The UFC 163 card seems like a mess on paper, and one of the reasons is that no one knows what the card’s co-main event does for either of the fighters in it.
Lyoto Machida isn’t being promised a light heavyweight title shot with a win this weekend over Phil Davis in the co-main event of UFC 163, the first time in his last three outings that this is the case. And Davis, likewise, has been given no indications by the UFC if he’ll be next in line to fight the winner of UFC 165’s Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson either, making the title contendership implications of this UFC 163 bout very unclear.
Back at UFC on FOX 4 in August of 2012, UFC president Dana White famously said that the most impressive out of Machida, Ryan Bader, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Brandon Vera would earn a title shot. After Machida knocked out Bader with one punch in the co-main event, White said he would get the next crack at the belt.
But what happened was that UFC 151 was canceled after Dan Henderson’s last-minute knee injury, and after Machida declined to fight Jones on short notice, the UFC ended up booking Jones vs. Vitor Belfort for UFC 152, and Machida lost his place in line. When Henderson returned from his knee injury, White made the two #1 contenders Machida and Henderson fight in the co-main event of UFC 157, with a title shot in play for the winner of the match.
Machida won the fight, and White confirmed he would be next in line for the belt at the event’s post-fight press conference, but after the UFC decision makers deliberated more, they ultimately decided that Machida’s unimpressive win over Henderson wasn’t worth a title shot. Instead, Gustafsson was given the fight with Jones while Machida is now forced to face Davis, only this time without a promised title shot in any way, shape, or form.
The reason for this is that Machida has already lost to Jones, and the champ believes that a rematch with Machida won’t do big PPV buys, hence he wanted the fight with a fresh contender in Gustafsson, and the UFC obliged. So right now, Machida is the #1 contender in the division, but he might not even be getting the next title shot with a win over Davis (even though that would be three wins in a row over top 10 fighters) because the promotion may skip him and instead try to book the Jones/Gustafsson winner vs. Glover Teixeira or Daniel Cormier, which are both bigger-money fights.
If Davis wins, the UFC will be put in a tougher position, because Davis is a fresh matchup with Jones, and the UFC could market the hell out of that matchup (not to mention that a Davis vs. Gustafsson rematch, if the stars aligned, would also be a tremendous fight). But after Davis collapsed under the pressure of a title shot in his loss to Rashad Evans at UFC on FOX 2, the UFC has smartly not promised him a crack at the belt if he beats Machida, and even if he earns the upset win, they may want to give him another fight before a title shot.
The co-main event of UFC 163 is a matchup that has no clear title implications in the light heavyweight division, despite the fact that it features two top-10-ranked fighters in the division. If that’s not proof that this weekend’s card is one of the biggest messes the UFC has put together as far as PPV main cards goes, then I don’t know what is.
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UFC 163: Aldo vs. Jung is due to take place on August 3, 2013 at the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
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