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The year 2021 was the first year in the UFC’s history where every champion has defended their belt, an unrivalled feat in an era being defined by great champions such as Israel Adesanya, Amanda Nunes and Jan blachowicz. However, any MMA armchair expert could argue that Kamaru Usman is undoubtedly your champion of the year (so far). However, while we truly are witnessing what we at From The Stands believe to be the Welterweight GOAT, the rest of the division isn’t looking so crash hot. So let’s dive deep into the state of the Welterweight Division.

Viable contenders for the champion are beginning to look a little thin. It could almost be called the ‘Demetrious Johnson Effect’. You have a champion who is skilled everywhere, with few weaknesses and has for the most part cleaned out the division leaving it hard for any of us to see the next fighter to really push Usman and have a solid chance at winning the belt.

The Covington rematch, whilst interesting, will in my opinion be a far more dominant victory for Kamaru (due largely to Usman evolving more).

Burns would need another 1-2 solid wins before another title shot seems viable, considering that he was finished within two rounds and really only had a small momentary period of success.

Luque is similar, he needs another 1-2 good wins before a title shot is legitimate. It is unlikely Burns and Luque will fight (team mates) so then the options become Leon Edwards and Jorge. Going backwards in opponents makes little sense at this point for Edwards given the risk vs reward and I’m not sure if Luque is a big enough draw to tempt Jorge into a fight.

Leon is certainly the most deserving of the title shot but he is the unfortunate situation where the UFC does not want to give this man a title shot unless they have no other choice of contenders

Stephen Thompson is on a slow decline, whilst he can still contend I think his days of title contention are over.

Michael Chiesa, Neil Magny, Belal Muhammad and Geoff Neal all need to do some serious resumè building before we can even consider them fighting number 1,2 or 3, let alone the champion in Kamaru Usman.

As we can see, the state of the Welterweight division is unfortunately in a bit of stagnation. We have a dominant champion but no clear cut dominant number one contenders (after Colby). If ever there was a time for new blood in the Welterweight division to spice things up, it’s now.