Mousasi leaves M-1

That is great news! No more Finky & Fedor to tell him who, what, when, & where to fight. Be your own man Gegard, can't wait to see you in the UFC buddy.

fedor to follow I hope

Love it, I doubt this will effect Fedor's decision but it still makes a statement.

Whoa! Guess Fedor's an army of one.

One step closer to the UFC. Mousasi knows where the money and glory is at!

I'm pretty sure Coker is smart enough to have a champions clause just the UFC. Still think it'll be a while till we see him in the UFC

This is probably less about the UFC and more about M-1 being clueless. Gegard expressed displeasure before he signed with Strikeforce. I saw an interview where he kind of intimated that he wanted to go to the UFC, but M-1 wouldn't let him.

After this fight with King Mo and then a future fight with Hendo there is nothing else for Mousasi at Strikeforce. It should be getting close to the time he heads to the UFC

bobbitt15 wrote:

After this fight with King Mo and then a future fight with Hendo there is nothing else for Mousasi at Strikeforce. It should be getting close to the time he heads to the UFC

Unless he wants to go for the holy grail in Fedor

I wonder who Mousasi's first fight in the UFC would be against.

Mousasi has a 3 fight deal with SF and had a 2 fight deal with Dream as of last Aug.

8/15 vs Sorbral
11/7 vs Soko
12/31 vs Goodrich

So he should I one fight left in SF and in Dream. Possible none in Dream since they like to share their fighters with SF. I'm not sure how that works. Mousasi may be looking to come to the UFC in the not so distant future.

Mousasi has also said "...But the UFC I think would be better for me at a later stage of my career. Now I want to do a lot of other stuff, and the UFC is exclusive..."

But that was several months ago.

This is one less bargaining piece for M-1 in the Fedor deal with the UFC. This is great for the UFC.

I'm not holding my breath for him to make the move to the UFC anytime soon, but he knows as well as the rest of us that after MO and Hendo the only fights left for him are in the UFC.

One step closer to the UFC

I think Mousasi's first fight in the UFC would have to be someone good but not too good.

They need to give him a decently tough fight, yet a winnable one.

I would see his first fight being against someone like Guy Mezger, Thiago Silva, or if they were really looking to give him a tough test, Lil Nog would be a very tough and GREAT fight for the fans no less.

Mezger? Am I missing something?

I think they bring him in against a solid mid level guy... Jardine or Vera type. Then toss him a top-5 to see if he's ready for a shot at whoever has the belt at the time...

It'll be Jon Jones

I think a fight between him and Lil Nog would be epic IMO. Maybe over-hyping it a bit, but I really think that would be an awesome fight, I agree with my boy TGO up there.

tolivendiewithLA wrote:

It'll be Jon Jones

depending on how long down the line that is, it could be very very interesting fight.

The only problem is he has those 2 fights left in strikeforce so he either gains a ton of stock.... beating MO then hendo. Or loses to one or the other or both.

I figured he would be in the UFC by sometime next year anyway. I say a little premature to be celebrating his jump to UFC though and talking abouit potential matchups. He has two very good ones where he's at right now in Hendo and Lawal. He does have more than one fight left with Strikeforce though, and he still has fights with DREAM and he's going to fight K-1. So he's going to be busy this year. Watch his recent interview with Ariel Helwani.

I can't wait for that fight with Mo. We're gonna see his sub defense get tested b/c when it comes to MMA he seems like a pretty smart guy so I fully expect him to use his wrestling

Smart move by Mousasi.

No need to rush to the UFC he's only 24.

sokolkevin wrote:

fedor to follow I hope

Fedor won't ever leave M-1, he's one of the owner's in the company.