It's always weird to me when people look at the divisions AS IS and make guesses for the distant future based off that information.
For years now I've seen people say "(Champion) has already beaten all the great contenders. If he beats (one last contender) he'll have cleared out the division"
Whenever people talk about how long a champion might stay champion, they look at that kind of stuff, and act as if the same contenders are going to be getting rematches 3 or and 4 years down the road.
For example people say once Jones clears out Gus and Cormier, he's got the division pretty much cleaned out
and people say JDS is basically the only threat to Cain
Well here's something every sherdogger should really consider when it comes to the UFC (and MMA in general)
It only takes two years or less for a fighter to go from virtually unknown to being a serious title threat or champion.
Point in case:
Heavyweight Division: November 2008: Brock Lesnar tko's Randy Couture to become champion. He made his UFC debut in Feb 2008 and here he was just 9 months later the UFC Champion.
Now the fact that he came out of nowhere wasn't even my point because he's a rare exception, but it certainly doesn't hurt the argument, no instead my point was that in november 2008 the heavyweight division in the UFC was Brock Lesnar (Champion) Randy Couture (former champion) Big Nog (interim champion) Frank Mir (#1 contender to the interim title)
Fabricio Werdum was the only other person in the UFC that was even remotely in the title scene.
There was no Cain
There was no JDS
There wasn't even a Carwin yet.
Don't get me wrong, all 3 of them were in the UFC at the time, but they had all just DEBUT that year and were considered young up'n'comers nowhere near the title.
It wasn't until 2 years later in October 2010 that Cain took the belt and JDS became the undisputed #1 contender by beating Carwin in the summer of 2011 while Cain healed from surgery.
2 years.... 2 little years was the difference between there being no Cain and no JDS and suddenly them being the top 2 guys.
but that's not a unique story. Not by a long shot.
Light-Heavyweight Division: May 2009: Lyoto Machida TKO's Rashad Evans to capture the crown. The world thinks there is no one that can beat this man. The legends of the old guard are washed up. Forrest just got tko'd by Rashad and Lyoto destroyed Rashad in a performance of the year worthy effort. The only contenders available where a sluggish looking Shogun and maybe Rampage if he could get back on track.. but Rampage just looked horrible in his decision win over Keith Jardine just one month earlier, and he obviously couldn't even beat Forrest Griffin. So imagine what "The Dragon" would do to him.
shogun and lyoto have two fights. and it literally seems if machida beats him, who else is there? forrest? rampage? He already destroyed rashad.
and that was the whole division. (as far as people were concerned)
March 2011, just one month shy of 2 years after machida/rashad, Jon Jones steps in to replace an injured Rashad against Shogun.
Most people think the UFC is making a mistake by throwing this rookie to the wolves this early in his career. They say Jones has the potential to be champion one day, but he needs a couple of more years. He's not ready for Shogun yet.
Boy were they wrong. Jones demolished him. and even though they both failed to beat Jones, 2 years after he won the belt, it turns out Jones is not just rematching the same old group over and over, but instead the top 3 is made of names like Gustafsson and Teixeira. Two names we didn't know in 2011 when Jones won the belt.
I know this post is getting long but it's too much fun, so a couple of more examples. I'll try to speed it up though.
Middleweight Division: Feb.2011 Anderson front kicks Vitor Belfort in the face. It will be a month before Chris Weidman even makes his UFC debut. And another solid year before he works his way up to top contender status.
finally two years after that march debut, in july 2013, he takes the belt. If you made a post on sherdog on march 2011 that the kid that just decisioned sakara would knock anderson out standing someday, they'd ban you for trolling.
Welterweight Division: April 2011 GSP dominates Jake Shields despite a bad eye poke. Handing Jake Shields his first loss 15 or 16 fights. There's literally no one left in the welterweight division. The only thing people care about at this point is the potential superfight with Anderson because GSP had beaten every viable contender at 170.
It was almost lucky for the division that GSP tore his ACL because it gave the other contenders time to build themselves up. Carlos Condit made a name for himself, Nick Diaz built himself up and came over from strikeforce.
That was 2 names no one had really put into the title scene coming in to the title scene in even less than 2 years.
But 1 month before that april fight with Shields, a young welterweight by the name of Johny Hendricks fought and won his 4th fight in the UFC. That made him 3-1 in the UFC, but he wasn't anywhere near the title scene.
But 2 years after that april fight (2 years and 7 months) that man fought GSP to a virtual draw, losing the decision, but setting himself up as the uncrowned champion going into the vacant title fight with robbie lawler.
Last one real quick:
Lightweight Division: June 4 2011, Anthony Pettis the last WEC LW champion makes his UFC debut and loses to Clay Guida. Woops. A big setback. Meanwhile the champion Frankie Edgar was preparing for his october trilogy match with Gray Maynard, since their last fight in January ended in a draw.
in all fairness to anthony, he was supposed to get a shot at the winner of Edgar/Maynard 2 but the draw forced a rematch and thus Pettis took another fight and lost (something I think a lot of people kept in mind because it's when people started "waiting for their title shot" more and more)
but a mere 2 years later Pettis has climbed back up, and the title is his.
So you see, when you try to speculate about what might happen to champions in the future, it's almost crazy to try to guess any further than a year out at best and damn sure not 2 years, because we've seen time and time again that the entire division can change that fast. Names you'd either never heard of or at least would've never associated with the title suddenly become top guys in 2 years.
The examples I gave are just a drop in the bucket. There's a ton more.
