Stipe has mentioned that his management team is now in talks with the UFC and are planning for a fight sometime in December or January. That's all good but who will he be fighting. His name was briefly linked with a super fight vs Jon Jones but that quickly became irrelevant for... reasons.
Meanwhile Cain is still injured somewhere. What a gigantic bummer it is for Cain to be out right now. I mean as soon as Cain is out we get the most dominant HW champion is UFC history. What a crazy super fight Cain vs Stipe could be... anyway, since Cain is out of the picture, who is still a viable opponent?
Well there's always Alistair Overeem who always remains at the top of the division. He's coming off of a win over Mark Hunt and a win over Fabriocio Werdum which puts him right back into title contention. But he's already been beaten handily by Stipe, I think it's too soon for a rematch.
Alexander Volkov is another name they put out there, although that man ruined our chances of seeing a Stipe vs Struve rematch. Stefan Struve is the last man to finish Stipe, and in fact finish him, so that rematch would've been interesting to see. Volkov has all the same advantages Stefan had in terms of height and size so I think he would present a unique challenge to Stipe as well.
Then there's the dark horse of the HW division, Francis Ngannou, who is absolutely starching people. He could've been looking at a title shot if he beat JDS, however JDS was popped for diuretics and Ngannou lost his perfect fight that could've catapulted him into title contentions. Without someone with JDS on his record I don't think he has done enough to earn him a title shot. That being said, in this scenario I would love for them to throw out the rankings and pit him against Stipe. I mean this guy is terrifying and he absolutely smashes his opponent.
Despite the HW division being pretty shallow, at the moment, Stipe has a murderer's row to deal with. Let's see if he can break the title defense record for the HW division.
