UFC on Fox 4 Main Event Winner to Challenge for Light Heavyweight Title
By Chris Leslie on July 30, 2012
UFC on Fox 4′s main event just got a lot more important, as the winner of Mauricio “Shogun” Rua vs. Brandon Vera will receive a title shot against UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones. The two will battle for the opportunity this Saturday night on Fox. UFC President Dana White announced the decision on the UFC on Fox 4 media call.
White stated when asked about the possible title implications:
“Yes, ’Shogun’ Rua just came off a ‘Fight of the Year’ last year, He’s probably one of the best fighters of the last decade. Think about it. This guy knocked out ‘Rampage’ (Jackson), knocked out Chuck Liddell, knocked out Mark Coleman, knocked out Lyoto Machida, knocked out Forrest Griffin, knocked out Alistair Overeem twice, submitted Kevin Randleman. A win vs. [Vera] puts him right back in position, and then he’s probably the No. 2 guy in the world.”
Both Vera and Rua have lost to Jones in devastating fashion and have a combined record of 3-4-1 in their last four fights.
UFC on Fox 4 takes place this Saturday night, live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. The four-fight card will also feature the return of Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida as he takes on Ryan Bader.
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speechless.
This is a bit baffling on the surface. However, who else at 205 is really there? Gustafsson is lacking that signature win and everyone else near contention has already lost to Jones (Evans, Machida, Jackson, Bader) including the two men in this main event – Shogun and Vera.
I think it may be time to consider moving to heavyweight.
Word!!!!
Ok so I’m reading this one of two ways.
1. Dana White has completed discredited Vera, and has made this statement under the assumption that Shogun wins (which I also assume likely). This would mean that the “winner” doesn’t necessarily get a title shot, more that “when Shogun wins” = title shot.
2. If this means title implications for either winner, then Vera must give a great….. *ahemmmm* made a great case for himself.
I don’t see how Shogun is right back in the title mix when you’ve got guys like Bader and Gustafsson on nice streaks, with wins over decent names (Rampage and Silva). To beat the haters, I said decent names, not saying either is good or bad. Shogun lost to Jones, then beat Griffin, then lost to Hendo. This rational means that when you lose to a #1 contender battle, you stay #1 contender. Gustafsson is open right now if I’m not mistaken, give the winner of this a fight with him for a true (extremely arguably) #1 contender.
Vera beats Eliot Marshall in Oct 2011, and that puts him ahead of Bader, and even Davis? After a NC to Silva, a “loss” to Jones, and a loss to Couture?
Ok Dana, I don’t complain much about your “ranking” system, or $ value system, or whatever you wanna call it, but this one needs some explaining.
Really? surely the Ufc has another top 10 guy john Jones hasn’t kick the crap out of
Does not make sense
^ Hahaha! I read your comment and immediately thought of “Laddies and Gentlemen… This is Chewbaca.”
So atrocious. I’ve been tryin to.blow the whistle on the way the UFC mistreats title fights for years. They will blatantly make company decisions left and right to willy nilly pick any old contender for title fight when it seems to serve them financially. Meanwhile true contenders are skipped , the true champ must fight someone undeserving, and the fans must watch a fight they don’t particularly want to see, as the main event of a card. And they don’t get to see maybe a fight they DO want to see. In this case we already know were gonna watch Jones fight a guy he already destroyed. I honestly hope Vera wins just to punish the UFC and give them an overwhelming title fight , paired up with the greatest fighter on the planet. Imagine if somehow Hendo and our next title fight was Vera v Hendo lol. OMG. Personally I’d rather them just throw Gustaffson right into the title fight if they’re just gonna grab anyone. Shogun is coming off a loss and Vera basically just got reinstated. You knew it was a bad sign when the President had to explain to us why one of the contenders deserved it, as if he had already won the vera fight. You honestly couldn’t script some of this stuff.
Some of the people that comment can be so ignorant sometimes, of course they do thing that are most financially advantageous for them otherwise they would go out of business .
The LHW division is prob the weakest in the promotion so they sometimes have to do things like this, some of you completely fail to realize that there is a HUGE business side to running the UFC they can’t just make the match ups everyone wants to see right away every time.
