UFC Catchweight fights growing in number – Kimbo Vs Houston Alexander

Recent news in the MMA world is that another catchweigth fight is coming our way on the TUF 10 Finale card.  Kimbo Slice and Houston Alexander are all set to let it go in the ring at a catchweight fight at 215lbs.  No doubt this is going to be an interesting fight to watch, who doesn’t want to see these two tough guys go head to head in a brawling match, and of course the UFC need to capitalize on the popularity of their most recent asset Kimbo Slice.  But this is another fight at a catchweight, in what seems to be a recently occurring trend for fighters that the UFC in some way want to protect or get on shows due to their popularity, which isn’t a bad thing because usually these fighters are exciting in some way but have just come up against a brick wall in their career.  For Kimbo that brick wall is his complete lack of a ground game which Roy Nelson once again highlighted on this season of TUF and for the other popular catchweight fighter Rich Franklin is his problem in dealing with accomplished Brazilian strikers.

So with a catchweigth at 215lbs and the 195lb catchweight region is this a good time for the UFC to consider adding some extra divisions?  Personally i still think that it’s too early to add a 195lb category, you would have a ton of fighters dropping out of the 205 division and the possiblity of the top tier or lankier 185lb fighters moving up and then more and more issues with delivering on title fights and every fighter looking for a pound for pound record maybe even straddling 3 weigh categories.  The argument for a division from 205 to 265 is more agreeable, plenty of heavyweights sit around that 230 mark, but if you split the heavyweights up do you weaken the 265lb division?

So for now i think catchweights are great fights for those fighters that you do want to see but don’t neccessarily have any title pretentions or aspiration and if that means we get some exciting and interesting matchups then im all for it, but how many catchweight fights are too many, and at what point should a new division be added?  Now that is a more interesting question.