Ennis' Take
ENNIS: Lay of the Land - Heavyweight Division: Detailed overview and breakdown of current state of division
Mar 26, 2010 - 10:13:05 PM ENNIS: Lay of the Land - Heavyweight Division: Detailed overview and breakdown of current state of division

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With Brock Lesnar's illness keeping him on the sideline for what is essentially a year between title defenses, it has given the typically underwhelming and unstable heavyweight division time to develop and breed new stars. A couple have certainly taken advantage of the circumstance, but will any of them eventually be enough to dethrone Lesnar? Let's take a look at how the heavyweights shake out.

THE CHAMP

Brock Lesnar (4-1): The last time we saw Lesnar, he was handing out a thrashing to Frank Mir and putting people on notice that he wasn't going to be caught by the same thing twice. While we still don't know a whole lot about his standup technique or ability to take a shot from a hard puncher, what we do know is that being under Brock Lesnar is a miserable place to be. Lesnar will fight next in July when he looks to tie the record for most heavyweight title defenses (a paltry two.) His opponent has yet to be determined, but whoever ends up getting the shot, we're guaranteed that the challenger will be no pushover.

THE CONTENDERS

Cain Velasquez (8-0): The stunned silence of those in attendance at UFC 110 should speak volumes to what Velasquez accomplished on February 20. He not only stopped a legend – he crushed a guy who had fought the best the sport has to offer, and who has only lost to four men in eleven years. Cain Velasquez announced that he is serious about title contention, and suffocating wrestling is not his only weapon. Velasquez has some serious power, and you'd better believe he can take a punch. His fight with Chieck Kongo showed us that. While the world watches the Interim Title fight this weekend, another fighter will sit on the sidelines with just as much claim to a title shot as the winner of that contest. Cain Velasquez is here, and the rest of the division had better be aware. As for the meantime, I love a fight between Velasquez and Junior dos Santos while the title picture is sorted out – maybe at the same event as the Lesnar fight. Ooh, I'm getting chills just thinking about it. Velasquez or dos Santos sitting cageside to call out the winner? Great stuff. (Dana White has nixed the idea of course, but I still like it.)

A STEP OR TWO AWAY

Shane Carwin (11-0): I don't care whom you've fought or where you've fought them. If you've won 11 straight without ever going three minutes in a fight? You're a monster. Say hello to Shane Carwin, who will face Frank Mir this week for the interim title and the dubious honor of facing Brock Lesnar for the undisputed crown. While conventional wisdom would indicate that the fight goes longer than Carwin's previous efforts, let us not forget that Mir has a propensity for heading back to the locker room sooner rather than later (twelve of 17 fights have ended inside the first frame.) Don't blink in this one, people. Carwin obviously has crushing power in his strikes, and he showed an ability to get off the ground pretty quickly in his fight with Gabe Gonzaga, which is not as easy as it might sound. The fact that he did it after being stunned by a punch makes it that much more impressive. The question will be whether he can do that against Mir.

Frank Mir (13-4): He's cocky, he's charismatic, and he's polarizing. He also happens to be one of the world's best heavyweight BJJ players. Frank Mir has one of the strangest and most intriguing careers of any MMA fighter. From his early lackadaisical easy wins to his post-motorcycle crash awfulness to his current condition, Mir has been all over the map. Luckily for him, he's at his best now, when the heavyweight division is better than it's ever been. Mir hasn't had his old cardio problems since fighting Lesnar the first time, which makes him a much more intriguing and dangerous fighter. The question will be how he deals with a fighter that is physically similar to Lesnar and who also presents a known striking threat. It should be very interesting to see how Mir chooses to approach this fight. (I will say, from what I've seen of the weigh-ins, that Mir looks fantastic, and Carwin didn't seem like he was quite there. Very excited for this one.)

Junior dos Santos (11-1): Similar to Cain Velasquez, though against a lesser opponent, Junior dos Santos made his case this past Sunday to be counted among the division's elite. With his win over a tough but strategically misguided Gabriel Gonzaga, dos Santos racked up his fifth straight victory due to strikes in the UFC. We haven't seen how dos Santos would fare on his back, which again makes me want to see him take on Velasquez, but there can be no question that his speed and power will present real problems for any heavyweight.

UP AND COMERS

Todd Duffee (6-0): We haven't seen much of Duffee (his UFC tenure is all of seven seconds,) and I can't find much footage of him online, but how much do you need to know? Six fights, six knockouts. Five of them in the first round. And Duffee has also shown an ability to handle a grappler. In his fight with Assuerio Silva, he escaped mount and got Silva off of his back, then escaped a couple of armbar attempts before smashing Silva in the second round. So while the top of the division is rife with excitement, a guy like Duffee might just be another "next big thing." Time will tell, and we'll get an indication when he takes on Mike Russow at UFC 114.

