Dana White wants to bring Gilbert Melendez to UFC as soon as possible

Quote :: Four down, one to go.

The UFC has slowly but surely taken every champion from the Strikeforce roster, siphoning every bit of top talent from the promotion. Last night, Dana White put yet another nail in the soon to be completed coffin for the San Jose based organization.

With Dan Henderson, Nick Diaz and Alistair Overeem already having made the jump, White indicated he's about to bring in one more.

Speaking at the UFC on Versus 6 post-fight press conference, the President had this to say regarding current Strikforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez:

"We do want to bring Gilbert Melendez over and we're looking at it right now. We're going to bring Melendez over ASAP. We're looking to bring him over now."

White, however, stopped short of guaranteeing "El Nino" an immediate tite shot:

"It's a possibility. The thing is that division is so stacked. And usually timing has a lot to do with it."

The timing couldn't be better, what with the UFC lightweight title being up for grabs on Oct. 8, live from the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, as current champ Frankie Edgar defends his strap against Gray Maynard.

Could we get an announcement as early as next weekend regarding the status of Melendez? And if the move is made, what will become of his rumored December title defense against Jorge Masvidal?

The Sauce

Love Gilbert, but agree with Dana (if he's saying Gilbert has to earn a shot in the UFC).

I wanna se Melendez fight Guida or Pettis or Miller or Ben Henderson before he gets to walk into a title shot.

Yea, the level of competition he's fought hasn't been up to the UFC's lightweight division. However, I completely agree with the timing aspect too. Nick Diaz (would have) got his shot even though he didn't fight top guys because there was no one else left for GSP. If Melendez came in at a time when all of the title contendors were booked for other fights I wouldn't mind at all seeing him fight the winner of Grey/Edgar (at least that would make for an exciting fight)

I love the champion v champion fights. I think they should give him a shot striaight away, and I think they will do unless the champ suffers an injury in the fight forcing him to tke some time off.

If he doesn't deserve a shot then he will be beaten, if he wins the championship then he deserves it. Much the same thing as when Brock won it...if he didnt deserve the shot then he would have been exposed.

butterknifeninja wrote:: Yea, the level of competition he's fought hasn't been up to the UFC's lightweight division. However, I completely agree with the timing aspect too. Nick Diaz (would have) got his shot even though he didn't fight top guys because there was no one else left for GSP. If Melendez came in at a time when all of the title contendors were booked for other fights I wouldn't mind at all seeing him fight the winner of Grey/Edgar (at least that would make for an exciting fight)

agre

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