What’s Next For UFC 149’s Big Winners?

As the dust settles on last night’s UFC 149 event in Calgary we look ahead to what may come next for the shows big winners.

Renan Barao:

Ideally the UFC’s new interim bantamweight champion would now head into a title unification bout with the ‘real’ champ Dominick Cruz, but he’s still out injured and isn’t likely to be returning any time soon.

Following last night’s show Dana White indicated that Barao will probably fight again first, and so the most obvious challenger for him is probably going to be Michael MacDonald who’s 4-0 in the UFC at this point and is coming off a big KO win over former WEC champ Miguel Torres.

Tim Boetsch:

Boetsch threw a spanner in the works by not only beating the UFC’s big new middleweight signing Hector Lombard, but also breaking his foot in the process which will keep him out of action for the forseeable future.

That makes it a bit tricky to say who he’ll face on his return, but with four wins under his belt at 185lbs he’s going to be fighting one of the top contenders for sure.

The timing might now work out, but Alan Belcher would work as a next step for him as they battle to put themselves firmly into title contention.

Cheick Kongo:

Kongo won, but this was a terrible performance and has placed him firmly in Dana White’s bad books. Afterwards White vowed afterwards that he’d give him someone next who he couldn’t just clinch up against the cage.

There’s two ways the UFC could go here. Either they could sling him into a tough fight with someone like Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva, or serve him up to a young, hungry heavyweight on the rise such as the winner of Stefan Struve Vs Stipe Miocic in September.

James Head:

Head claimed the most significant win over Brian Ebersole on the main card, but his achievement is likely to be overshadowed by the fact it wasn’t a great fight and came in the middle of one of the worst PPV shows in recent memory.

So, I don’t think he’ll get a huge fight next time out, but after ending Ebersole’s winning streak he might get a chance to prove himself against another established fighter like Dan Miller.

Matt Riddle:

Thanks to an unexpected rant about the UK, and one fan in particular, at the UFC 149 post-fight press conference which had Dana White in stitches laughing it looks as if Riddle is almost guaranteed to get his wish to fight Dan Hardy next.

Ross launched MMA Insight (previously FightOfTheNight.com) in 2009 as a way to channel his passion for the sport of mixed martial arts. He's since penned countless news stories and live fight reports along with dozens of feature articles as the lead writer for the site, reaching millions of fans in the process.