Talk about a waste of a title fight. The UFC’s heavyweight division has never been as interesting as it is right now with the resurgence of Andrei Arlovski, Frank Mir and the potential signing of Fedor as well as the surging athletes in Stipe Miocic as well as Ben Rothwell. Instead of giving one of them the title shot, they gave the oft-injured former Heavyweight champion a chance to recapture his title which makes absolutely no sense.
The first reason being that Velasquez is always injured. In fact, Velaquez has only fought three times int he last three years and missed all of 2014. Also, he was so inured that the UFC had to create an interim title which Werdum won, and Velasquez’s injury is so extensive that he has not fought nearly as many contenders as Werdum. In his last 11 fights, Werdum has taken on Antonio Silva, Fedor, Overeem, Roy Nelson, Big Nog, Travis Browne, Mark Hunt and of course Velasquez. In fact, in over six years, he has fought 12 different opponents and gone 11-1.
Velasquez on the other hand has a different story. In Velasquez’s last six fights, he has fought Junior Dos Santos three times, Bigfoot twice and Werdum once. That too place over nearly five years and only fought six times. Now, they want to give him a chance to fight for the title again and could potentially win. The biggest reason he should not get this match though is because he was beaten soundly over the course of two rounds on his way to a submission defeat in the third. Why should someone defeated with such relatively ease get the title shot? It just makes no sense.