Not really, Bisping knows he's retiring and wants to avenge his loss to him back from 2009.

Secondly I believe Michael know's deep down he isn't holding the belt for much longer so why not try to avenge the loss to Dan before he retires?

Jacre and Weidman would both beat Mike fairly easily imo.

They should make the top 10 mws live in the TUF house and do a tourney for the belt.

well eventually they will have to match bis up with a real contender

They could easily run a 4 or 8 or even 16 person tournament for the MW belt if Hendo retires, plus it's a feelgood sendoff for Hendo if he retires with the belt and it's a feelgood moment for Bisping in England if he avenges the Hendo loss and gives him a title defense before he goes in against Jacare/Weidman/Rockhold/Romero as a dog for his next defense.

If the UFC wanted to run a 4 man tourney if Bisping loses to Hendo for the belt just make Jacare vs Weidman and Rockhold vs Romero and the winners fight for the belt (or sub one of them out for Bisping himself). You could do Jacare vs Romero 2 and Weidman vs Rockhold as well if you wanted and winners fight for the belt, either way is fine. A one night tournament would be great but the UFC probably wouldn't do that so just make it the co-main and third fight on a PPV card with a title shot headlining and have them fight as soon as they're both available for the belt afterwards.

Alternatively you could do a TUF season for the belt with the top 8-16 contenders with seeding like they did for the WBW division and have Hendo coach one team and someone like say Anderson if he doesn't want in or another MW great like Rich Franklin coach the other

Don't tell me it wouldn't be the highest rating TUF in years if the show was a 16 man tournament for the belt coached by retired champ Hendo and Franklin and the fighters in the house were something like

1. Michael Bisping vs 16. Tim Boetsch
2. Luke Rockhold vs 15. Elias Theodorou
3. Chris Weidman vs 14. Hector Lombard
4. Jacare Souza vs 13. Thiago Santos
5. Yoel Romero vs 12. Thales Leites
6. Gegard Mousasi vs 11. Lyoto Machida
7. Anderson Silva vs 10. Uriah Hall
8. Vitor Belfort vs 9. Robert Whittaker

Hell, that would make an amazing PPV card too if they wanted to run the tournament over the space of a year with a r16, quarter final, semi final and final, but for it to make any sense it'd have to be two 'fight twice in one night' cards which would be unlikely. Those 8 fights plus 1v8, 2v7, 3v6 and 4v5 as a 12 fight card would be an amazing spectacle though and would take us through to the semi finals.

A 4 man tournament with 4 of Rockhold/Weidman/Romero/Jacare/Bisping is way more likely though

16 man takes a year, minimum.

Vacate all belts. Run a new tourney every year and have a champ of the year like other sports.

That's an incredible idea, hope it comes through.

Injuries would never let a 16 man tourney go through and the top guys in the division wouldn't want it as they feel they don't have to prove their worthy so it's a lose-lose situation for them.

4 man tourney or maybe a 6 man tourney with the best wins getting to fight each other might work.

As others said Holm had to fight instead of waiting for Rousey... Dana to call her an idiot is just Monday morning quarterbacking. If he really wanted that fight he should have paid Holm money to sit out in the hopes that Rousey might one day return.

$ talks Dana, talking isn't a currency that people can live on.

The next version of TUF looks pretty fun with a 16 man tournament comprised of 125 pound champions from promotions all over the world vying for a chance to challenge Demetrious Johnson for his UFC flyweight belt.

This could be a good format. It's MMA after all, not prize fighting.

Edit: And make it like football (soccer) where there are different "leagues" per weight class and every year top 3 and bottom 3 get promoted and relegated every year from the league above and the league below.

...except MMA is prize fighting, by definition. They're fighting in return for a prize (money).

The idea of vacating belts yearly might be all well and good in theory but it'd never work in practice. Sports with yearly championships or larger tournaments have multiple rounds, whereas MMA fighters only compete a handful of times each year.

Plus most of the divisions in the UFC aren't deep enough to support a relegation system. Light heavyweight barely has 30 fighters in total, for example. Women's bantamweight has less than that and flyweight / strawweight aren't much better.

