The UFC heavyweight division is as interesting today as it has been in several years. The division doesn't typically move very quickly and thus I find myself having limited excitement regarding it a lot of the time, which is kind of unfortunate. The intrigue going into Francis Ngannou vs Ciryl Gane was as high as any heavyweight title fight maybe since Daniel Cormier fought Stipe Miocic the first time. The problem is that most of that came from outside the cage reasons regarding Ngannou's contract, which I went over at length in my preview for that fight. If you don't know the details, go back and read that post because it's way too long for me to rehash the whole thing now. The fallout from that fight is just as interesting as the build up. It seems as though Francis is content to sit out for the rest of the year and become a free agent heading into 2023. Given that it is a contract dispute that doesn't seem particularly close to being resolved, we all sort of know that the UFC would be looking for a reason to take the title away from Francis to prevent him from walking away from the company with the title. Unfortunately, the perfect opportunity may have arisen a few weeks before the Ngannou vs Gane fight when Francis suffered a serious knee injury that it turns out will require surgery. This will leave Francis out for most of the rest of the year due to the injury instead of just sitting out because of the contract situation. I'm not sure if they'll look to strip him, but I would be really surprised if they don't book another interim title fight before the end of the year. That's where I want to take this post and decide who will appear in that fight and I tend to think it's a pretty obvious situation.
There's really only 3 potential options for an interim title fight that are remotely justifiable. The three are Ciryl Gane, Jon Jones, and Stipe Miocic. Derrick Lewis, Tai Tuivasa, and Curtis Blaydes aren't completely without a case, but they're not particularly compelling cases. I'll briefly go over Ciryl Gane's case to appear in that fight. If Ciryl Gane wants to immediately jump back into a title fight, which I assume he would, his argument will need to be centered around what got him his first interim title fight. He was undefeated and on a great run. He was just the interim champion and the number one contender. By not putting him in the fight, there would be some sort of implication that by losing to Francis, he will have fallen to from the number one contender to the number three contender. That is really the key to Ciryl finding himself back into an interim title fight, but I don't think the UFC is really looking to make that move right now. Gane just had his defensive grappling exposed in a pretty major way and all of the other candidates for that fight are more capable of exposing it than Francis Ngannou, who was able to control Gane for 3 rounds in order to get the win. Gane is going to have to get back in the gym and put in the work in order to stop takedowns or be able to get up off the bottom. I think a test against Curtis Blaydes his next time out is the likely scenario and, given what we saw against Francis, won't be an easy night at the office for him. The real fight to make is Jon Jones vs Stipe Miocic.
This idea has been making its rounds on the internet the past week or so and for good reason. Only having a single fight a year from the heavyweight champion isn't going to help that division gain any momentum. From a business side, the UFC usually holds 12 or 13 PPV's a year and there's limited options for who can headline those shows. A heavyweight title fight can most certainly do so and if this were to be the one, there's no question. We just had Francis headline the January card, so they're looking at 11 more at least. We know February will be Adesanya vs Whittaker II, March is going to be Masvidal vs Covington, April will be Volkanovski vs The Korean Zombie (with Yan vs Sterling II as a co-main), and May will be Oliveira vs Gaethje (with Prochazka vs Teixeira as the co-main). That leaves 7 months of PPV cards to find main events for. Kamaru Usman is a known main event fighter who isn't on the schedule, but it's unclear when he will be fighting next. There was a rumor about a broken hand that was never really followed up on and he talked about taking some time off after a busy 2021. He'll fight at some point, but if the first one doesn't come by July, he may only fight once this year. Including 2 fights from Usman and another fight for each of the divisions fighting in the next few months (middleweight, featherweight, and lightweight) that still leaves 2 PPV cards open and that's assuming that all of the winners of the February-May headliners are healthy enough to return later in the year. It looks like we will get some sort of Nate Diaz headlined card as well. That would most likely be the return of Conor McGregor, but could also be a fight against Dustin Poirier. That leaves another one of the champions to headline, which isn't something they've really done. Deiveson Figueiredo does have 1 main event under his belt, but the last two fights with Moreno have been co-mains. No Valentina Shevchenko fight will be perceived as competitive enough to headline a card. As interested as most hardcore fans are to see Julianna Pena vs Amanda Nunes II, I don't think that sells enough to headline a card either. Rose Namajunas is a popular champion, but a matchup with Carla Esparza won't headline a show. The bantamweight champion may have a shot, especially if TJ Dillashaw is the next challenger, but that remains to be seen. That leaves the light heavyweight champion as the only other champion left to headline. There's the possibility that Diaz fights Poirier in a main event and then Conor returns against someone else, but that seems like a lot of speculation. Its hard to imagine Masvidal not being a main event, but there's not really anyone for him to fight on that stage besides Colby. I think that's why making a heavyweight interim title fight, especially if it's Jones vs Stipe, makes sense from the UFC's perspective.
