By Raphael Garcia 
In combat sports the heavyweight divisions have always garnered the most attention. Fight fans are always enthralled by the potential of seeing two massive figures knocking each other out with highlight reel blows. In the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the heavyweight division is the marquee weight class, even if it may not be as talent rich as some of the smaller divisions. But looking ahead, the UFC’s heavyweight division is engulfed in controversy from top to bottom.
At the top of the weight class you have the newly-crowned Cain Velasquez, who looked very dominant while defeating Junior dos Santos at UFC 155. In the rematch, Cain looked so much better than he did in their first matchup that some fans and analysts are looking back at the first encounter and calling it a fluke victory for JDS. Whether that is true or not doesn’t matter, because there isn’t any way to dispute who the current king of the heavyweight division is.
However, below the throne is where the confusion begins. Who will be the next big contender to step up and mount a challenge to the UFC’s Mexican-American superstar?
On one side you have Alistair Overeem, who was originally supposed to get a title shot before licensing issues plagued the hulking striker. Now that he is back from a shortened suspension, he’s squaring off against Antonio Silva at UFC 156 in February. If Overeem smashes Silva, then the most likely scenario is that he will be named the number one contender to the title, which was the position he was in prior to UFC 146.
But what if Silva wins? He can’t be considered the number one contender because Velasquez just baptized him in his own blood at UFC 146 a few months ago. The next viable fighter would be Daniel Cormier, but he and Cain are teammates. In fact, he serves as Cain’s wrestling coach during training, as well as one of his cornermen They’ve mentioned that they would only fight each other if a title was on the line, but that would take some serious negotiation on the UFC’s part, and recent statements by Cormier suggest that he would rather drop down to 205 pounds and challenge Jon Jones.
Beyond these fighters, where does the UFC move to next? Velasquez could hypothetically clean out his division with just two fights in 2013. Looking forward,one option could be the winner of the Stefan Struve vs. Mark Hunt battle that is set for UFC on Fuel TV 8, but this fight won’t occur until March, which means that the winner wouldn’t be available to fight until the June or July range. That would put Cain out of business for nearly seven months, and it’s a given that the UFC would want their champion to be more active than that.
There’s also Fabricio Werdum, who’s riding a two fight win streak, and has looked much improved in both of those outings. He faces “Minotauro” Noguiera later this year, and with a victory, plus another solid win, he could perhaps be in line for a title shot. Other names, like Josh Barnett, Roy Nelson or even Todd Duffee — who the UFC originally wanted to build up into a contender — could also find themselves added to the list of potential challengers by the end of 2013. But regardless the route they take, the Ultimate Fighting Championship has its work cut out for it when it comes to developing title contenders in this weight class.
If you’re close to six feet tall and weigh more than 206 pounds, the UFC may be interested in your abilities at some point this year. The sport is in need of some big name heavyweights, especially with a champion that the promotion is trying to push hard. It will be interesting to see who emerges from the muddled heavyweight divisional picture.
