With the pinpoint swing of his right hand David Terrell threw the UFC middleweight division on it’s ear. Matt “The Law” Lindland is no longer the king of the middleweight hill, and while one loss certainly does not eliminate him from the middleweight picture completely, it has certainly raised a hurdle in his seemingly unstoppable run. Truth be told, while Terrell has punctuated his career with a huge win over an established opponent, he is still an enigma and with only one minute or so of work in the octagon, there is still much about him that is unknown. He has however played the role of the giant killer and finds himself on the top looking down. The current UFC middleweight division now looks like this. The record in brackets denotes their respective UFC records.

Trevor Prangley (1-0)
Prangley beat Curtis Stout at UFC 48 and is 1-0 in the UFC. He will be fighting Ivan Salaverry at UFC 50 in Atlantic City.

Phil Baroni (3-4)
With his recent 0-3 run losing to Evan Tanner 2 times as well as losing to Matt Lindland, another loss would certainly ring the death Knell for his erratic UFC career. He is 0- for Team Quest, and was scheduled to face Trevor Prangley but an injury has sidelined him from his second consecutive fight. If Baroni loses again I think it is fair to say that he will be dropped from the UFC and will have to get a big win outside the UFC in order to get back in. His recent woes put him near the bottom of the UFC middleweight rankings at this point and at the very least he will need to beat two consecutive UFC fighters in order to get back into title contention.

Ivan Salaverry (1-1)
He has fairly inactive of late having fought only once a year for the past two years but he is back in on short notice. His last two UFC fights included a loss to Matt Lindland and a win over Andrei Semenov.

Lee Murray (1-0) Recently lost to Anderson Silva
Lee Murray recently lost to Anderson Silva in his native homeland, the UFC has set a precedent of dropping fighters that lose outside of the UFC if they have a fight scheduled in the UFC. At this point, he had nothing scheduled in the UFC and considering the fact that he cannot fight in America anytime soon due to his visa issue’s, I am assuming that he out of the immediate Middleweight picture, that is not to say he will not come back to fight at some point but it is unknown at this time what his UFC future holds. A win against a prominent opponent would put him right back in the mix.

Jorge Rivera (1-1)
Rivera has a UFC record of 1-1 with one win over David “The Crow” Loiseau and a quick submission loss to the aforementioned Lee Murray. He did however recently defeat the tough Mark Weir in England and will be facing Rich Franklin of Monte Cox’s Team Extreme at UFC 50.

Rich Franklin (2-0)
Franklin will be making his 185 UFC debut and will be taking on a tough competitor in Jorge Rivera as his first middleweight test. He will obviously need a win to move on but his credentials speak for themselves. He holds a recent win over Evan Tanner who seems to have found a home for himself at 185 pounds, and has a good record with only one loss.

Evan Tanner ( 8-2 )
Tanner is right there in the thick of it all, and with his two middleweight wins as well as his strong record he should be right in the mix. He will be fighting Robbie Lawler at UFC 50.

Matt Lindland ( 7-3 )
I have a feeling that a lot of people will jump off the Lindland bandwagon because of his quick loss but lets cut the guy some slack. He did lose decisively but that is only after losing only 2 times before that in his entire career. One of those losses was a very unique loss to Falaniko Vitale, a win that he later avenged, and the other a decisive loss to Murilo Bustamante in his lone title shot opportunity.

Joe Riggs (1-0)
Riggs looked strong against Doerksen, and should be thrown into the mix but with only one win a spot in the middleweight title picture would be premature.

