The UFC recently announced that UFC Middleweight Champion Chris Weidman would be facing Luke Rockhold in his next challenge. The decision has been widely appreciated, as the Weidman versus Rockhold match is great on paper, but one person who does not like the fight is Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, the other No. 1 contender in the middleweight division. Souza has been perfect since arriving in the UFC, winning five fights in a row and eight overall. One argument against him is that his last loss was to Rockhold under the Strikeforce promotion, but Rockhold’s KO loss to Vitor Belfort in his UFC puts him mathematically behind Jacare.
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Jacare is in a holding pattern here. The Weidman-Rockhold match has not been officially given a date, but it is expected to come sometime in the September or October timeframe, at UFC 191 or UFC 192. That would mean the earliest Jacare would get a title shot is for February of 2016, and that is only if Weidman-Rockhold 2 is not warranted immediately, or the UFC throws a curve in there such as giving Anderson Silva a title shot as UFC President Dana White has promised.
For Souza, this casts him in a similar role to Alexander Gustafsson at light heavyweight last year, as he had been labelled the top contender and was even set to fight. He fought in between and lost, so his title fight went by the wayside. That is where the comparison ends, as Gustafsson is in the next title match, but those circumstances are unlikely to repeat themselves for Jacare. Also not lost on the UFC is that Gustafsson getting the title shot has been widely panned.
Then there is the case of Donald Cerrone, the top contender at lightweight who is also the most active fighter in the UFC’s upper echelon. Titleholder Rafael Dos Anjos is injured until December, and Cerrone has been told to wait by the UFC brass.
Waiting is not an option for Souza, especially not until February. Souza is going to have to get back into the octagon and keep winning and he may have a gauntlet of Brazilians to choose from in Vitor Belfort, Lyoto Machida and even Anderson Silva.