Vera has more experience then Gustaffson and will have a much more bankable name if he beats Shogun on Fox. Also IMO Vera beat couture.
If you really go back and read the posts, I’m pretty sure most of us acknowledge the business aspect of the UFC, so I wouldn’t go as far as ignorant. I’d say you’ll get some of the most mma educated posters on this forum.
We know it’s a business decision, because that’s the only logic. What everyone is saying is that it’s still a bad decision, and unfair to the fighters. You find one other sport where somebody or a team, can lose, or under perform, and then jump ahead of everyone else in the pack.
It’s ok, I’ll wait
You say that u acknowledge the business aspect of the UFC but you really don’t understand it man, if they could make more money on a Gustaffson fight right now then they would. I think they know what they are doing , more so then the educated posters on here, all anyone cares about on here is who they think should be fighting each other, and not at all what is best for the longevity of the company.
Hendo is the only true test. I wanna see Jones v. Silva after that, then a HW trial.
Title says winner of the fight… Article says if Shogun wins the fight… either way I can’t get behind this.
His answer was in response to the question of title implications, but then he mostly focused on Shogun
I think that the only reason Dana White is making the fights this weekend have title implications is to try and make more people watch ufc on fox
Exactly
Agreed. No other viable explanation.
Believe me I’am usually not the one to complain but this doesn’t make sense. Jon Jones destroyed Shougun, Vera, Bader, and Machida very handily. This just shows how the UFC needs to create a LHW Tuf because the division is becoming weak. Same with the Heavyweight divison
i’d make division Tuff championships in different countries: mexico, canada, france, japan, poland.
then have the local heros fight each other, eh?
I think Horacio nailed this one on the head. This seems to be a ploy to garner more interest in the Fox card. Ratings have been poor for the Fox related cards, therefore they say the main event is for a title shot and hopefully trick their viewers into caring about the fight. They have made similar statements before regarding title shots as rewards for main events and have completely gone back on those statements in the wake of less than desired outcomes. The only way I like this is if Hendo wins the title and then Shogun earns the shot after Ko’ing Vera. (which he undoubtedly will. Sorry Vera fans.)
This was on the ‘ticker’ of UFC undisputed 3 (video game) last week and when I read it I thought the guy that updated this must have screwed up. 205 is pretty weak. I think the winner of a true #1 contender match of Texiera vs Gustafson is the deserving contender(assuming rampage doesn’t pull one out) they are also 2 guys that haven’t been dominated by bones, (and 2 guys that have never been in my kitchen.) Also does anyone think Dana wont change his mind if Vera Rua looks like Lombard Boetch or even worse Kongo and the other guy.
I read that silva has no interest in moving back to LHW and jones is interested in fighting at HW next year. If jones beats hendo and if glover beats rampage, i would like to see gufstanson fight glover for a title shot, maybe having jones fight at HW to give time for the glover vs gufstaffson fight to happen. Jon fitch was the top contender after his win against alves and never fought for the title. Nobody wanted to see penn vs fitch two cuz fitch is a boring fighter much like i am sure no one wants to see jones give another title shot to fighters he dominated in shogun, machida, and bader
And Vera
this is laughable at best. what if..Jon Jones vs Brandon Vera II happens? nobody on this god given earth is gonna give a sh*t about that…i mean seriously, im having a hard time getting motivated for Shogun vs Vera as it is…and it was said that Sila vs Weidman wasnt marketable, what about this taboggle they got going on? how is this gonna be any better?
LOL LOL LOL!
That is all.
Neither guy is deserving of a title shot. Shogun is a great fighter and could easily win a couple more fights and be right in the running but VERA!?!? Are you kidding me? The guy is awful, his record in recent years is awful and if he is worthy of a title shot, so is every other fighter under contract with the UFC.
This is just asinine. Dana is desperate to get people watching this FOX televised event. There really is no other explanation.
Alright, and if he has a couple fights with the standard 4 months off in between, now you’re looking at being ready in a year, and what is the title supposed to do then? Sit around and collect dust? Go on promotional tours and be utterly inactive? How is that going to benefit anyone? The titles need to be as active as possible because ultimately those are what the people pay to see.
