As the UFC’s 11th ranked light heavyweight, Sweden’s Ilir Latifi is undeniably one of the best light heavyweights in the world. At just 5’10, however, he’s also one of the division’s shorter fighters.
Given his short stature, many fans have suggested that Latifi would be wise to drop from the light heavyweight division to the middleweight division. In a Sunday morning post to Instagram, however, Latifi explained that he’s far more likely to head north to the heavyweight division than he is to cut down to middleweight.
See the Swedish powerhouse’s post below.
As Latifi explains, he is not a fan of cutting weight, and believes instead that fighters should compete as close to their natural weight as possible. While he may be one of the light heavyweight division’s shorter fighters, he’s also one of it’s bulkier fighters, meaning that a drop to middleweight would require an extreme weight cut. Given this, he says he’d be more inclined to move to heavyweight – where he says he would like to fight the mammoth Brock Lesnar, if he’s still around.
When we last saw Latifi in action, he was levelled by a second-round Ryan Bader knee. Prior to this crushing knockout loss, the hulking Swede was enjoying a nice three fight streak composed of triumphs over Hans Stringer, Sean O’Connell, and Gian Villente.
Lesnar, meanwhile, was last seen in the Octagon at UFC 200 in July, when he returned from a layoff of some five years to dominate Mark Hunt to a unanimous decision win. Regrettably, Lesnar’s defeat of Hunt was later overturned and ruled a no contest, as it was revealed that he’d tested positive for the estrogen enhancer clomiphene in the wake of UFC 200. Along with the reversal of his win, Lesnar was also handed a $250,000 fine by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, as well as a year-long suspension by that same commission and the United States Anti-Doping Agency.
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