#4: Will Jacare ever get a title shot?
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Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza picked up UFC 208’s only finish, effortlessly submitting Tim Boetsch with a kimura in the first round. This put him at 7-1 in his UFC run, with six finishes and the only loss coming to top contender Yoel Romero. Undoubtedly, he’s worthy of a title shot. The problem is all in the timing, however.
It’s looking more and more likely that Michael Bisping’s next title defense will come against Romero, not Jacare, and it’ll probably be around May/June time. Even if the winner comes out relatively unscathed, that means the next Middleweight title fight may well not be until November or December, and that would be a hell of a long time on the shelf for Jacare if he wanted to wait for a shot.
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The other issue is what if another contender manages to leapfrog him in that time? It’s not like it hasn’t happened before; UFC has promised title shots to plenty of others (Jon Fitch, Lyoto Machida and Miesha Tate to name three) who were then leapfrogged and forced to fight again in the interim.
April sees Chris Weidman face Gegard Mousasi and an impressive win for either man could make them more worthy than Jacare in the eyes of the UFC and of the fans. After all, Boetsch was essentially a set-up for Jacare, a bone thrown to him after Jacare’s manager placed a spoof Craigslist ad on twitter to ask for a fight.
Jacare was booked to fight Luke Rockhold back in November before Rockhold injured himself and had to pull out. With Romero and Bisping destined to face off, it wouldn’t surprise me if the UFC re-booked Jacare vs. Rockhold to decide the next contender.
That’s a massively dangerous fight for the Brazilian and I don’t know if I’d favour him against a fully healthy Rockhold. If that fight doesn’t get booked then another Boetsch-type may be chosen to face Jacare, but that means he risks being overlooked in favour of the Weidman/Mousasi winner.
Either way I don’t think Jacare will get a title shot any time soon. It may well be a case that in years to come, we look back and see that his shot should’ve come in October 2016, when Romero was under suspension and both Weidman and Rockhold were shelved.
That shot went undeservedly to Dan Henderson, for those who’ve forgotten. It’s unfortunate but perhaps the lack of trash-talk and a wild persona from the Brazilian has cost him dearly.