Kobe, I think people can have their own opinions and there’s no reason to call them ignorant bud. All sports orgs are companies but part of the tacit agreement is that they are fair. Of course they have to make money, and of course fighting is unlike the major team sports as there are no tournaments in most fight orgs and most of the ranking is totally subjective, but when we are forced a fight which the majority agree is not due, with fighters who are not the biggest contender, solely for the sake of their padding their bank accounts (no they are not going under because they had one less title fight in a year) that is an invalidation of the process and the agreement between fans. Especially when the sum of this new title fight is a rematch of a butt whooping we already witnessed, with contenders who are so undeserving they make the contenders of strikeforce look like solid, deserving choices. Vera obviously wouldn’t even deserve title fight if he beat Shogun, so have your opinion, but no need make anyone wrong about being upset with something they spend their time and money on, and have rights to feel how they want on.
Actually, the only thing an organization truly owes the fans is the assurance that the fights are on the up and up (no fixed fights). Legally, that is all they have to provide. Everything else is what fans have come to expect from their favorite organizations.
With respect to “true contenders”, at Light heavy, there are none. There is not one fighter there that you can look at and say, “He’s the number one guy”. There isn’t. Everyone in the division is either not good enough or just got pounded in the last year and a half (and may not be good enough). In that case, it doesn’t matter who they throw out there. So they’re doing the best they can with what they have.
@Bsbiz with all due respect nowhere is it written that they have to do what you said or what I said, so if anything you are wrong too. I would say that its in most of the people’s agreement in this chain that the UFC act how I stated, and most of them are pissed. I would say most of them would agree with you too, but you they are still pissed. And you actually kinda proved yourself wrong by saying they have to be on the up and up when picking fights because Vera clearly is not close to worthy even if he beats Shogun, and shogun is coming off a loss, so there is no reason whatsoever that a win off a guy one fight removed from being let back into the UFC makes him deserving. Then just to completely smash any notions that this makes any sense at all is the fact that bones utterly stomped both these guys. I just don’t see any reason to justify this behavior. And its def not cool for people to go around being condescending on here and calling people ignorant for coming on and sharing their true feelings on a subject, and I’d honestly rather you address that attempt to correct my opinion.
I understand very well the state of the light heavyweight class. As I said if there is such a need for a title fight to be arranged before the Bones title fight even occurs then why not have it be Gustaffson who is on a great winning streak and idle. Just my opinion, but it makes more sense to me. In reality no one is ready, but several guys are a fight or two away, and Gustaffson is one of them. But there is no need for a title fight in my mind, so why even force it. Spider already fought, didn’t get injured, and yet he STILL doesn’t have a named opponent and yet there are multiple people we could agree on him fighting next. So why force the next top contender fight before the light heavyweight title fight even takes place. It doesn’t make sense and neither fighter deserves it so I would.say there is.nothin very much on the up and up about it. If anything let the fight play out this wknd and if shogun wins without much injury let him fight Gustaffson for top contender and we’ll all be happy. But no reason to be playing god with the field and Just throwing whoever they want or “need” out there just so they can make a fight.
I said absolutely nothing about the way the fights are set up. I said fixed as in “pre-determined outcome”, like rasslin’.
@Bsbiz and for your criticizing of Cid, actually shogun has a fight a few days, and if he wins that then he could fight in a few months and actually EARN the title fight, which could.easily happen early next year, which btw is when spider is supposedly fighting next (also to your comment about sitting around and collecting dust…). And regardless, it’s of no care to any of us how long shogun may have to sit around waiting for a title fight. It’s his job to actually win fights and make that happen, no matter how long it takes.
Well I guess I should’ve waited another hour and then I wouldn’t have had to say a thing…
Shogun v Vera now not contender eliminater bout. http://m.espn.go.com/extra/mma/story?storyId=8218293
Dana continues to waffle, but at least they’re beginning to get.this right. The only person who we could conceivably accept being forced as the next contender, imo, is bader if he beats machida after coming off a win over rampage.
True. They do have some responsibility to the fighters and the fans to give us fitting contenders imo.