There is a thing called being to greedy. When you have a guy with his talent and growing resume, if you try to build him up with a few more softball fights, he will lose credibility. And if you give him a few more fights against upper echelon fighters in the division, you risk him losing and him dropping from contendership, losing a young prospect and a latino draw. I think you are outhinking yourself here. Maybe one more fight if Brock’s sickness keeps Cain on the shelf too long, but after that he needs to fight for the title.

Velasquez is very good for someone so young, but I do think that he needs more fights to be ready to fight for the Title. I like that the UFC is putting him on co-main events to give him some much needed exposure.
Velasquez brings something new to the Heavyweight Division as well with that being amazing cardio. He is something like a GSP or Clay Guida in Heavyweight in that Cain just doesn’t stop working and just outworks his opponents to death.

Shogun losing for the title was worth more to his brand equity than beating 20 eric shafers or even 20 Banha’s. If he won it have been worth double that as right we would have talking about the guy who finally figured him out instead of the nonsense decision.

Cain losing in a title shot is worth more for his brand equity than beating another 10 kongos.

List every star and they all have one thing in common: They were all invlolved in big fights. Lesnar is the anomaly and we know why.

Building a fighter up from an athletic perspective is fine but once a fight becomes interesting that fight should be made.

That’s how you build stars in this business. THE STARS ARE MADE INSIDE THE OCTAGON DURING VERY BIG FIGHTS.

Lesnar-Velazquez in Mexico will not draw regular numbers on PPV, it combines the drawing power of Lesnar with the drawing power of a Mexican fighter fighting for the heavyweight championship. As boxing has showed us Mexican people will follow their countrymen and pay for PPV cards.

Its hard to deny him a shot much longer.

Also, Dos Santos is another budding star. Why have them fight and eliminate a potential near future title contender? Its not like there is an abundance of them in the HW division

I totally agree. Plus the fight against Ben showed a glaring weakness, his power. Cain doesn’t have the power to do much to Brock. I watched Randy’s shots bounce off Brocks face like they were nothing. Surely Cain’s would have the same effect. I like two or three more big fights. Junior makes sense, etc. If he gets a loss, so be it, he hasn’t earned the title shot yet. Let him win another 2 or 3 more fights to get the shot next time. Same goes for Junior.

Trying to guide someone to a title shot while trying to protect them from losing is a slippery slope. But I’m pretty sure the UFC knows all of this. They seem to walk this line fairly well, unless they’re really hurting for a challenger.

FWIW, it was also the right decision to get Cain into the title bout. He has the wrestling, size, power and skill set to compete with Brock right away. The only thing that worries me about Shane is his speed in comparison to the champ, but that isn’t going to change anytime soon. I was pretty confident that Shane was going to beat Cain quite badly.

is it BROCK – LESNAR

or is it something more like BROCKLE-SNARRRRR

for some reason I keep thinking the 2nd one when I see it.

Fun trick: go log in to google, go to google trends, type in “Cain Velasquez” and then “Nogueira” to compare. Cain’s base is 94 times lower than Nogueira’s!!! He’s 4 times lower than Carwin. He’s not a name at all, not yet at least. He will be, but he’s not a Jon Fitch type who has earned his shot so thoroughly that you throw him into a title match.

Cain is a bright prospect.. I still think his strengths are Lesnar’s strengths and Lesnar would just be a bit better… Lesnar is as fast or faster than Cain..

Lesnar has the cardio to go a full 5 rounds.. I have zero doubt in my mind. Cain has looked good against 2 guys with weak wrestling backgrounds in Congo & Rothwell.. Another point that has been pointed out, his wrestling is great.. his power is not.. Rothwell was eating unprotected shots by the bunches to the face and not once was he rocked… same goes for Congo.. Sure Cain can have success the same way Randy has had success.. neither are powerful guys in terms of putting someone down and out.

But when you can’t get to your one strength and you can’t handle the power of someone with more than yourself.. you’re likely to wake up on the loosing end..

Cain wont ragdoll either Lesnar nor Carwin.. So he’ll be forced to fight a fight he hasn’t fought before.. Both Carwin and Lesnar have the power to put him down.. Cain is still suspect at this point..

If anything is going to bring the Mexican fan base into MMA, its going to be a guy with “Brown Pride” tattoo’d on his chest beating the hell out of a “Texas Crazy Horse”. ;-)

Well, he has proven that he has absolutely no knock out power several times, especially after teeing off on Big Bens chin for 30 seconds with almost no damage. He’ll get demolished by the bigger wrestlers that will outweigh him by 40 pounds of solid muscle. The only other fight they could give him at this point would be the looser of Lesnar/Carwin, which I think he would lose or Nog, who would laugh through the entire fight as he taunts Cain with various submissions before getting board and locking one in. If they are smart they will try to cash in on his next fight as much as possible because after he loses it, his drawing power will be quickly diminished.

Then I could see them using his remaining status to build someone like Todd Duffy.