MMATorch Daily Top Five 6/6: Top Takeaways From Saturday’s UFC 199 “Rockhold vs. Bisping” Event

By Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Welcome to MMATorch’s Daily Top Five. Every weekday, tune in for a new Top Five list on a variety of topics; some will be regularly updated, some will be one offs, but we hope you enjoy them all throughout the week! If you’ve got an idea for a Top Five list you’d like to see, email mmatorcheditor@gmail.com and we may fit them into the weekly mix!

6/6/16: Top Five Takeaways From Saturday’s UFC 199 “Rockhold vs. Bisping” Event

Following major UFC events, we’ll be discussing the five biggest highlights, moments, or takeaways from the weekend’s fights. Today’s top five focuses on Saturday’s UFC 199 event from California.

5. Dan Henderson should move on: There’s no reason for Dan Henderson to continue fighting. He picked up another significant highlight over Hector Lombard, sure, but it came at the price of getting knocked around even more and taking a bunch more damage to his head. He’s 45-years-old, he doesn’t need to be taking that kind of head trauma on any kind of consistent basis, and the longer this continues the more concern there’s going to be for his long-term health. There’s already significant concern on that end; it doesn’t need to be exacerbated.

4. Max Holloway, Dustin Poirier both legitimate contenders: Two of the younger fighters on the roster despite already boasting several years in the UFC, both Max Holloway and Dustin Poirier came out of UFC 199 looking like real threats in their respective divisions. Poirier’s going to need to get through some higher ranked lightweights to make his a realistic bid for a title fight, but Holloway’s right there. Timing is the only thing keeping him out of a title fight in his next bout, and regardless of whether he waits it out or stays active, a title shot should be coming in early 2017, and should injury leave an opening, he’ll be ready to step in for that shot.

3. Time to get Dominick Cruz a real test: The Faber fight made sense as far as closing out the trilogy and giving Faber one last chance to see if had it in him to be UFC Champion. Now that we’ve gotten our answer on that, Cruz can turn his attention to what has become a decent pool of contenders at bantamweight. T.J. Dillashaw’s at the top of that list should he get past Raphael Assuncao, and we need to see Cruz be as effective as he was against Faber Saturday night in a Dillashaw rematch to find out whether he’s completely back to the top for real.

2. UFC’s reveals were done quite well: While many on social media were spoiled by reports before the UFC could make both official, the video packages and surprise nature of both the Brock Lesnar and Conor McGregor-Nate Diaz II news was handled well. Now, as it pertains to McGregor-Diaz, it was where things seemed to be heading in all conversations, and though the Lesnar news would have been entirely out of left field without being braced by the reports, them confirming it was happening made it even bigger.

1. Michael Bisping is UFC Middleweight Champion: If you continue repeating it often enough, maybe it will start sounding more believable. Michael Bisping is the UFC Middleweight Champion. That happened. He actually knocked out Luke Rockhold on Saturday night; it wasn’t a dream, this wasn’t a simulation, we witnessed one of the crazier upsets we’ve seen. It’s still hard to wrap minds around the fact that we’re moving forward to a conversation about just whom Bisping will face in his first title defense, and I never imagined we’d be sitting here when looking at that fight. Sincere congratulations to the new champ for pulling it off.

[Photo (c) Jake Roth via USA Today Sports]

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