Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza’s third-round guillotine choke of Gegard Mousasi at UFC Fight Night 50 established the Brazilian as one of the top contenders for Chris Weidman’s UFC middleweight title.
With the win, Souza made a strong case for the next title shot, but the UFC has the opportunity to build him up as a true No. 1 contender if they match him up with the winner of Luke Rockhold vs. Michael Bisping.
Those two will end their trash talk and finally step into the cage on November 8 in Sydney, Australia. Just one month after that, we’ve got UFC 181, where Weidman will look for his third defense of the UFC middleweight championship against Vitor Belfort. With the title fight happening on December 6, a fight between the winner of Rockhold vs. Bisping and Souza could headline a card in early 2015, giving Weidman or Belfort time to prepare for their next challenger.
Souza’s ascent up the middleweight mountain thus far has been a quiet one. The Alligator hasn’t made that big of a splash just yet. His four victories inside the Octagon have all come on Fight Night cards, and only his most recent win was in a headlining spot.
In order to stick in the mainstream consciousness of fans, he’ll need a highlight-reel victory over a high-profile opponent on a well-promoted and stacked UFC card. A main event spot opposite Rockhold or Bisping would provide exactly that.
Another reason why Souza should get the Rockhold-Bisping winner is to test him against a dangerous striker. Rockhold and Bisping are both extremely technical on their feet and likely won’t be as listless as Mousasi was against Souza.
Bisping has always been able to use his great takedown defense to keep fights standing, where he picks his opponent apart with crisp boxing. It would be interesting to see if Jacare would fight a standup battle with Bisping or look to get him to the mat and submit him.
Rockhold’s diverse arsenal of kicks are tough to deal with, as evidenced by his first-round destruction of Costas Philippou back in January. Regardless of who wins in Australia, Jacare would have a world-class striker to get past on his way to a title shot.
In the fight with Mousasi, Souza avenged a 2008 KO loss. A fight with Rockhold would give him an opportunity to avenge the loss of his Strikeforce middleweight championship, which Rockhold took from Souza via a unanimous decision in September of 2011. If Jacare can get past Rockhold, especially if he were to do so impressively, he’d be viewed as even more of a threat to Weidman than a lot of people think he already is.
Against Bisping, Jacare would get a business partner who would do more than his part to sell the fight. Already for the Rockhold fight, Bisping has threatened to knock Rockhold out at a media event and hurled a slew of insults Rockhold’s way at a press conference in Sydney last week. Bisping has always done his best to bring as much attention to his fights as possible.
The fight itself would give him another opportunity at the title shot that has thus far eluded the eight-year UFC veteran, should he be able to beat Souza. It would also give Souza a chance to get a win against a very well-known and established fighter en route to the title.
After UFC Fight Night 50 at Foxwoods, UFC President Dana White indicated that Souza would need to fight again before getting a title shot, telling Ariel Helwani on Fox Sports 1:
“There’s a title fight that’s going to happen first. You can’t say a guy is next in line for the title when somebody’s already next in line for the title. Obviously Jacare looked incredible and put on an incredible performance, and I’m sure he’ll fight again before we talk about title shots.”
When asked at the post-fight press conference about White’s statements, Jacare expressed his willingness to fight for the title, saying:
“I work for the UFC, so whatever they want. I’m here to fight. I think I deserve the title shot, but we’ll talk about that later, and he needs to talk to my manager.”
UFC Tonight has since reported that Souza was planning on going through training camp ahead of the UFC 181 middleweight title fight, in order to be prepared to step into the title fight on short notice.
It makes sense for Jacare to stay somewhat ready to fight, because in today’s UFC, you never know when a title fight is going to need a replacement on even a single day's notice. As a part of Belfort’s licensure to fight Weidman at UFC 181, he will be undergoing random enhanced drug testing from the NSAC, because of his past positive tests in Nevada.
Weidman vs. Souza would be a great backup if something happens and Belfort can’t fight in December, but the fight should be used as just that. Jacare vs. the Rockhold-Bisping winner should be Plan A, as it will provide an undisputed No. 1 contender in the middleweight division.