Mike Russow (12-1): Russow prefers to grapple, as evidenced by his eight submissions out of twelve wins. From what I've seen, Russow has nasty chokes when he gets a hold of you, though he couldn't manage to stop Justin McCully, who can be especially susceptible to submissions. Whether or not that was a case of the Octagon jitters or not we'll find out at UFC 114 when he fights hard-hitting Todd Duffee.

Brendan Schaub (5-1): Schaub suffered a small setback when he lost in the TUF finals to Roy Nelson, but he showed he belongs in the UFC with his dominating knockout victory over Chase Gormley at the Versus event. Schaub was clearly the better fighter that night, and at 27 years old, he's got plenty of time to work his way up the ranks in the division. Oh, and let's not forget that besides the Nelson fight, all of Schaub's contests have ended in under two minutes with him winning by knockout. Not bad. I'm quite intrigued to see where he fits in right now among the big boys. I like a fight between Schaub and Chris Tuchscherer.

ON THE REBOUND

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (32-6-1, 1 NC): After being stopped for the second time in three fights, Nogueira finds himself at a crossroads. Is he still an elite heavyweight? Does he have time to fix the holes in his game? I don't know the answer to those questions. I think he can still hang with the big guys, but Nog has always relied on his ability to take a beating against a power puncher or ground and pound artist, waiting until his opponent makes a mistake to capitalize. But the problem he's running into now is that I don't know if he can last long enough against the current crop of power hitters to find an opening. Tim Sylvia is one thing – Shane Carwin is another. The thing is, you pretty much have to continue giving Nogueira big fights. I think a rematch with Frank Mir would be in order after Carwin beats him (am I being presumptuous here?) Or if Mir happens to pull it off, I think a fight with Gabriel Gonzaga could be fun, or perhaps a fight with Cro Cop after he fights Patrick Barry.

THE POOL

The heavyweights are unique (along with the lightweights) in that there's a lot to talk about outside the UFC as far as high level competitors. With the heavies you're looking at more outside the top 10 than inside, but they're still there. Let's start within the ranks of Zuffa though, and let's start with guys that are fighting soon. Mir-Carwin is the only heavyweight fight on the card tomorrow night, but UFC 112 sees some lower-level competition in Jon Madsen (3-0) taking on Mostapha Al-Turk (6-5). Madsen will make his first post-TUF 10 appearance, while Al-Turk will look to rebound from an ignominious loss to Mirko Cro Cop (26-7-2, 1 NC) back in June of last year. Al-Turk hasn't shown much in his two TKO losses to Cro Cop and Chieck Kongo (15-6-1), and if he can't take out Madsen, who hardly has the pedigree of his other two UFC opponents, he won't be around the Octagon any time soon. Cro Cop will see action next at UFC 115 against fellow kickboxer Pat Barry (5-1). That should be the kind of fights that both men enjoy--the kind where you don't have to worry about being taken down. That one won't go the distance. It should also answer some questions about Barry's size for the heavyweight division. I wonder whether he might be a bit short for heavyweight quite honestly, but he's not a guy who's used to cutting weight, so that presents an obstacle for him. At the same time, there's no way a guy like Barry could compete at the top of a division of monsters such as the UFC heavyweight division. So whether or not size matters in his next fight, he's going to have to make some decisions down the road about how competitive he wants to be with top guys. Barry's last opponent, Antoni Hardonk (8-6), has lost his last two and is 4-4 in the UFC, but there will always be room in the heavyweight division for a guy of his size and striking power. Kongo, another fighter who prefers to stand, is coming off a win over Paul Buentello (27-12) at the Versus event. I don't care whether Buentello tapped due to the elbows or the finger. If you tap out while a guy is elbowing you in the legs, that guy is not to be trifled with in the ground and pound department. As for Buentello himself, he may get another fight against an up-and-comer (Brendan Schaub, perhaps) or a debuting fighter, or he may get cut now. Either way, Buentello can't be long for the UFC.

