After a fairly unremarkable evening, save the retirements of B.J Penn and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filopovic, it’s time to play matchmaker after UFC 137. You can read Chris Roberts’ play by play by clicking here. If not, it’s time to play Five for Fighting and make some fights based on the results of the card.
Matt Mitrione vs. Brendan Schaub – Both fighters are coming off losses and have a history of being promoted up, slowly but surely, up the card. Both also failed to defeat an upper-tier fighter after distinguishing themselves from the pack. It would be a good, exciting fight and gives us a matchup we didn’t get on “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 10.
Donald Cerrone vs. Nate Diaz – If Diaz is healthy, and Cerrone willing, this could be a fun fight. Cerrone doesn’t want to wait for anyone or a title fight and Diaz is seemingly always ready to fight anyone, anytime, anywhere. Sam Stout would be another solid matchup and meeting a returning Kenny Florian in the division could be worth exploring as well.
Nick Diaz vs. Georges St. Pierre – Nick Diaz just dismantled B.J Penn. At this point you can almost argue that he ought to leapfrog Carlos Condit and get the next title shot. If not, Jake Ellenberger or the winner of Brian Ebersole-Rory McDonald would make for a strong matchup as well.
Roy Nelson vs. Fabricio Werdum – Werdum is apparently en route to the UFC and wants a fight against seemingly anyone. While I imagine this would be a much better grappling matchup than MMA fight, it would be an interesting style matchup between the two.
Cheick Kongo vs. Shane Carwin – Carwin is going to come back at some point. Both of these guys are big, powerful guys who like to stand back and throw punches really hard. It may not last longer than a minute but it’ll be one of the more exciting minutes in MMA.
