We're less than a week away from the start of Season 10 of The Ultimate Fighter, and in a commercial to promote the show, UFC President Dana White makes a strong claim: "In UFC history, I don't think our heavyweight division has ever been as exciting as it is now."
The purpose of this commercial is to hype the Ultimate Fighter cast members as beefing up that already exciting heavyweight division, but I'm more interested in what White said about the division as it stands right now.
With Brock Lesnar as the champion, Shane Carwin as the No. 1 contender and a nice mix of veteran fighters like Frank Mir, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Mirko Cro Cop with young up-and-comers like Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos, I think it probably is true that the UFC's heavyweight division is more exciting right now than ever before.
But I also think it's important to note that heavyweight is also the only weight class in MMA where the generally recognized champion isn't under contract to the UFC or its sister promotion, the WEC. As long as Fedor Emelianenko is fighting with Strikeforce and M-1 Global, and not with the UFC, we'll be deprived of a true world heavyweight title fight -- no matter how exciting the rest of the heavyweight division is.
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