It’s Time… For the UFC to Create a Cruiserweight Division

Fightlinker has a great post today about the UFC’s Heavyweight division and how it has now grown from the talented but lesser division in comparison to Japan’s talent (”Fighters like Fedor, Cro Cop, Barnett, Nogueira, Coleman, Werdum, Kharitinov, Aleks, Herring, and Hunt competed in Japan”) to a division that is now better than any other promotion’s Heavyweight class and among the UFC’s most talent-rich. It’s now time to split the UFC’s Heavyweight division into Cruiserweight and Heavyweight divisions.

Fightlinker correctly writes “If big names like Lesnar, Mir, Couture, Nogueira, Herring, and Kongo weren’t enough, Junior dos Santos upset Fabrico Werdum in his UFC debut last year and put the division on notice. Shane Carwin recently cemented himself as a contender by smashing his ham-fists into Gabe Gonzaga’s face en route to a TKO victory. If Cain Velasquez is able to do something similar to Kongo at UFC 99, he too will join the sport’s upper echelon.” Add to this division the return of Cro Cop, talented young fighter Pat Barry, and the introduction of Kimbo Slice and an all Heavyweight cast in the next season of The Ultimate Fighter and you have a lot of talent from which to cull matchups from.

The problem with matchmaking this division has become the great size disparity between guys like Couture, Barry, and Cro Cop when compared to Lesnar, Carwin, and Tim Hague, who defeated Barry at UFC 98 while utilizing an over 30 pound weight advantage over Barry. The creation of a Cruiserweight division would be instantly marketable, extend careers, and provide for more fair competition.

Weight Disparity

When Randy Couture was defeated by Brock Lesnar last November there was at least a 45 pound weight disparity between the two fighters. It has been widely commented that Lesnar needs to cut to make the Heavyweight Division’s 265 pound weight limit while Couture is the former Light Heavyweight Champion, a division with a limit of only 205. It is remarkable the athletic commissions are willing to allow matchups of fighters with as much as a 50 pound weight difference come fight time. The UFC needs to be pro-active before the athletic commisssions begin to look at this relic from the “David vs. Goliath” tournaments of the old UFC.

Pat Barry’s recent loss to Tim Hague, a much larger fighter, and the destruction of marketable guys like Brandon Vera at the hands of the Tim Sylvias and Fabricio Werdums point to a gap between the Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight divisions that needs to be filled. Vera has been 2-1 since dropping to Light Heavyweight but seems to have lost the pop he had at a larger weight. Barry too seems to relish the thought of being the smaller fighter in the Octagon but one has to wonder how his talent matches not with the biggest of UFC’s competitors but with opponents his own size.

Randy Couture

When Randy Couture lost to Ricco Rodriguez at UFC 39 he was smothered by a much larger opponent. Rodriguez is a talented fighter but his size advantage was too great for Couture to be able to compete fairly. With this fight in the wake of a loss to the also-larger Josh Barnett it seemed Couture’s career may have had its best days in the rear-view mirror. Of course, this preceded Couture’s awe-inspiring and unprecedented reign as Light Heavyweight Champion and a trilogy of classic fights with Chuck Liddell but Couture has now said he does not want to make the cut to 205 again.

Couture’s value to the UFC is more than any other fighter’s. His Pay-Per-View sales are greater than that of any other fighter and his popularity with the casual MMA fan is incomparable. One has to feel Couture is competing on borrowed time - he has already “retired” once and is now closer to 50 than 40 and stands with Mark Coleman as the oldest competitors in the UFC. Couture’s career should be nurtured as much as possible. Fights with larger men like Brock Lesnar only endanger his career and demotivate a willing competitor. However, fights with men closer in size such as Coleman, Cro Cop, Barry, and other new talent not only keep Couture out of the harm’s way of dangerous size mismatches but also provide an opportunity for Coleman to compete for another championship belt, a great way to extend Couture’s legacy and bring in more pay-per-view sales.

