Raphael Assuncao announces injury, forcing second top bantamweight out of UFC title picture

As it turns out, former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz (20-1 MMA, 3-0 UFC) isn’t the only top bantamweight who will be sitting on the sidelines.

Fellow title contender Raphael Assuncao (23-4 MMA, 7-1 UFC) today also announced a broken ankle has forced him to withdraw his name from consideration for a bout with current UFC bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw (11-2 MMA, 7-2 UFC).


http://mmajunkie.com/2014/12/raphael-assuncao-announces-injury-forcing-second-top-bantamweight-out-of-ufc-title-picture

starting to look like barao might be getting next crack

Or Faber!

stock wrote:

Or Faber!

will Faber fight TJ? I know there buddies and training partners.

Ah... I forgot about them being butt buddies.

id like to see barao up next... im all for it

I would like to see barao and tj again too. just to see if TJ can man handle him like he did last time.

i hope they fight in brazil and i hope tj washes him up in the first round.

drainbamage wrote:

i hope they fight in brazil and i hope tj washes him up in the first round.

so what you're saying is you want to see TJ get murdered after another successful title defensive.

I'd take Barao in the rematch.

Triggerman99 wrote:

I'd take Barao in the rematch.

I dont know. This wasn't like Serra and gsp were we all now gsp just got caught with a lucky punch and all. TJ absolutely had an answerer for every thing Barao threw at him. maybe barao was having a bit of an off night but i dont think he was having that much of an off night either. It really just looked like TJ out classed him. he may be Baraos kryptonite at this point. kind of like how Weidman is silvas at this point.

Gecko wrote:

drainbamage wrote:

i hope they fight in brazil and i hope tj washes him up in the first round.

so what you're saying is you want to see TJ get murdered after another successful title defensive.

could you imagine what would happen if tj fought barao, werdum fought cain, weidman fought belfort, pettis fought aldo in brazil and all of the americans won??

there would be riots everywhere. helio gracie would be turning in his grave.

that would be a sick card.

Gecko wrote:

Triggerman99 wrote:

I'd take Barao in the rematch.

TJ absolutely had an answerer for every thing Barao threw at him. TJ out classed him. he may be Baraos kryptonite at this point. kind of like how Weidman is silvas at this point.

i agree. blame it on the weight cut , blame it on the fact tj was a huge underdog, blame it on the rain.. no matter what tj destroyed him. barao didnt look impressive in his last fight either. if he showed up like that against tj the fight would be over in the 1st round.

drainbamage wrote:

Gecko wrote:

drainbamage wrote:

i hope they fight in brazil and i hope tj washes him up in the first round.

so what you're saying is you want to see TJ get murdered after another successful title defensive.

could you imagine what would happen if tj fought barao, werdum fought cain, weidman fought belfort, pettis fought aldo in brazil and all of the americans won??

there would be riots everywhere. helio gracie would be turning in his grave.

that would be a sick card.

hahahaha oh man i would not want to be an american in brazil on that night.

drainbamage wrote:

Gecko wrote:

Triggerman99 wrote:

I'd take Barao in the rematch.

TJ absolutely had an answerer for every thing Barao threw at him. TJ out classed him. he may be Baraos kryptonite at this point. kind of like how Weidman is silvas at this point.

i agree. blame it on the weight cut , blame it on the fact tj was a huge underdog, blame it on the rain.. no matter what tj destroyed him. barao didnt look impressive in his last fight either. if he showed up like that against tj the fight would be over in the 1st round.

Well I actually blame it on the huge punch that Barao got caught with in the first. I think it basically scrambled his brains enough to where he was more or less on autopilot for the rest of the fight. That's not to take anything away from Dillashaw, because he did in fact land the punch that put Barao on his ass and halfway into LaLa Land, but I'm just saying if Barao didn't get hit that hard and that flush that early in the fight, things might've looked a lot differently than they did for the remainder of the fight.

Triggerman99 wrote:

drainbamage wrote:

Gecko wrote:

Triggerman99 wrote:

I'd take Barao in the rematch.

TJ absolutely had an answerer for every thing Barao threw at him. TJ out classed him. he may be Baraos kryptonite at this point. kind of like how Weidman is silvas at this point.

i agree. blame it on the weight cut , blame it on the fact tj was a huge underdog, blame it on the rain.. no matter what tj destroyed him. barao didnt look impressive in his last fight either. if he showed up like that against tj the fight would be over in the 1st round.

Well I actually blame it on the huge punch that Barao got caught with in the first. I think it basically scrambled his brains enough to where he was more or less on autopilot for the rest of the fight. That's not to take anything away from Dillashaw, because he did in fact land the punch that put Barao on his ass and halfway into LaLa Land, but I'm just saying if Barao didn't get hit that hard and that flush that early in the fight, things might've looked a lot differently than they did for the remainder of the fight.

thats possible. but after the fight i think barao was saying the weight cut was tough, i was over looking tj and a few other things. i never heard him mention anything about that punch that clearly took his fighting skills away.

It's just hard to say how much that punch affected him. I sorta wish he didn't get rocked so early in the fight, and it didnt happen until round 3 or so, so at least we could've seen how the fight was playing out and could then compare before and after.

i was never a tj fan until that fight. if he fights like that every fight he will be a champ for a long time. but im excited to see the rematch between them.