After he walked through Thiago Alves at UFC 100, the question on the industry’s mind was simple–who is the next challenger for Georges St. Pierre?
On a six fight win streak, the UFC Welterweight Champion has defeated Alves, BJ Penn, Jon Fitch, Matt Serra, Matt Hughes and Josh Koscheck. In a career that has also included matches with names like Frank Trigg, Jason Miller, Sean Sherk and Karo Parisyan, GSP has only lost twice–and he avenged both losses (to Hughes and Serra) in dominant fashion.
Generally-accepted rankings for the Welterweight division offered few clear challengers. The laundry list of St. Pierre victims has a dominant presence on most rankings listings, while some of the exceptions (such as Jake Shields) are neither contractually available to UFC nor viewed as legitimate matchups for the dominant champion.
Of MMAWeekly’s top ten list, only Martin Kampmann, Mike Swick and Carlos Condit represent the most readily-available opponents (though both would enter as heavy underdogs). And, sure enough, MMAWeekly is reporting that the winner of Swick vs. Kampmann, which will be featured on the main UFC 103 card, will receive a title shot.
Interesting to the story is the fact that the Welterweight battle between Josh Koscheck and Frank Trigg has received higher billing on promotional material for UFC 103, which is expected to be headlined by Mirko Cro Cop vs. Junior dos Santos. Koscheck and Trigg, however, both have convincing losses to the champion, while Swick and Kampmann have never received shots.