Brock Lesnar

Brock Lesnar is a talented champion but his 2-1 professional record when he faced Couture was that much more telling. Lesnar’s size was a distinct advantage against Couture and gives him and the other towering mountains of the division an unfair advantage over the smaller athletes. Even his matchup with Mir has to be analyzed not through the prism of one fighter’s skillset against anothers but one fighters skillset against a size advantage. Regardless of the outcome of the rematch with Mir, many UFC fans are clamoring to see Lesnar against competitors his own size. Like the other divisions of the UFC, this should be provided exclusively. If Lesnar is the best in the world, have him prove it against competition his own size.

The Timing for the Cruiserweight Division is Now

With today’s announcement Kimbo Slice will be competing on the next season of The Ultimate Fighter, an all-Heavyweight tournament, an even greater influx of talent is expected to arrive into the UFC’s biggest division. Former NFL pro Rex Richards will be joining Slice on the show and, perhaps even with first-round belly flops from both fighters one should expect their instant marketability to overcome any reservations the UFC may have in bringing them into the Heavyweight division at all costs.

For a long time the excuse for not creating the Cruiserweight division has been the lack of money and the lack of fight cards for the talent. Now, the opposite may be true. Although the UFC continues to operate as a well-oiled machine when it comes to expenses (the Pride purchase notwithstanding), the fact is the UFC is printing money and finding more outlets such as the video games and other licensing efforts to print even more. As Europe and the UK begin to become profitable ventures Dana White’s oft-repeated goal of being “bigger than the NFL” may come to pass. The UFC can afford the larger contracts the larger fighters seem to demand.

As well, the number of fight cards begins to grow. According to MMAJunkie.com, there are at least eight fight cards rumored for the rest of this year and if the fight cards continue at the same pace they did last year, another four could be held in addition to those eight. With potentially twelve fight cards in the last seven months of the year this will be a strain not only on the UFC’s talent pool but more importantly on its most marketable fighters - the champions. To add another champion to the mix makes more of those fight cards more marketable with not only the championship matches but also the contender matchups.

The UFC also needs to be pro-active about the safety of its fighters. As the talent levels increase for all fighters the ability for smaller fighters to use their talents to overcome the larger fighters’ physical gifts becomes less and less possible. These size advantages also become dangerous for the smaller fighters in a sport that is already inherently dangerous. Gone are the days of no rules, no time limits, and no weight classes. The addition of a Cruiserweight division is the last step in cleaning up this remnant of the past. The athletic commissions have begun working for additional weight classes, including an incredibly silly 14 classes proposed last year by the Association of Boxing Commissions, and a pro-active UFC will make the right changes happen on its own terms.

A Cruiserweight division has become a necessity for the safety of its fighters, marketability of its upcoming cards, and the longevity of Randy Couture’s career. With the coming influx of talent from The Ultimate Fighter and the increasing talent of the division’s largest competitors, the timing is now, before the athletic commissions begin to clamor for all sorts of unnecessary weight classes. This weight class IS necessary. Let’s hope the UFC can make this happen soon.

The Texas Testosterone Festival is proud to announce UFC Ultimate Fighter Season 7 Winner Amir Sadollah will be a Special Guest on Saturday, August 15. Sadollah will be coming direct from his UFC 101 bout in Las Vegas to conduct a Mixed Martial Arts Seminar, live interview and audience Q&A with Steve Sievert of MMAJunkie.com and formerly of The Houston Chronicle, and meet and greet with fans.

Registration is now open and is $50 in advance. Click here for the Registration Form.
Advance registration prices end on Sunday, August 9.
The UFC Ultimate Fighter Amir Sadollah Mixed Martial Arts Seminar on Saturday, August 15 registration is $50.
The Relson Gracie Texas Jiu Jitsu Tournament on Sunday, August 16 registration is $50.
AT&T Presents The Relson Gracie Jiu Jitsu Seminar on Saturday, August 15 registration is $50.
All three events can be registered for $125. Registration for all three events is required at the same time.