UFC 194: What’s Next for Luke Rockhold

For this week’s column, while the entire world is talking about Conor McGregor’s stunning 13-second knockout against Jose Aldo, I wanted to spotlight UFC 194’s other title winner in Luke Rockhold. Not to brag, but if you visit last week’s 411 staff roundtables for UFC 194, I was the only writer for the site to pick Luke Rockhold to win the fight. Now the reason I’m not bragging is because my picks were all over the place for the card. Obviously, I was wrong on the winner of Aldo vs. McGregor. However, I felt more strongly about any other fight last week that Rockhold was capable of beating Chris Weidman and winning the title. Rockhold might have been the underdog, but in terms of skills and the way they match-up, this was really the toughest fight of Weidman’s career. Rockhold made that more than evident.

Rockhold took home the victory in the fourth round, but the fight should’ve been ended in round three. There is giving leniency to a tough champion with a great chin, which is something referee Herb Dean well blew past as Weidman ate about 42 unanswered shots from Rockhold. That was a sick and ridiculous amount of punishment, as Dean basically let the clock run out while Weidman was getting battered. Chris Weidman is a great fighter and tough as nails, but that fight really should’ve been stopped in the third round. There is no excuse for letting the clock run out and letting Weidman go out for another frame. So here is what’s next for Rockhold’s potential match-ups:

Yoel Romero: This is possibly the most obvious choice because Romero and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza were the other two top middleweights in the UFC. They fought at UFC 194, and Romero won a garbage split decision in an awful and awkward fight. Now, you could book this fight between Romero and Rockhold on the merit of Romero’s winning streak, whether he got an iffy decision win over Jacare or not. Romero clearly has crazy knockout power, an ultimate equalizer for any fight, and he’s also a top notch wrestler. Romero’s problems though are his cardio and stamina. Not to mention he starts very slow, and against Rockhold, that be a death sentence. Romero looks like he’s carrying around way too much muscle for his frame, it’s no wonder he tends to gas quite quickly. However, his fight with Jacare was probably one of the worst performances of his career. He had Jacare hurt and wounded, and then basically let Jacare completely recover in the second half of the fight. It is only through the grace of bad MMA judging that Romero walked away with a win. After UFC 194, I really don’t want to see Romero fight for the title next.

Chris Weidman rematch: Well, why not? Ronda Rousey is getting an immediate rematch against Holly Holm. Renan Barao was given an immediate rematch for TJ Dillashaw, even though Barao screwed that up. The UFC is now making a precedent for immediate rematches despite one-sided and dominant victories. Now in favor of this fight, Weidman did take the first round over Rockhold. Also, the fight was fairly competitive and back-and-forth before Weidman opted to throw a spinning wheel kick, which was the beginning of the end for him in that bout. But consider that Weidman was undefeated for his title defense against Rockhold. He dethroned Anderson Silva, a fight people said Silva should win 9 times out of 10, and then…he beat Anderson Silva a second time. Then he defeated another former UFC champion in Weidman. His fight with Rockhold was awarded Fight of the Night, so you could say, by UFC logic, that Weidman deserves a rematch.

Vitor Belfort: This seems to be the match that Rockhold is most keen on. In Rockhold’s first fight, he got kicked in the head by Belfort. It was a crushing defeat. However, Rockhold used that embarrassment and humiliation to become even better. A loss can sometimes define a fighter’s career in a good way because that loss can be followed by an amazing comeback. That’s exactly what Rockhold did after his loss to Belfort. He went on a tear, destroyed Lyoto Machida like no one else before, became the first man to submit Michael Bisping, and then he won the middleweight title. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind seeing this fight at all because post-TRT Belfort would talk about True Revival Touch before getting hilariously destroyed.

Robert Whittaker: This might be unrealistic, but it’s my darkhorse choice. If you go down the top eight UFC middleweights, a lot of them are guys that Rockhold has already fought and defeated. Whittaker would be a fresh match-up. But not only that, Whittaker would be a fresh challenger. Whittaker has definitely proven himself as a middleweight competitor. He’s coming off the biggest win of his career, besting Uriah Hall to move him up to the top 10 of the middleweight ranks. Whittaker has improved just about every aspect of his game, and he could potentially be in the title mix very soon.

Jon Jones: This might sound insane, but as a super-fight, I like this match-up a lot. I get it. We aren’t going to see this fight anytime soon, but Rockhold is a massive middleweight. He likely could make a go of things at light heavyweight if he wanted. Not to mention, I really like how his skills match-up against Jon Jones. Rockhold has very technical and rangy kicks, and his ground game is incredible. Rockhold could very well have the most underrated grappling and submission game in the UFC, and it’s served him very well. At some point, I wouldn’t mind seeing these two guys clash.