Below are fights to make for four current UFC champions.
UFC Flyweight Champion: Demetrious Johnson
UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson has run out of challengers in the UFC’s 125-pound division. Sure there is Joseph Benavidez, who is coming off a controversial decision victory over Henry Cejudo, but “Mighty Mouse” has already defeated Joe on two different occasions and needs someone new to perk the interest of fight fans.
This is where a move up in weight and a former rival come in to play. Demetrious Johnson’s last loss came to Dominick Cruz while he was still fighting in the bantamweight division.
Since Cruz is no longer the UFC’s bantamweight title holder and will not be receiving an immediate rematch against Cody Garbrandt, now is the perfect time for the UFC to book a second fight between “The Dominator” and Demetrious Johnson.
A win over Cruz would definitely put “Mighty Mouse” in the conversation as being the next man to challenge either TJ Dillashaw or Cody Garbradnt for the UFC’s 135-pound title.
UFC Lightweight Champion: Conor McGregor
UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor is currently taking some time off to be with his family while he awaits the birth of his first child.
The brash Irish superstar was most recently seen in action at November’s UFC 205 event in New York where he made promotional history by becoming the first ever UFC fighter to hold two belts in two different weight divisions simultaneously, this after knocking out Eddie Alvarez in the second-round.
While Conor takes his well deserved break, the UFC has opted to make an interim lightweight title fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson which will co-headline UFC 209 on March 4 in Las Vegas.
With that said, Conor McGregor should obviously fight the winner of the Nurmagomedov vs. Ferguson scrap in a title unification bout later this summer.
UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion: Amanda Nunes
UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes was last seen in action at last month’s UFC 207 event in Las Vegas, where she starched former champion Ronda Rousey in the very first-round with a 48-second TKO victory.
Having defeated Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate in her last two contests, compilated by the fact that Holly Holm moving up to 145-pounds, one is left to wonder what is next for “The Lioness”.
The answer comes in the form of next weekend’s main event fight in Denver between Julliana Pena and Valentina Shevchenko.
Pena is coming off a decision victory over former title challenger Cat Zingano in her latest octagon appearance and is undefeated in the UFC.
Meanwhile, Shevchenko is coming off an impressive decision win over former women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm in her most recent performance.
UFC Heavyweight Champion: Stipe Miocic
UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic was last seen in action at UFC 203 where he successfully defended his title for the first time by knocking out former Strikeforce champion Alistair Overeem.
It was assumed that a slated UFC 207 rematch between former champions Cain Velasquez and Fabricio Werdum would produce Miocic’s next challenger.
However, Velasquez was not medically cleared by the NSAC to fight at the December 30 event and the bout was called off.
While this was going on former division title holder Junior dos Santos was lobbying to score a rematch against Fabricio Werdum and even offered to take the fight on short-notice. Unfortunately for fight fans, Werdum did not agree to the bout and “JDS” was then booked to fight Stefan Struve in the main event of UFC Halifax.
Recently however, news broke that Struve had suffered an injury and was unable to compete at the UFC Halifax event against dos Santos.
With that said now is the perfect time to book Miocic vs. JDS 2.
Miocic has stated in prior interviews that he really wants to avenge his loss to “Cigano”.
Junior and Stipe first met at a UFC on FOX event in 2015 and after five-rounds of war “JDS” was awarded the decision win from the judges in attendance.
Their first bout was an extremely close fight and really could have gone either way, so let’s see the rematch!
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 1/22/2017.