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Posted 04/22/2008 at 10:37 PM
I can't figure out the heavyweight division, easily one of the weakest (if not the weakest) in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. At least the middleweight division has a dominant champion in Brazilian Anderson 'The Spider' Silva who has cleaned out the division.
When the UFC bought Pride back in March 2007, the heavyweight division figured to be helped out the most. However outside of current champion Antonio Rodrigo 'Minotauro' Nogueira, the Pride imports have under whelmed.
Mirko 'Cro Cop' Filipovic entered the octagon to much fanfare, but left the UFC after going 1-2 even though he still had a couple fights remaining on his contract. Heath 'Texas Crazy Horse' Herring has gone 2-2 with the UFC and appears to be on the outside looking in after falling to Nogueira last summer.
Former heavyweight champion Randy 'The Natural' Couture has left the organization and is currently suing the UFC and parent company Zuffa to get out of his contract. 'The Natural' has stated various reasons for leaving, but his next fight will occur in a courtroom and not the octagon. Not a good place to be for an aging veteran who maybe has one good fight remaining.
Former champion Tim 'The Maine-iac' Sylvia has left the UFC with one fight left on his contract, and has since signed to fight Fedor Emelianenko this summer at American Airlines Center in Dallas for HDNet Fights. That fight seems to lock up Fedor for the immediate future, meaning the dominant Russian will not be fighting inside the octagon in the near future if ever.
Another former title holder Andrei 'The Pitbull' Arlovski has since finished his contract, although negotiations continue. However, 'The Pitbull' has dropped so low in the UFC's eyes that his second-round knockout victory over Jake O'Brien at UFC 82: Pride of a Champion was relegated to the undercard and never shown on the pay-per-view.
Speaking of O'Brien, the Indiana native was recently released from the UFC despite having a 10-1 record. O'Brien wasn't the most exciting fighter out there who relied on his wrestling background, but this division is already incredibly thin.
This division is incredibly weak with no help arriving for the foreseeable future. Maybe the next installment of The Ultimate Fighter will feature heavyweights in an effort to inject some talent where it is really needed. The only previous season that featured heavyweights was Season 2 when Rashad 'Sugar' Evans won the guaranteed contract. However, soon after winning the contest he moved down to light heavyweight.
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