Who's Next For Cory Sandhagen After Main Event Win? | UFC on ESPN 43 Matchmaker
Corey Sandhagen said it was going to be one-way traffic with Marlon Cito Vera in the UFC on ESPN 43 headliner And for the most part he was correct a brilliant performance from Sandhagen in San Antonio Pretty much dominating Vera for the majority of five rounds en route to a split decision win one judge giving the fight to Cito Utterly perplexing it was at least four one for Sandhagen in my opinion a case to be made for FIBO as well Nevertheless the right man did get his hand raised on this night and now Sandhagen has back-to-back wins on his resume after a little bit of a rough patch there where he fell short in the number one contenders fight with TJ Dillishaw and then the interim title fight Against Piotr Jan He really needed this one to really keep that momentum going forward as a true contender in this band to wait division and show He can kind of get over the hump in these big moments And I think he really asserted himself with this performance the question is now what ultimately happens He called out Marabh DeVallishevili something not many people are doing in his post-fight interview and in a logical world That makes a ton of sense and is the right fight to make probably a title eliminator But we were once again run into the conundrum with DeVallishevili of he won't fight his teammate Algemann sterling for the belt and are you going to risk killing another contender on the rise? Sandhagen who just took all of Cito's momentum going into that fight and knocking him off the contender board obviously not an ideal situation For the UFC if DeVallishevili wins that fight and will not go on to fight sterling the question is will sterling hold the belt? after about six weeks from now UFC 288 he will fight against Henry Sehudo and I think the UFC band to wait division is essentially going to be on pause in terms of booking the next fights until after we see what happens there If sterling defends the belt I can't really imagine the world where they do sandhagen against DeVallishevili Which is unfortunate for Corey because that is a very validating fight if you can win But if sehudo claims the belt it really puts a fresh coat of paint on this division I think sandhagen versus DeVallishevili is the right fight to make and sehudo probably fight Sean O'Malley in the interim and then you have a contender right after that So a lot has to shake out here, but I'm not imagining the UFC is going to be rushing to book sandhagen in another fight Until we see the title bout play out and then we'll have a lot more clarity on this division going forward.
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