UFC: What is Next for the welterweight Division?

(Photo courtesy of fightsports.com)

After what was a shocking last minute knockout of the number 1 pound for pound fighter on the planet at the time, Kamaru Usman at UFC 278. The title now rests with Leon “Rocky” Edwards. The question now is, what comes next?

The immediate answer is a rematch probably at some point in early 2023 and most likely in Leon’s home country of England. However, there is a lot of intrigue at the top outside of the current champion and his imminent rematch with Usman.

The most intriguing fighter outside of the champ and Usman is without question Khamzat Chimaev. However, the question is will he stay at 170? Probably not. It seems as though the most likely outcome will be that he moves up to 185 and fights at middleweight for two reasons.

The first reason is that, seemingly out of nowhere he hates Paulo Costa and Paulo Costa seems to hate him. So I would bet that is a fight that is going to be made sometime in the next couple of months. The second reason is the issues he was having with his cut to get down to 170 to fight. We all know about all that, it has been talked about in great detail. So I would then expect that the logical thing to do would be to move up.

So what about everyone else? Sean Brady and Belal Muhammad fight at 280 in October, which should be an exciting fight but probably would not determine a title shot. Colby Covington is suing Jorge Masvidal currently and he is not expect to fight anytime soon. So that leaves Gilbert Burns.

It is currently being widely speculated that Burns could be in line for a matchup with the formerly mentioned Jorge Masvidal. Which would be an incredibly exciting fight. To sum it all up, we know who’s getting the next title shot, Usman. Regardless of how that fight ends, what comes next is a bit of a mystery.