If we look further at the TUF 10 alumni, it's fitting to start with the winner of the contest, Roy Nelson (14-4). The former IFL champ has an interesting fight coming up with Stefan Struve (19-3) at the next installment of the UFC's Fight Night series on the 31st of this month. The match will pit girth against height, as we see how the…um…rotundity of Nelson fares against the height of the 6'11" Dutchman. Both men are adept grapplers, though Struve holds far more submission victories than does Nelson. Anyway, it'll be interesting. Further down the ladder of TUF success, we've got the well-hyped James McSweeney (4-4), who has certainly shown some improvements in his game since his time in Cage Rage, and we'll see how much he's improved when he faces UFC newcomer Travis Browne (9-0) at the TUF 11 Finale. Browne began his career in February of last year and has already racked up nine victories, going the distance only once, though against middling competition. Matt Mitrione (1-0) will find himself across the cage from another TUF 10 vet in none other than Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson (4-1) at UFC 113. Not much analysis to add to that one, folks. We'll see where each of these guys is, and likely where they're going after this fight. Those are pretty much all the TUF 10 guys with scheduled fights at this point, and it will remain to be seen if any more return to the Octagon.

Also coming to UFC 113 (in the prelims) is a match between another UFC newcomer in Chad Corvin (6-0) and a fighter with one of my favorite nicknames, Joey "The Mexecutioner" Beltran (11-3). Corvin is a big, bad man who has gone never made it to two minutes into a fight. Beltran, for his part, was to be a sacrificial lamb for the debuting (and since cut) Rolles Gracie (3-1), who turned in one of the more embarrassing performances I've seen in a while from a grappler of his caliber in gassing and getting himself pounded out by a mid-level (at best) opponent in the second round. Now it's up to Beltran to make the best of his stint in the UFC as he faces another newcomer who's being brought in to beat him.

We haven't talked about two guys coming up on the wrong side of the referee's arm-raising during the Versus event, so let's hit on Gabriel Gonzaga (11-4) first. I've admitted many times that I'm an unabashed Gonzaga fan, and it kills me every time he goes into a fight he should win (or in which he should at least be competitive) and gets himself knocked out. His fights with Shane Carwin and Junior dos Santos are two prime examples. He hurt Carwin and then didn't press the issue of getting the fight back to the ground after Carwin stood back up, which made him overconfident in his striking and got him knocked out. He repeated that mistake against a far superior technical striker in dos Santos when he only attempted one takedown (which was summarily dismissed,) and then got himself knocked out worse. Had Gonzaga been able to test his considerable grappling skills against either man, we may have seen a different outcome. Chase Gormley (6-2), on the other hand, has gotten himself thrashed by two young rising stars in Stefan Struve and Brendan Schaub, so how he remains in the UFC while Tim Hague (10-3) gets released after losing a questionable decision to Chris Tuchscherer (18-2) is beyond me. Tuchscherer doesn't have a scheduled opponent at the moment. I wouldn't mind seeing how he does against an Antoni Hardonk. Just don't put him in there with Justin McCully (10-5-2), or you might put an arena full of people to sleep.

The last two UFC heavyweights to speak of (I'm not getting into James Toney just yet) are Ben Rothwell (30-7) and Gilbert Yvel (36-14-1), who just happen to be fighting each other at UFC 115. I would expect Rothwell to win this one and put an end to Yvel's destined-to-be-short-lived UFC run. Not much more to say about that.

And now on to the heavyweights who reside outside of the world's largest MMA promotion. Any conversation of this sort has to start with the greatest heavyweight alive until someone beats him, Fedor Emelianenko (31-1). Unfortunately there's not much else to say besides his name. Shady management (flame all you want – his management is shady) and a variety of little-understood factors have kept Fedor from joining the ranks of the UFC, but Dana White remains insistent that he will someday acquire the services of "The Last Emperor." Time will tell. It's been announced that he'll fight Fabricio Werdum (13-4-1) in June, but we've heard this song and dance before, and I'll believe it when I see the TV promo. Werdum is a fine opponent, but if it's not the steroid-loving Josh Barnett (24-5), Alistair Overeem (32-11, 1 NC) for the title, or even a rematch with Andrei Arlovski (15-7), I don't care all that much. I just don't see how Werdum poses much of a threat to Fedor. As for the actual Heavyweight Champion in Strikeforce, Overeem will allegedly face Fedor's last victim, Brett Rogers (10-1) for the belt in Strikeforce's May event. That's another one I'll believe when I see. If nothing else (if the fight happens,) it should put an end to the Overeem-steroids talk as title fighters are all tested for PEDs. Also on the May event, Andrei Arlovski is scheduled to face Antonio Silva (13-2). Silva and Arlovski will both look to regain footing in Strikeforce's top-heavy but still impressive heavyweight division, as both are coming off of losses. Arlovski will have the extra incentive of showing that he can survive a hard-hitting onslaught after two devastating knockouts left him looking for answers.