There are a multitude of options and I think that officially or unofficially a tournament spread out over several events would not be a bad idea. Here are my suggestions for the brackets for the UFC middleweight tournament

Four Man Tournament for the Middleweight Title

Bracket 1
Winner of Jorge Rivera vs. Rich Franklin
Vs.
David Terrell

Bracket 2
Winner of Evan Tanner vs. Robbie Lawler
Vs.
Matt Lindland

In Bracket 1, whoever wins between Jorge Rivera and Rich Franklin could fight David Terrell, and the winner of that fight could fight against the winner of bracket 2. In the second Bracket we would have Matt Lindland face the winner of Evan Tanner vs. Robbie Lawler. This fight would kill two birds with one stone. Not only would it create a contender, if Tanner were to beat Lawler he would face Lindland and one of the Team Quest fighters would be eliminated. You really can’t have two guys from the same team, who will not fight each, in the same division. Both fighters have reportedly said that they would face each other if they had to and I feel it would create an interesting match-up while solving a big problem for the UFC. If Terrell and Lindland both won their brackets it would set up the rematch for the title and the winner would take the Middleweight crown. A contenders tournament could also be played out over the same events to create possible contenders to the crown as well as weed out the best from the rest. 1 such tournament could look like this. This Contenders tournament is made up of fighters currently fighting in the UFC as well as Anderson Silva who recently defeated a UFC fighter in Lee Murray as well as the always deserving Jeremy Horn.

Contenders Tournament

Bracket 1
Joe “Diesel” Riggs
Vs.
Winner of Ivan Salaverry vs. Trevor Prangley

Winner of Bracket 1
Vs.
Anderson Silva [Recently defeated Lee Murray]

Anderson Silva has had some major problems with the UFC in the past but I feel he would be a good addition to the division if the UFC would take him back. He once signed a contract to fight in the UFC a few years back and was scheduled to fight Carlos Newton at one point but inexplicably chose not to fight and didn’t fight for quite a while, eventually fighting for Pride instead. A striker of his caliber would bring an element that the UFC has been making a turn towards late, the explosive hard-hitting KO artist. Silva recently defeated Jeremy Horn, a man that everyone knows has the credentials to be one of the top dogs in one of the big shows, so his entry to the UFC would be well justified, especially now that he has defeated Lee Murray who was a UFC contender.

The possibilities are endless, a rematch between Evan Tanner and Rich Franklin at Middleweight might be interesting, as would be a fight between David Terrell and Jeremy Horn. By now everyone knows about “The Great Weight Debate” between Horn and Terrell and a fight in the UFC would certainly turn a few heads. There are a number of other possibilities as well but I feel a tournament format wouldn’t be the worst idea. Evan Tanner vs. Matt Lindland would be interesting on many levels. Two teammates fighting each other for the right to advance, the two fighters would have cornering issues and training issues because they fight for the same team. Who would Randy Couture and Dan Henderson corner? Would one get Couture and the other Henderson? I feel it could create a very unique situation that fans would be interested in following closely.

There are so many other fighters that are deserving of an opportunity and there is no definitive set of top fightes that deserve to be in the mix. Other highly qualified middleweights are Jeremy Horn, David Loiseau, Chris Leben, Nathan Martquardt, Amar Suloev, and a multitude of others and a case could be made for many fighters that are not even on this list, the division is that deep.

Having Terrell fight for a title after only one win in the UFC seems a bit rushed so having him fight for the title after two wins makes more sense. Matt Lindland possibly facing Terrell again for the title is not a bad idea either, while a rematch too soon would be un-engaging at this point, if the fight were to happen it wouldn’t happen for 4-5 shows at the earliest so with some time, wins under their belts, and some build up it could make for an interesting fight. However unlikely it sounds now, If Lindland were to win his tournament and Baroni were to win a contenders tournament it would justify a third contest, a rivalry that has produced 2 entertaining fights thus far, and it would be the only way this fight could happen again, if it were to happen at all. Other possibilities under the suggested format could be the Joe Riggs vs. Lee Murray fight that has been a hot topic of discussion on MMA forums, that debate could be settled once and for all if the chips fell in the right place.

With the Middleweight title situation likely to be settled in the next year or so it is looking like the division that was once in disarray could be back in the mix and churn out some very enticing fights. It will certainly be interesting to see what it brings us in the coming years.

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