There are load of martial arts tournaments. I am not an expert on it but the two excuses I have read poo-pooing it are injuries being an issue and it is prize fighting and it wouldn't work.

~Injuries are an issue with the current system. I don't see why it would be worse.

~They do it successfully more than once a year (on a much shorter time frame) on TUF including introducing the new weight class for women. It kinda works fine.

Right now the belt is changing hands in most weight classes constantly, especially the big draw fan favorite classes. Lawler is the exception. Conor is not even defending his. Mighty Mouse is about to fight a non UFC signed fighter next that it being determined by a....16 man tournament.

There is no legitimacy in any of it. A new format wouldn't hurt a damn thing.

JohnnyT is right. You guys act like you've never heard of the Kumite.

Frank Dux for MW Champion

Not necessarily if it's done using the TUF format, could be done in 6 mths or so and if a tournament is in progress to crown a new champ it isn't really 'vacant' or holding up the division

This only really matters if Hendo beats Bisping and retires with the belt and Hendo is probably at least +300 to win the fight but they do need a plan in place

The best way to deal with injuries would have an alternate fight on each card that has tournament fights with the highest ranked guys not involved/already eliminated ready to fill in if someone gets hurt

The idea to vacate the title annually is silly, most champs fight 2-3x a year on average, an a very active champ maybe 4x as most. A champ should be able to defend their title as long as it takes so long as they remain active.

I'd be ok with a rule stripping the champ of the title if they do not defend the title or have a title defense scheduled for a 12 month period though (so if their opponent pulls out it's fine as one was scheduled, but if the champ is hurt at 12 months and doesn't have a fight scheduled they're stripped of the belt but have the option for an automatic title shot when they return in the future in their contract if stripped of the belt like Cruz was)

Tokeweed's idea for divisions within a weight class are insanity, would slow the potential rise of prospects if you need to get promoted 4 years in a row or whatever, that's what matchmaking is for so that you don't end up with fights like Luke Rockhold vs Dongi Yang and Frankie Edgar vs Fernando Bruno, because the whole idea of matchmaking is that the matches are supposed to be competitive at least from a rankings perspective if you're a good matchmaker anyway.

There's a reason that Enrique Marin might fight say Darrell Horcher for example and it would make sense and him fighting Edson Barboza next would make no sense, you don't need divisions to achieve competent and fair matchmaking.

I agree probably the first season i'm going to watch since the TUF 20 tournament for the womens 115 belt

I don't really like anything on this card (201) for betting. Maybe Lawler wins in r5 at +16xx? I'm somewhat tempted by Ellenberger DEC at +4xx, but he's looked like garbage for so long Brown should wreck him but if Ellenberger comes to wrestle he could easily hold Brown down for two plus rounds the way Hendricks and Maia did

Rivera at even money against Perez is tempting, I think he has more finishing power and better striking, but he has the fight IQ of a potato so it's tough to bet on him.

Scoggins vs McCall is one that Scoggins should win in theory but I don't mind McCall as a solid dog as Scoggins has proven to be a bit inconsistent and not lived up to his potential yet. If I knew we'd get the best McCall i'd fire but he might be done and if he is he won't win.

Maybe Krylov to finish Herman or just straight up? Krylov seems to have more upside as he is still improving and Herman isn't getting any younger and has settled into a role as a gatekeeper to the top 20 or so

Wilson Reis should beat Sandoval easily might be value even at -300

Rose by SUB line could be value against KK if it's +380 or so which seems likely based on current ITD and over lines, or Rose minus 3.5 points maybe, as I feel she'll either dominate or be dominated with the former being more likely.