The aptly named "Heavy Artillery" event will also include another heavyweight fight, as the thus-far promising Roger Gracie (2-0) will face long-time veteran Kevin Randleman (17-14). Gracie is one of a few interesting prospects among Strikeforce's heavies. Bobby Lashley (5-0) is also scheduled to fight on the April 17th card, but he has, as of yet, no opponent. (Sound familiar?) Since I'm not talking about Herschel Walker either, we've got one last fighter rounding out Strikeforce, and that's Shane del Rosario (9-0). Del Rosario made his bones by knocking people out, but he opened eyes in his last fight by submitting his opponent with the rarely-completed omoplata in November. Personally, I'd like to see him get next crack at Lashley. Sure, Lashley could make you some money if he's good, but he's not going to make you Lesnar money. And there's no guarantee that he'll even pan out completely. So why not give the man a step up in competition? As a final note, I'd like to see what a guy like Sengoku's Stanislav Nedkov can do against some sturdy competition. And that's just about all the fighters I can think of at the moment.

Well, that's about it for this one, folks. Did I miss anyone? Let me know in the comments, or you can shoot me an email – ennistorch(at)gmail(dot)com, or you can check me out on the Twitter - @shawnennis. I haven't been on in a while, but I'll be back.

History of the UFC Heavyweight Title

*Bold indicates title changing hands

2/7/97 – M. Coleman def. D. Severn (Submission)
7/27/97 – M. Smith def. M. Coleman (Decision)
10/17/97 – M. Smith def. D. Abbott (Submission due to strikes)
12/21/97 – R. Couture def. M. Smith (Decision)
*Couture vacates title*
5/7/99 – B. Rutten def. K. Randleman (Decision)
*Rutten Retires*
11/19/99 – K. Randleman def. P. Williams (Decision)
6/9/00 – K. Randleman def. P. Rizzo (Decision)
11/17/00 – R. Couture def. K. Randleman (TKO)
5/4/01 – R. Couture def. P. Rizzo (Decision)
11/2/01 – R. Couture def. P. Rizzo (TKO)
3/22/02 – J. Barnett def. R. Couture (TKO)
*Barnett vacates title*
9/27/02 – R. Rodriguez def. R. Couture (Submission due to strikes)
2/28/03 – T. Sylvia def. R. Rodriguez (TKO)
9/26/03 – T. Sylvia def. G. McGee (TKO)
*Sylvia vacates title*
6/19/04 – F. Mir def. T. Sylvia (Submission)
*Mir stripped due to inactivity (Motorcycle accident)*
2/5/05 – A. Arlovski def. T. Sylvia (Submission)
6/4/05 – A. Arlovski def. J. Eilers (TKO)
10/7/05 – A. Arlovski def. P. Buentello (TKO)
4/15/06 – T. Sylvia def. A. Arlovski (TKO)
7/8/06 – T. Sylvia def. A. Arlovski (TKO)
11/18/06 – T. Sylvia def. J. Monson (Decision)
3/3/07 – R. Couture def. T. Sylvia (Decision)
8/25/07 – R. Couture def. G. Gonzaga (TKO)
2/2/08 – A. Nogueira def. T. Sylvia (Submission) – Interim Title due to Couture's temporary UFC departure
11/15/08 – B. Lesnar def. R. Couture (TKO)
12/27/08 – F. Mir def. A. Nogueira (TKO) – Interim
7/11/09 – B. Lesnar def. F. Mir (TKO)

Longest Title Reign: Randy Couture – 623 days
Most Title Defenses: Randy Couture/Andre Arlovski/Tim Sylvia (2 each)
Current Title Reign: Brock Lesnar (497 days, 1 defense)

Definitions/Parameters:

The Champ: Self-explanatory

The Contenders: Fighters who could fight for the title immediately and be taken as legitimate contenders. Fighters coming off of a loss will not typically be in this category.

A Step or Two Away: Fighters who could be in contention for a title with another victory or two over legitimate competition.

Up and Comers: Fighters who have no more than three fights in the UFC, who have shown promise. They're not always undefeated, but they have potential.

On the Rebound: Coming off of a high-profile loss or a loss in a fight that they should have won, and it will take a while to get the momentum back. Typically a champion who just lost his belt, as there's really nowhere else to put them.

The Pool: Other fighters of note within the division, who could work their way into the top three categories by going on a run and/or proving themselves/proving themselves again in the Octagon. Also those outside the UFC who could make an impact.