Bad News, TJ Dillashaw: Bantamweight Is a Shark Tank

In May of 2014, TJ Dillashaw flipped the fight game on its head with a destruction of Renan Barão. In one of the biggest upsets our sport has ever known, he made a dominant champion look average, earning the UFC bantamweight strap for himself in the process. Yet while this was all very exciting, it was hard to say where the division would go next.

Barão, after all, clearly had little to offer the new champion. Urijah Faber, who has long stood out as one of the division’s best fighters, was then Dillashaw’s training partner and mentor. Dominick Cruz, the division’s former king, had not been seen in years, having been strapped to the hospital bed by a wrath of injuries. And at the time, there wasn’t much in the way of new blood at 135 pounds. So, while Dillashaw was clearly hitting his stride, the division he ruled was not.

How things have changed.

After clobbering Barão for a second time earlier this year, Dillashaw is set for a January title defense against Cruz who, knock on wood, finally seems to be healthy. Furthermore, the door for a Dillashaw vs. Faber bout looks to have opened, as Dillashaw recently cut ties with Team Alpha Male. And though not long ago, the division was in the midst of a contendership drought, it is now overflowing with hungry contenders.

Last Saturday, for example, 24-year-old Brazilian Thomas Almeida moved to 21-0 with an instant contender for Knockout of the Year: a first round decimation of fellow prospect Anthony Birchak. Earlier that same night, the bullish Jimmie “El Terror” Rivera made some waves of his own, scoring a hard-fought, split decision triumph over Pedro Munhoz and elevating himself to an impressive 18-1 in the process. Really, it would not be surprising to see either fighter knocking at the champion’s door in the near future.

Elsewhere in the division, the 26-year-old Aljamain Sterling has realized similar success. Fresh off stoppages of Hugo Viana and Takeya Mizugaki, he’ll look to make it 12-0 when he takes on decorated striker Johnny Eduardo—an interesting prospect in his own right—on December 10. Then, of course, there’s Cody Garbrandt, another Urijah Faber protégé. After amassing a 32-1 record as an amateur boxer, he’s assembled an impressive record of 7-0 as a pro mixed martial artist, with two of those wins having occurred inside the Octagon. And finally, there’s Frankie Saenz who, though older than most of his peers, is on a serious streak of his own, and will battle Faber this December.

Recently, the bantamweight division has also experienced a less conventional injection of talent: former flyweights, either tired of the cut to 125 pounds or disillusioned with the dominance of divisional king Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson.

John Lineker is one of these former flyweights. After repeated misses of the division’s weight limit, he was sent north to bantamweight where, in his first fight, he defeated the highly-touted Francisco Rivera in an unforgettable firefight. After losing to Mighty Mouse for a second time, Jackson’s MMA staple John Dodson is also planning a move from flyweight to bantamweight. There, he’ll look to replicate Lineker’s success, and with a little luck, earn himself a crack at Dillashaw, who he actually knocked out back in 2011.

Finally, there’s brick-fisted former title challenger Michael “Mayday” McDonald. After two years on the shelf, he’s finally making a comeback, having recently been booked for a January 2 bout with Masanori Kanehara. Should he emerge victorious, he’ll rejoin a crowd of established bantamweight contenders like Raphael Assunção, Bryan Caraway, Iuri Alcantara, and Francisco Rivera, all of whom are still fighting for their shot at divisional gold.

Just a few years ago, the bantamweight division came down to a few elite fighters. Today, this is no longer the case. Dominick Cruz is pencilled in for a title shot. Dillashaw and Faber could well be shepherded into a grudge match. A handful of bafflingly talented prospects have punched their way into the spotlight, while a pair of dynamic flyweights have moved up in search of greener pastures. And all the while, the division’s more established fighters continue to push toward the mountaintop.

Yes, though few could have predicted such an outcome a year or two ago, here we are. The bantamweight division is well and truly stacked.

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