No idea on the early prelims. Anybody got any lines they love for this one? At this stage i'm thinking Krylov, Rose sub, Rivera and maybe Reis?

umm yea mma tourney days are long gone

Yeah it's not realistically going to happen unless they do it as a TUF season (which they're doing to crown a 125 challenger right now) but it would be cool if they did. They did a 4 man tourney in Bellator that Phil Davis won recently that imo was one of Bellator's best ever events. In any case it's far more likely Bisping beats Hendo and moves onto trying to run the gauntlet of contenders as an underdog to all of them

This^

Ellenberger via decision is def. a good bet at +400 or Maia via TKO at close to evens is also good.

D/ling this right now.

ellenberger sub +956 he's in a must win fight and is gonna wrestle **** brown til brown gifts him the 12th sub loss of brown's career

He should be coming to wrestle as he's probably off to Bellator if he loses this one and Brown is way more exciting as a fighter so even if Brown loses he'll be given more chances against lower level guys to get a win, i'm not sure Ellenberger will be.

Maia took 3 rounds to tap Brown, his BJJ is better than it used to be, hence me quite liking Ellenberger decision

I actually quite like Brown to break and TKO him in r2/3 as well so I might look at the Brown wins in r3 prop as well

I do think Ellenberger wins via decision a lot more than SUB though and prob more value there

Brown wins in r3 is +950, not sure it's high enough but I don't mind it. Brown could easily blitz him in r1 too but that's only +145

I don't mind Pearson/Masvidal goes the distance too, it feels like no matter who wins decision is overwhelmingly likely, but -195 is quite high. Will think about it a bit more I just don't really see either of them finishing often

You mean Brown here right, Maia is not TKOing Condit lol

I think Condit is as close to un'TKO able as you get. You either knock him out cold, tap him or somehow the referee makes a wrong judgement and stops the fight. I've never seen Condit quit willingly (I mean the loss to woodley doesn't really count) and he's been in danger at times, most recently vs Lawler round 5, he was in the same situation as RDA and refused to turtle up.

Yeah Condit needs to be KO'd cold or he'll keep fighting

He could get tapped by Maia though, if Maia sinks in a RNC with 3 minutes left it's tap or go to sleep

I def liked Maia when it was a 3 round fight at -130, now he's close to evens with it being 5 rounds I think it will come down to his cardio. I fully expect Maia to win at least the first two rounds, and if he gets three before gassing Condit will need the finish. There's a chance Maia taps Condit too.

I think it's one of those fights where one guy dominates most of the time just hard to know who it is, if it's a back and forth fight at all I expect Condit to win via better gas tank/championship rounds but I wouldn't be shocked if the first two rounds were 10-9 borderline 10-8 for Maia if he can't get the sub, Condit's TDD is his biggest weakness and Maia will not be letting him up and Maia is not a guy Condit will be 'dangerous off his back' against like most fighters because Maia has the best BJJ in the division and maybe any division. If Maia can't get the clinch and trip though Condit is going to destroy him with volume striking and probably finish by about the third. So hard to know how it'll go.

Seems like some Woodley money is coming vs Lawler, i'm just not sure Woodley has the heart and grind to be champ. I could see Lawler stopping him late potentially in a fight Woodley is winning on points. Woodley will need takedowns though because while he can hang on the feet I don't see him outstriking Lawler with volume or power. I want to fade Lawler, i've been fading Lawler since he won the belt (and ironically had him in both Hendricks fights before he was champ) and I think Wonderboy is a nightmare matchup for him but with Woodley it's tougher to tell. I lean Lawler at evens and might play Lawler TKO or Lawler wins in r4-5 if the price is right. Not quite willing to hit Woodley at +172 though I would be if he was +250 he certainly could win 3 rounds. If I have to guess I think Lawler retains in a competitive fight but loses in his next title defense to Wonderboy or the Condit/Maia winner. I could see Wonderboy becoming a dominant champ IF he gets though Condit and Maia, I think he beats Condit but Maia is tough and will be one sided one way or the other again

I hope Lawler finishes Woodley in impressive fashion so I can get evens on Wonderboy against Lawler in the future. That will def be one of my biggest MMA bets ever if the fight happens and the price is close to that.

I'm leaning towards betting Maia prefight against Condit and hedging in live betting if it looks like Maia is getting tired even if he's winning