Gilbert Melendez has ended all the speculation about his future by re-signing with the UFC and booking the biggest fight of his career. ‘El Niño’ will coach opposite Anthony Pettis on the 20th season of The Ultimate Fighter before they face off later in 2014 for the 155 pound belt.
This is wonderful news for MMA fans and Melendez himself – judging by his reaction.
“It was on a conference call and I had to put them on mute,” Melendez told MMA Junkie. “I was just smiling and yelling and dancing around like a little girl. I was just really excited.”
Not only will Gil compete for the ultimate prize in his weight class, he will be taking home some serious coin. He will take home a share of pay-per-view revenue that is reported to kick in at a lower buy rate than any other fighter in the history of the world’s foremost MMA promotion. He’ll take home the big bucks even if an event does not perform well and even if he is not the headliner. Better yet for him, he will not have to worry about competing on free Fox cards too often, as several sources also the the 31-year-old is guaranteed to fight at least 75% of the time on PPV.
Melendez’s head was likely turned by a strong offer from Bellator MMA earlier this month but it seems like there was only ever one place he truly wanted to fight. While he had to lookout for his family by making as much money as possible, few people could have imagined the former Strikeforce champion wout want to ply his trade anywhere else other than where the world’s best mixed martial arts promotion once they came up with a similar deal:
“It’s a tough thing to do, but I never wanted to walk away,” he said in the same interview with MMA Junkie. “I never wanted to leave the UFC. It’s the best organization in the world, has the best fighters in the world, it’s where I wanted to be, but I had to put that aside to think about my family and my future. “I had to weigh it out and I had to explore my options. I got to a point where I had a good plan for my future, and I just had to hope that the UFC would come along with me so I could get to that point and still be with them.”
The UFC did come along and they’ve set up something spectacular. Forget about TUF 20 where he and Tony Pettis will coach the first crop of UFC 115 pound women – it’s the fight in (presumably) December that matters most. This is about as good as it gets.
Melendez has been regarded as one of the best lightweights in the world for years and had he not lost to Benson Henderson – a fight that most people thought he won – he would probably be regarded as the best fighter ever in the weight class. ‘Showtime’ Pettis is officially the best in the world at lightweight after ripping the belt away from that man Henderson.
Just to make things that much sweeter, it would be difficult to imagine two more exciting fighters squaring off. Melendez’s five-round wars with Josh Thomson and Henderson were outstanding and so was his 15-minutes of chaos with Diego Sanchez. If he has not gone the distance, he has usually obliterated his opponents with a relentless wrestler-boxer style. Petts fought in arguably the best MMA fight ever against Henderson in the WEC and has spent most of the rest of his career so far wrecking opponents with high-flying kicks and decisive submissions. Short of Renan Barao fighting Jose Aldo (which will never happen) you’d be hard pressed to think of a more interesting, evenly matched and thrilling fight.
December can’t come soon enough.
