-- Ryan Hart
Jordan Breen, columnist and radio host: I'm largely in agreement with you. Zuffa's decision to revamp their heavyweight matchmaking isn't perfect, but I'm not sure that it could be.
The UFC model calls for strong champions, and the development of parallel challengers. Title elimination bouts like the forthcoming Martin Kampmann vs. Mike Swick fight seldom make sense for Zuffa, who don't want to knock potential title challengers off the ladder as they want a competitively and promotionally viable contender for each champ every four months or so. This is especially true at heavyweight, where the dearth of talent in general and the very small crop of intriguing up-and-comers means that eliminating one successful heavyweight prospect from the title chase is a horrible idea.
So, they need a title challenger for Lesnar, while simultaneously they want to create interesting match-ups to promote future title challengers and foster the development of their prospects. The Carwin-Lesnar and Velasquez-Rothwell match-ups strike the best balance between all those priorities.
Like you, I think Velasquez would've prevailed over Carwin, squandering a title challenger. While I've got significant doubts about Carwin -- his competition (Gonzaga aside) has been absolutely abysmal and I'm flabbergasted that people have no cardio questions about a man the size of a house who has only fought past two minutes once -- his size, wrestling background and punching power offer a different look than Lesnar's other challengers. Lesnar was at his most mortal against an aged and rusty Randy Couture because of his wrestling skills, and even as a collegiate wrestler, Lesnar often wore down when he couldn't work his power double leg early on opponents. I fully expect an improving Lesnar to get the better of Carwin, but the technical questions about both fighters as well as the concept of Lesnar fighting someone his own physical size should be sellable.
And, having just turned 27, and I believe in general having more MMA upside, it makes more sense for Zuffa to keep giving Velasquez incremental steps up to rouse technical improvement. I think the Kongo bout was a great fight for him in terms of progress, as he learned to deal with taking serious damage, showed a strong positional game, and demonstrated that as a legitimate heavyweight, he can keep a dominant 15-minute workrate.
Rothwell is a great step up as he's well-rounded, especially by heavyweight standards, he can take enormous amounts of punishment, and will force Velasquez to work more actively from all positions including top control, whereas Kongo could only threaten by attempting to benchpress Velasquez off of him from the bottom. Win or lose, Zuffa gets a title contender -- and win or lose -- I think Velasquez is a richer fighter for the experience, which is what developing prospects is all about.
So, it may not be a "perfect" scenario for the UFC heavyweight division, but it does go to show that more often than not, Zuffa tends to arrive at the decision that best balances competition and promotion.