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This past weekend at UFC Vegas 13, Glover Teixeira picked up one of the biggest wins of his UFC career to date. In a tremendous fight, Teixeira was able to weather a huge storm to choke out former UFC Light Heavyweight title challenger Thiago Santos in the third round of their main event.
The victory was the fifth in a row for Teixeira, who now sports an impressive UFC record of 15-5. However, despite his run, it’s still a question mark as to whether he’ll receive a shot at newly-crowned UFC Light Heavyweight champ Jan Blachowicz.
Why? Because essentially, the UFC have already stated that UFC Middleweight champ Israel Adesanya is getting the next shot at Blachowicz, who will be making his first title defense. But should that really be the case? Or should the UFC change plans and hand the title shot to Teixeira instead?
Here are five reasons why Glover Teixeira, not Israel Adesanya, should get the next shot at the UFC Light Heavyweight title.
#1 The window of opportunity is small for Teixeira
Teixeira’s current five-fight win streak is, along with a similar run from 2012 to 2014, his best sequence in his UFC career. However, it’s worth noting that Teixeira is a very different fighter these days from the one who burst onto the UFC scene all those years ago.
Sure, he still hits hard, is ridiculously tough, and has one of the more underrated ground games in the UFC. But Teixeira is now 41 years old and is clearly no longer in his athletic prime.
Admittedly, Father Time has not caught up with him yet. But given that the list of UFC champions over the age of 40 stands at just two – Daniel Cormier and Randy Couture – it’s probably fair to say that Teixeira’s window to achieve his goal is becoming smaller with every day that passes by.
That’s why it simply wouldn’t be fair to make him wait for the winner of a Blachowicz/Adesanya title fight or – even worse – make him fight again in the interim. Not only has he earned a shot at the UFC Light Heavyweight title, but holding off on that shot would give him much less of a chance of victory due to something he can’t control.
Teixeira may only have a handful of fights left in his MMA career, let alone with the UFC. And given his recent form, the next one should be a UFC title fight.
#2 Adesanya hasn’t earned a shot at the UFC Light Heavyweight title
Rewind a few years, and fights between UFC champions in different weight classes were incredibly rare. When UFC Lightweight champ BJ Penn stepped up to fight UFC Welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre in 2009, for instance, the MMA world was captivated by such a rare occasion.
In today’s UFC, though, these kinds of fights are becoming more and more common, and thus have lost their special feeling. That becomes magnified even further when it’s clear that the fighter stepping up to fight for a new title simply hasn’t earned a shot in their new weight class.
That wasn’t the case when say, Amanda Nunes stepped up to fight Cris Cyborg for the latter’s UFC Featherweight title. In that instance, Nunes had already beaten every one of note at Bantamweight anyway. However, the same can’t be said for Israel Adesanya.
Nobody would try to suggest The Last Stylebender hasn’t been fantastic. He’s 9-0 in the UFC, has largely been finishing his opponents, and has massive wins over some genuine greats. But since winning the UFC Middleweight title, the fact is that he’s only made two defenses.
Adesanya hasn’t fought the likes of Darren Till, Jack Hermansson, or Jared Cannonier yet. And even if none of them would be favored over him, that means he hasn’t cleaned out his division.
With that in mind, it becomes tough to justify allowing him to move to 205lbs to fight for the title there. Particularly when there’s a contender in the Light Heavyweight division like Teixeira who’s more than earned a title shot and would have to wait.
#3 Booking Blachowicz vs. Adesanya would logjam two weight divisions
The other issue in booking an inter-divisional title fight like Blachowicz vs. Adesanya would be that both the Light Heavyweight and Middleweight divisions would become logjammed.
Essentially, not only would a contender like Teixeira – and at Middleweight, Robert Whittaker – likely have to fight again in the interim, but the same would go for any fighters looking to climb towards their own title shot.
Light Heavyweight, in particular, has a number of fighters – names like Aleksandar Rakic, Jiri Prochazka, and Magomed Ankalaev – who might only be a couple of fights away from a shot at the champion. Making a fight like Blachowicz vs. Adesanya would mean that any potential title shots would have to wait until a long time in the future.
And of course, that’s not taking into account the potential for a Blachowicz/Adesanya rematch – which would only drag things out further, likely into 2022.
Putting Teixeira into a title fight with Blachowicz, by comparison, would definitely not cause any issues like this. Middleweights looking to climb the ladder for a shot at Adesanya would still have a target to reach for, while the Light Heavyweight division could also continue to flow as usual.
#4 Teixeira always brings an exciting fight and would guarantee fireworks against Blachowicz
While Israel Adesanya has become renowned for his flashy knockouts – his most recent against Paulo Costa instantly comes to mind – he’s also put on a handful of stinkers in his UFC tenure. Most notably, his UFC Middleweight title defense against Yoel Romero stands as one of the promotion’s all-time worst title fights.
The same cannot be said for Glover Teixeira. Teixeira has been in the UFC now for the best part of a decade, putting on 20 fights, and it’d be hard for any fan to track down a dull one. In fact, of those 20 fights, Teixeira has only seen the final buzzer on six occasions.
And incredibly, Teixeira has finished 12 of his 15 victims in the UFC, usually in violent fashion. Capable of putting an opponent away on the ground as well as on the feet, his extended MMA ledger shows 32 victories, 18 of them by knockout and nine by submission.
A fight between Teixeira and Blachowicz might be a bit of a hard sell to the casual fans, simply because neither man has a brash or outlandish personality. However, the fighting skills of the two men should sell themselves.
Essentially, if Teixeira and Blachowicz faced off in the Octagon, the likelihood of the fight going the distance would be somewhere between slim and none. It would likely produce one of the best UFC Light Heavyweight title fights in recent memory. And if that’s not reason enough to book the fight, then what is?
#5 By making Blachowicz vs. Adesanya, the UFC risks killing its golden goose
Another point worth noting when it comes to a potential Jan Blachowicz vs. Israel Adesanya superfight is the chance that the UFC would actually be harming one of its fastest rising stars. Adesanya isn’t quite on the level of a Conor McGregor or Ronda Rousey just yet. Still, there’s no denying that The Last Stylebender is definitely expanding his fanbase every time he fights.
And there’s evidence to suggest that Adesanya is becoming a genuine pay-per-view draw, too. September saw him headline UFC 253 against Paulo Costa, and reports suggest that the show drew somewhere around 700k buys on pay-per-view.
Not only was that an improvement on the last pay-per-view headlined by Adesanya – UFC 248 – but it also drew more buys than any other UFC show in 2020 outside of UFC 246 (headlined by McGregor) and UFC 251, including the Khabib Nurmagomedov-headlined UFC 254.
So, if Adesanya is becoming a genuine pay-per-view drawing card for the UFC, why would they want to risk his aura against a larger, more dangerous foe than he’s used to facing in the form of Blachowicz? Sure, the risk might pay off if Adesanya were to win, but if Blachowicz were to knock him out, then his star could easily wane.
Surely then, the smarter route would be to hand the shot at Blachowicz to Teixeira and allow Adesanya to continue to build his star at 185lbs? Sure, Teixeira vs. Blachowicz wouldn’t draw as well, but it’d definitely be a safer bet for the UFC in the bigger picture.
