The New Frontier of the UFC: The Flyweight Division

By Aaron Sudario
Special Contributor to The Fan Experience

When you think about the UFC, certain names come to mind such as Jon Jones, Georges St. Pierre and Brock Lesnar. All of these MMA superstars have one thing in common: they fight at the higher weight classes. All the heavier weight classes have received more exposure because they have been around for many years. For a while the only big fights that were available to the MMA audience ranged from 155 pounds to 265 pounds. This obviously left many of the lighter weight classes out of the spotlight for a long time.

Nevertheless, Dana White gave some shocking news last year, stating that the UFC was swallowing its sister promotion, the WEC (World Extreme Cage Fighting), and accumulating its Featherweight (145-pound) and Bantamweight (135-pound) rosters. Since the exodus of the lighter-weight fighters from the WEC, the presence of those fighters have been very much known. Many superstars emerged from the Bantamweight and Featherweight classes such as Urijah Faber, Dominick Cruz, Jose Aldo and Mark Hominick. These and many other fighters in these weight classes have shown how much speed and stamina these guys have, which makes for very exciting and fast-paced fights.

If the exciting fights were not enough exposure, how about a reality TV series to set things off too? Season 14 of The Ultimate Fighter features featherweights and bantamweights for the first time in the show's history, and Dana White himself agrees that it's one of its most exiting seasons to date. Now that the little guys are getting the exposure and have established weight classes, what’s next? Well, Dana White had the answer a couple weeks ago, shocking the world once again by saying that 125-pound Flyweights will be added to the organization in 2012. This is very exciting news because there are many flyweight fighters that are eager to jump into the octagon, such as Yasuhiro Urushitani (19 - 4 – 6), who is currently number one in the flyweight division and fights in Shooto, a promotion in Japan. Not only will we see some new faces, but some Bantamweights will be going south in weight to compete in the flyweight division as well. John Dodson, Joseph Benavidez, and Demetrious Johnson are some fighters expected to make the drop to 125 pounds, showing there will be some top talent in the division. There hasn’t been any news on how the new weight class is going to crown a champion, but I’m sure Dana White has something up his sleeve. I'm very excited to see how the Flyweight Division pans out and I’m certain there will be fireworks when they hit the octagon!

Aaron is a student at CSU Sacramento and MMA enthusiast who plans to start his own MMA blog. Check out his Twitter page for MMA banter and random thoughts from a college student.