Cormier
Ubereem (before he got derailed)
Robbie Lawler's resurgance
Dillishaw
Travis Browne
It's extremely rare to actually see a potential champion coming (like how people have been calling it for Rory for a long time)
For the most part, people go from barely getting started to #1 contender faster than anyone can believe
and it will keep on happening
For years now I've seen people say "(Champion) has already beaten all the great contenders. If he beats (one last contender) he'll have cleared out the division"
Whenever people talk about how long a champion might stay champion, they look at that kind of stuff, and act as if the same contenders are going to be getting rematches 3 or and 4 years down the road.
For example people say once Jones clears out Gus and Cormier, he's got the division pretty much cleaned out
and people say JDS is basically the only threat to Cain
Well here's something every sherdogger should really consider when it comes to the UFC (and MMA in general)
It only takes two years or less for a fighter to go from virtually unknown to being a serious title threat or champion.
Point in case:
Heavyweight Division: November 2008: Brock Lesnar tko's Randy Couture to become champion. He made his UFC debut in Feb 2008 and here he was just 9 months later the UFC Champion.
Now the fact that he came out of nowhere wasn't even my point because he's a rare exception, but it certainly doesn't hurt the argument, no instead my point was that in november 2008 the heavyweight division in the UFC was Brock Lesnar (Champion) Randy Couture (former champion) Big Nog (interim champion) Frank Mir (#1 contender to the interim title)
Fabricio Werdum was the only other person in the UFC that was even remotely in the title scene.
There was no Cain
There was no JDS
There wasn't even a Carwin yet.
Don't get me wrong, all 3 of them were in the UFC at the time, but they had all just DEBUT that year and were considered young up'n'comers nowhere near the title.
It wasn't until 2 years later in October 2010 that Cain took the belt and JDS became the undisputed #1 contender by beating Carwin in the summer of 2011 while Cain healed from surgery.
2 years.... 2 little years was the difference between there being no Cain and no JDS and suddenly them being the top 2 guys.
but that's not a unique story. Not by a long shot.
Light-Heavyweight Division: May 2009: Lyoto Machida TKO's Rashad Evans to capture the crown. The world thinks there is no one that can beat this man. The legends of the old guard are washed up. Forrest just got tko'd by Rashad and Lyoto destroyed Rashad in a performance of the year worthy effort. The only contenders available where a sluggish looking Shogun and maybe Rampage if he could get back on track.. but Rampage just looked horrible in his decision win over Keith Jardine just one month earlier, and he obviously couldn't even beat Forrest Griffin. So imagine what "The Dragon" would do to him.
shogun and lyoto have two fights. and it literally seems if machida beats him, who else is there? forrest? rampage? He already destroyed rashad.
and that was the whole division. (as far as people were concerned)
March 2011, just one month shy of 2 years after machida/rashad, Jon Jones steps in to replace an injured Rashad against Shogun.
Most people think the UFC is making a mistake by throwing this rookie to the wolves this early in his career. They say Jones has the potential to be champion one day, but he needs a couple of more years. He's not ready for Shogun yet.
Boy were they wrong. Jones demolished him. and even though they both failed to beat Jones, 2 years after he won the belt, it turns out Jones is not just rematching the same old group over and over, but instead the top 3 is made of names like Gustafsson and Teixeira. Two names we didn't know in 2011 when Jones won the belt.
I know this post is getting long but it's too much fun, so a couple of more examples. I'll try to speed it up though.
Middleweight Division: Feb.2011 Anderson front kicks Vitor Belfort in the face. It will be a month before Chris Weidman even makes his UFC debut. And another solid year before he works his way up to top contender status.
finally two years after that march debut, in july 2013, he takes the belt. If you made a post on sherdog on march 2011 that the kid that just decisioned sakara would knock anderson out standing someday, they'd ban you for trolling.
Welterweight Division: April 2011 GSP dominates Jake Shields despite a bad eye poke. Handing Jake Shields his first loss 15 or 16 fights. There's literally no one left in the welterweight division. The only thing people care about at this point is the potential superfight with Anderson because GSP had beaten every viable contender at 170.
It was almost lucky for the division that GSP tore his ACL because it gave the other contenders time to build themselves up. Carlos Condit made a name for himself, Nick Diaz built himself up and came over from strikeforce.
That was 2 names no one had really put into the title scene coming in to the title scene in even less than 2 years.
But 1 month before that april fight with Shields, a young welterweight by the name of Johny Hendricks fought and won his 4th fight in the UFC. That made him 3-1 in the UFC, but he wasn't anywhere near the title scene.
But 2 years after that april fight (2 years and 7 months) that man fought GSP to a virtual draw, losing the decision, but setting himself up as the uncrowned champion going into the vacant title fight with robbie lawler.
Last one real quick:
Lightweight Division: June 4 2011, Anthony Pettis the last WEC LW champion makes his UFC debut and loses to Clay Guida. Woops. A big setback. Meanwhile the champion Frankie Edgar was preparing for his october trilogy match with Gray Maynard, since their last fight in January ended in a draw.
in all fairness to anthony, he was supposed to get a shot at the winner of Edgar/Maynard 2 but the draw forced a rematch and thus Pettis took another fight and lost (something I think a lot of people kept in mind because it's when people started "waiting for their title shot" more and more)
but a mere 2 years later Pettis has climbed back up, and the title is his.
So you see, when you try to speculate about what might happen to champions in the future, it's almost crazy to try to guess any further than a year out at best and damn sure not 2 years, because we've seen time and time again that the entire division can change that fast. Names you'd either never heard of or at least would've never associated with the title suddenly become top guys in 2 years.
The examples I gave are just a drop in the bucket. There's a ton more.
Cormier
Ubereem (before he got derailed)
Robbie Lawler's resurgance
Dillishaw
Travis Browne
It's extremely rare to actually see a potential champion coming (like how people have been calling it for Rory for a long time)
For the most part, people go from barely getting started to #1 contender faster than anyone can believe
and it will keep on happening