From a competitive standpoint, there's really no one else more qualified than these two. Jon Jones is one of the two most decorated champions in the history of the UFC and is on the short list for pound for pound GOAT status. I'm not going to rehash his entire resume, but it doesn't have many blemishes inside the cage. There's the PED stuff of course, which matters more for the GOAT conversation than it does for his merit on getting this fight. There's also his long list of legal troubles that would be an entire book if I detailed it all here. Quite frankly, the UFC doesn't care too much about it when you're on the level of Jon Jones, so I'm not going to get into it here. I have in the past and if you're that interested, it's definitely in the heavyweight 2022 preview and I think I went into even more detail somewhere else too. Jon Jones going up to challenge for double champ status, from a purely in cage perspective, is as good a case as anyone has had. Israel Adesanya moved up after only a few defenses. Jones has far surpassed that standard. If you don't like him for his personal life decisions or just his overall attitude, I don't blame you and actually tend to agree with you most of the time, but in terms of his athletic resume, he deserves to be in there. A lot of the same arguments can be made for Stipe Miocic. He's the most accomplished heavyweight that the UFC has ever seen. He's done more in this division than anyone in the history of the promotion and deserves another shot to regain his title. His last loss that wasn't to Francis Ngannou or Daniel Cormier was to Junior Dos Santos back in 2014. Stipe has been at or near the top of this division for so long now and I don't see him going anywhere any time soon. He's a staple of the division and is as deserving as anyone to have done it.
For the fans, this fight also makes for a great night. These are the best 2 fighters of the two heaviest weight classes in the UFC over the last decade. A battle between those two sells itself honestly. Jon Jones returning after being away for so long at a new weight class would sell regardless of opponent. Having Stipe, who is generally well liked by fans, despite not really being a huge draw, be the opponent for the "villain" in Jones, is perfect theater honestly. Jon is the stereotypical mustache twirling villain who is constantly in trouble with the law and then claims to be a changed man and that it was all part of god's plan for him. Not to be insensitive to the woman and her family, but he literally was in a car accident with a pregnant woman then ran away. That would be rejected from the script of a movie for establishing a villain for being too ridiculous if it were pitched to a studio. Everyone wants to see Jon lose and get knocked out. The one to do it would be the son of two immigrant parents who is from a small town in suburban America who stays in that small town and raises a normal family and when he's not fighting, is a firefighter. The more I type this out, the more made up it sounds.
In short, yes, the UFC should book this fight. There's no losers here. The UFC would most certainly make money. I assume Stipe would take this fight. There is, of course, the issue of if Jon wants to fight and what fight he wants. As always, there's also the money issue with him. If I had to talk about every problem with Jon every time I said his name, I think I would actually go insane, so I'm just going to stop doing it. Of course until one of my posts blows up and everyone comes in wondering why I didn't tell the full story. Anyways, what do you guys think? Does this fight just make too much sense? Who else should get consideration? Leave any and all thoughts below. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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