The holidays are naturally a busy time for mail, but December is also a preferred period for MMA’s sorting process.
Between Dec. 24’s Vale Tudo Japan 2012 card and the co-promotional New Year’s Eve effort from Dream and Glory, Japan will treat us to several outstanding bouts in the lighter weight classes in the coming weeks, while the UFC 155 bill in Las Vegas on Dec. 29 will crystalize the heavyweight picture with the much-awaited rematch between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez. Now is the intriguing, exciting moment when we start to wonder what these rankings might look like when the calendar says 2013.
One thing that we do know, however: the bantamweight division has a king ... kind of. With UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz now inactive for over a year and with no fights scheduled in the next 90 days, he is ineligible to be ranked. However, more importantly, Cruz’s allograph didn’t give him the results he hoped for following his ACL tear, forcing yet another knee surgery. The best bantamweight on the world will now spend most of 2013 the way he spent all of 2012: on the sideline.
We anxiously await the return of “The Dominator,” but profess quite an interest in seeing how the 135-pound picture resolves itself in the months to come.
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