Rich Franklin’s Disastrous Return to the Middleweight Division
Rich Franklin was supposed to make one last run at the middleweight title. With Anderson Silva possibly leaving the division for Super Fights, the time seemed right for Franklin to return to his old stomping grounds and test his skills against the likes of Michael Bisping, Chris Weidman, and Tim Boetsch. Quite frankly, I thought Franklin had the ability to defeat all of those aforementioned MW contenders. We are talking about the former MW champion who has only lost to elite fighters in his MMA career. Yet, that all changed on Saturday, November 10th. Cung Le, a part-time fighter, was supposed to not have the ground game or size to defeat Rich Franklin, but with one perfectly-placed counter left hand, that theory was quickly put to rest.
Franklin was 6-2 in the UFC’s MW division, his only two losses coming to Anderson Silva. Throw in some catchweight fights against Dan Henderson and Wanderlei Silva, and it was easy to see that Franklin still had the skills to compete. Yet, maybe we should have looked closer at his lackadaisical decision loss to Forrest Griffin in 2011. We all know that Griffin is one of the slowest fighters in the light heavyweight division, yet Franklin was unable to implement any type of speed-based striking attacks until the 3rd round. Franklin seemed to bounce back with his decision win over Wanderlei Silva at UFC 147, but he came perilously close to losing that fight as well.
The truth of the matter is that few people could have predicted Cung Le’s devastating 1st round round knockout of Franklin. What we can predict now as educated fans is to realize that Franklin has lost a step regarding his quickness. Can Franklin still beat top ranked MWs like Bisping, Weidman, and Boetsch after his poor showing Saturday night? I still have some belief that Franklin can give any MW problems as long as that MW is not a faster fighter with KO power (Belfort, Le, Anderson Silva). Therefore, guys like Bisping and Boetsch, I would still give Franklin an honest shot at defeating, but Weidman, Lombard, or the soon to debut Luke Rockhold, forget about it.
