Originally posted by Strewelpeter
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He's fighting Luke Rockhold next month and is the favourite:
After that the current top 10 ranked middleweights are:
1 Yoel Romero
2 Luke Rockhold
3 Jacare Souza
4 Georges St-Pierre
5 Chris Weidman
6 Kelvin Gastelum
7 Michael Bisping
8 Derek Brunson
9 Anderson Silva
10 David Branch
Who finishes the year as champ is a tough one but would probably stick with Whittaker.
Whittaker has beaten number 1, 3, and 8 on the list in the last year or so.
Number 4 likely won't fight again for the belt, neither will number 7 (retirement fight expected in March).
Number 5 is a former champ but he's only had one recent win after a 3 flight losing streak. Might get a shot if he smashes someone impressively in the first half of the year
Number 6 lost his last fight to number 5 so won't get a shot this year imo
Number 9 has close to no chance of fighting for a title this year due to a failed drugs test.
Number 10 lost to number 2 so would need to string together a few wins to get a shot this year which seems unlikely
Number 8 is on a 2 fight win streak and is about to fight number 3. So if he wins that he'll get a fight against another top 5 fighter which might lead to a title shot but think number 3 wins that
EDIT: Just to add that I do think Whittaker wins his fight next month but Rockhold is the other best fighter in the division by a long stretch imo so would have whittaker closer to a 5/6 shot rather than a 1/2 shot that some sites have him
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