UFC Rotterdam: Fights to make for the main card fighters

The UFC’s first trip to Holland was a pretty smashing success, at least from the viewers’ standpoint. Hometown fighters won in front of a lively, engaged crowd. There were a ton of finishes with an exciting variety of setups. Action fighters delivered action performances and only 5 out of 13 bouts went the distance. Challenge accepted.

Because what else can a well booked card be but a personal challenge for my fantasy fight-booking prowess. Joe Silva and Sean Shelby have laid down the gauntlet and it’s up to me to pick it up. So, I’ll be doing my best to match up all the fighters (and most particularly the main card ones) from UFC Rotterdam with the most entertaining and sensible possible matchups, Shelby/Silva style. That means winners generally fight winners, losers generally fight losers, and fighters typically face opponents with a similar UFC tenure.

ALISTAIR OVEREEM: The answer for me here is pretty obvious. Overeem wants to fight the winner of Werdum vs. Miocic. He already has a win over Werdum and Overeem vs. Miocic would be a ton of fun. Even without the same hype he had back in 2011, he still might be a bigger draw than Cain Velasquez, who should probably show that he can fight more than once every 18 months before getting another title shot. Overeem vs. Werdum/Miocic winner, book it.

ANDREI ARLOVSKI: He’s now got two straight loss to kill the momentum he’d built in his UFC run. Fortunately for him, he was able to last long enough in this fight that it wasn’t a terribly diminishing loss, but it raises the question of whether you put Arlovski in another really hard fight and risk having him go 0-3 or whether you soften things a bit and give him a chance to build a new win streak. Josh Barnett would be the big, tough potentially headlining fight that has somehow never happened, otherwise Todd Duffee is the dude for exciting, but winnable bounce backs. As risky as it may be, I say go with the big fight, especially since it’s tough to say how much longer either guy will still be around. Andrei Arlovski vs. Josh Barnett.

STEFAN STRUVE: He won, and with that win, Struve likely re-enters the top 15 rankings at heavyweight. And while it was a short fight that told us almost nothing, Struve did look like he had some of …

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