Frankie Edgar's upset victory over B.J. Penn has re-shaped the lightweight picture in mixed martial arts, as the man who has been widely regarded as the best 155-pounder in the world for years has now been defeated. Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez, who fights Dream lightweight champion Shinya Aoki on Saturday for Strikeforce, thinks it's time to re-examine the lightweight picture.
Gilbert Melendez has always been considered a respectable lightweight by the diehards and he'll have the opportunity to force the mainstream audience to take notice if he can beat Shinya Aoki at Strikeforce: Nashville on April 17.
In an exclusive interview with MMAFighting.com, find out where Melendez believes he deserves to be in the rankings if he beats Aoki, Melendez's take on Aoki's transitioning to fighting MMA under Unified Rules (and without long pants) and why he thinks Aoki is a "savage."
Gilbert Melendez considers himself a well-rounded mixed martial artist who can win a fight in a variety of ways. But he also knows that he's primarily a stand-up striker, and he knows that his opponent on Saturday night, Shinya Aoki, is the most creative submission specialist in all of MMA.
So it's no surprise that Melendez says he'd prefer never to go to the ground against Aoki.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Scott Coker covered a lot of ground when he spoke to MMA Fighting at Thursday's Strikeforce: Nashville press conference. The Strikeforce CEO talked about Fedor Emelianenko and Gina Carano's future in the organization, bringing Shinya Aoki to the United States, Mike Whitehead's recent arrest and much more.
"Tobikan Judan" discussed fighting in the United States, putting his recent controversy behind him and the current lightweight division shakeup following BJ Penn's recent loss. Check out the video interview below.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Just days after a momentous shakeup in the MMA world's lightweight division, Gilbert Melendez aims to add a Seismic aftershock.
Sure, the earthquake analogy doesn't work so smoothly with his "El Nino" nickname, but then again, we are talking chaos here. For most of the last two years, most people generally considered some order of B.J. Penn and Shinya Aoki as the top two lightweights in the world. With Penn's recent loss to Frankie Edgar, it's a brave new world. And Melendez hopes to continue the upheaval of the veterans by sinking Aoki in the rankings on Saturday's Strikeforce show.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- With Shinya Aoki's international reputation and a perennial ranking as one of the top three lightweights in the world, it comes as a surprise that oddsmakers installed Gilbert Melendez as the favorite in the Strikeforce: Nashville lightweight championship match.
In a closer look though, it does make some sense.
For Aoki, it will be his first time fighting in the U.S., his first time competing in a cage, and adding perhaps more pressure than both of those two factors, Aoki in some ways has the weight of a nation on his shoulders.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Three championships will be on the line at Saturday's Strikeforce: Nashville event, but first, the six fighters involved have to go through the business of making weight.
The UFC lightweight championship has changed hands and the Strikeforce champion has beaten the Dream champion since we last ranked the MMA lightweights, but that has muddied the top of the rankings more than it has clarified things.
For starters, there's the issue of Frankie Edgar beating B.J. Penn: I now consider Edgar the best lightweight in the world, but at the same time I suspect that they'll have a rematch this year, and that Penn will win. So I'm not real confident in my top choice.
And then there's Strikeforce champion Gilbert Melendez dominating Dream champion Shinya Aoki. Melendez, to his credit, wasn't trying to claim after the fight that he's now the best lightweight in the sport, but he did make the argument that he's in the top three, presumably meaning along with Edgar and Penn. I don't have him quite that high, but I do have him moving up my latest lightweight ranking, which is below.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The King got his crown, Japanese MMA suffered a national blow, and an underappreciated champion beat a legend, but in the end, it was a night of Mayhem.
Strikeforce: Nashville offered up three championship bouts, but it was a fourth, unscheduled match that unfortunately left with the buzz. At the conclusion of Jake Shields' five-round decision over Dan Henderson, a brawl broke out after Jason "Mayhem" Miller party-crashed the cage to challenge Shields to a championship rematch.
Miller, as he is one to do, found a way to steal the spotlight with his unnecessary intrusion on Shields' airtime, but what it led to was worse, as the images of the Diaz brothers beating on a downed Miller won't reflect well on a sport still fighting for mainstream acceptance.
After thoroughly outworking the man many believed to be the world's No. 2 lightweight, Gilbert Melendez voiced his belief that he deserves consideration among the world's best 155-pounders. The 28-year-old improved to 18-2 by knocking off Japan's Shinya Aoki, who he added to his list of victims alongside notables like Josh Thomson, Tatsuya Kawajiri and Mitsuhiro Ishida.
And though Melendez said after the event that he'd be willing to fight several lightweights in the Strikeforce or DREAM promotions, when asked who he'd square off with if he could play matchmaker himself, he had a couple of other ideas.
The bout, first reported as a possibility by MMA Junkie last month, had been in doubt in recent weeks, and last week MMA Fighting's Ariel Helwani was told by sources close to the show that Ribeiro could possibly face Mitsuhiro Ishida in a rematch of their 2004 fight. But it appears the muddied picture is clear to Beerbohm, who says though the bout is not yet officially signed, it has been promised to him.
MMA trainer Cesar Gracie said he had an easy decision to make when he first heard that Japan's top lightweight, Shinya Aoki, wanted to train with his squad following a loss to Gilbert Melendez at Strikeforce last weekend.
Gracie, who said Aoki reached out to him via a third party about training at his northern California gym, said he sees it as more than just a chance to help out a colleague. To him, it's a chance to help improve the quality of Japanese MMA in general and pay back a family debt.
"My take on it is, it goes back to the origins of jiu-jitsu and how I got into this art, how my family got into it through the Japanese back in Brazil. I've noticed that Japan is not faring too well lately as a whole in the MMA game," Gracie told MMAFighting.com. "To me it feels almost like a chance to give back a little bit and help the MMA game in Japan. A lot of people are making light of it, how the Japanese have just been getting smashed when they come over here and face American competition. They're a few years behind and I think people realize that. So I said yeah, he should come over and train."
Talk to MMA fighters, and you'll quickly realize that just like fans, they have many different views of world rankings. Some will gladly spend time debating them, others put no stock in them whatsoever, and others use them for motivation.
But when it comes to Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez, well, let's just say that he has an entirely different and practical use for the rankings.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- 
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- MMA Fighting spoke to DREAM lightweight champion 
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Just days after a momentous shakeup in the MMA world's lightweight division, 
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- With 
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Three championships will be on the line at Saturday's 
The UFC lightweight championship has changed hands and the Strikeforce champion has beaten the Dream champion since we last ranked the MMA lightweights, but that has muddied the top of the rankings more than it has clarified things.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Strikeforce lightweight champion 
MMA trainer 
Talk to MMA fighters, and you'll quickly realize that just like fans, they have many different views of world rankings. Some will gladly spend time debating them, others put no stock in them whatsoever, and others use them for motivation.