Give the man a big money fight. And UFC is all about that these days.

He's incapable.

Maybe if he's the B side vs Cody, after Cody has won another fight or two. Cody has legit star possibility. Not Conor big, but he could become a legit MMA draw (like peak Rampage).

Otherwise, DJ vs Cruz sells maybe 250-350k pay per views.

Well, big money compared to what he has been doing.

I think him/elite 135er as a co-main moves the needle a lot more than him smashing his division. But yeah he is never gonna be even Jones/GSP/Penn draw level or anything.

The company can leverage him to make more $ than they do currently tho, so big money in that context.

To expound:

These are the PPV's he's headlined and the buy rate.

UFC 174 vs Ali Bagautinov (Woodley/Rory co-main)
115k

UFC 178 vs Chris Cariaso (Cerrone/Alvarez, Conor)
205k

UFC 186 vs Horiguchi (Rampage, Bisping)
125k

UFC 191 vs Dodson II (Rumble, Arlovski, PVZ)
115k

250k might be optimistic.

I think them using him on Fox to fulfill contractual obligations is smart. He's like the Thursday Night Football of champs.

He's also going to lose vs the 135'ers so there is some opportunity cost in having him in one of those fights too.

I think guys like Nate, Cowboy, and all of the 185ers are more a draw as a co-main than Mighty Mouse.

People just don't care about watching the little guys fight. Just the hardcores, and we're already going to be watching.

He might start getting some love after continual success, I dunno, anything is possible. Anderson became a real draw later then you would've expected.

I dunno, Cruz is a pretty decent name at this point. A co-main with him would be legit for a PPV. And how would taking an L to Cruz really hurt him? Like you said he draws nothing as is anyway. Low risk, high reward. And also, I wanna see the fight.

Him vs Cruz as a co-main would be fine. Just seems like that's tossed around as a SUPERFIGHT, A BIG MONEY FIGHT! and those aren't co-mains.

The L would hurt all his luster as MAYBE THE GOAT P4P that's the new meme.

Ehh he's been winning for awhile now. No one cares even if he is goat P4P.

I dunno, think I'd do something with him/Cruz sooner than later. Not like there is some McGregor/Aldo end game if he keeps winning.

How can you put DJ and not Cruz ....

Cruz did beat DJ.

is DJ really that good or is it just a case of the entire 125 division sucking balls?

I have no interest in watching any of them fights at 125, i would however tune in for DJ vs cody/cruz or TJ. I think any of those would be interesting and sell some PPV's as a co-main.

Midget fighting is a bit of a niche I guess.

As you go from 125-> heavyweight, the ratio of decisions to TKO/KOs drops significantly. So the fight-to-fight variance is much lower at the smaller weight classes. The amount of force required to knock a human unconscious doesn't level as much as knockout power w/r to weight.

This article argues that the lack of interest in FW is due to the UFC's failure to develop it properly. TL;DR version - inexperienced contenders are rushed into fights with DJ before they're ready and before they've had a chance to build their profiles. Hence DJ ends up fighting guys who are talented but unfinished, and no-one's heard of.

http://m.fightland.vice.com/blog/kyo...eight-division

the other problem is, the ones DJ doesn't take out a guy like Benavidez does.

it's the Aldo/Faber thing from FW again. a 1, a 2, and all the others.

DJ is just that far ahead of everyone at flyweight. Hard to overstate how impressive his recent run is.

He's one of the most complete fighters in the history of MMA, in that he has basically no weaknesses I can find. Fighters like Anderson Silva and Fedor and GSP were amazingly good, but there were also some clear flaws along the way. Fedor had sloppy form and got into bad positions, Silva was vulnerable to ground and pound, GSP was overly cautious and relied on the same wrestle-boxing formula every fight, Jon Jones has a train wreck of a personal life which has stained his legacy by costing him prime-age years in the cage.. Small flaws for great fighters, but flaws that did exist.

DJ basically has no weakness that I can see. Cardio is elite, better than anyone in his division. Movement is maybe the best in MMA history. Striking is outstanding, he can outstrike strikers. Wrestling is outstanding, he can outwrestle wrestlers. Submissions are outstanding, he can submit BJJ blackbelt specialists. Transition game is phenomenal. Fight IQ is extremely high, he's very stable and can adapt and win in different ways. I'm struggling to come up with any weaknesses at all.

Like boxing it's hard to be as interested in the tiny weight classes overall. People would often rather watch bad heavyweights than elite flyweights.

Very true. Same reason the Polish girl whose name I can't spell isn't catching on while bums like Rousey get paid.

Joanna? See, it's not too hard.

Last name you dolt

That's a separate issue. Women's MMA is terrible to watch and is much less interesting than even straw weight fights. Like boxing. Rousey was some sort of weird Hollywood esque creation.

Champion?

Gotta agree, it's not that hard

Polish names are hard for me to spell or remember

After all there's a reason we call him Coach K instead of butchering his last name.

Rest easy SUB, you can't do worse than Goldie:

Goldie is fine, even after 10 times i could not say how the hell to pronouce it