Sometimes it’s go big or go home. In MMA, more often than not, that attitude sees something spectacular happen in the cage. Other times, it happens in negotiations between fighter and promoter, usually on those rare occasions when a guy’s star power is enough for him to hold out for a little cash and a little exposure.
That’s exactly what happened early in 2014, when Gilbert Melendez was ready to walk from the UFC. Bellator had offered him a big deal, and the only way the UFC could hold onto him was to offer up a coaching gig on The Ultimate Fighter and a title shot against Anthony Pettis.
Well, that gig ended this month as far as television broadcasts are concerned, and that title shot is over too.
It didn’t go well.
Melendez was choked out by Pettis after trying to suffocate the champion for a round and a bit, and now he’s 1-2 in the UFC with both losses having come in title fights. Not many guys can lay claim to challenging for the same title twice in their first three UFC fights; even fewer can claim to have lost both times.
To all my supporters http://t.co/spanEojs8A
— Gilbert Melendez (@GilbertMelendez) December 10, 2014
And in the event you were wondering, it’s not the best career move.
Once you’ve had a couple of cracks at a title and come up short, you’re not really of much interest to the promotion anymore. You’ve proven you can’t beat the best guy, and you’ll be relegated to co-main events and propping up some type of FOX show until you outlive your in-cage usefulness.
That’s not the worst living out there, especially considering the cheques clear the same either way, but for a guy like Melendez it’s definitely not the end he would have mapped out for himself. He’s been one of the best lightweights on Earth for a decade—still is, actually—and he’s competed in all of the biggest organizations the sport has ever known.
He’s been a champion in most of them.
Not in the UFC though.
Will Gilbert Melendez get another title shot?
The only saving grace for the California boy is that his title losses came to two different lightweight champions, even though they happened in relatively close proximity. Guys who’ve been stuck in the no man’s land of title contention before, such as Benson Henderson or BJ Penn, lost to the same guy twice and had no choice but to change weight classes or hang around and wait for some other contender to come along and knock them into irrelevance.
For Melendez, he could conceivably work his way back based on his name and resume, and he could do it before he exits his prime if he stayed active enough.
However the odds are certainly not in his favor. Earning title shots in the UFC isn’t easy, at least not if you’re competing in a division with the depth that lightweight has. Having already whiffed on a couple and with the most recent one coming after a contentious negotiation, it’s hard to imagine the promotion making his road back an easy one.
So there it is. Melendez, for all the greatness he’s displayed in his results and all the excitement he’s provided in securing them, is a contender in no man’s land.
