Following his utter demolition of former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar at UFC Busan last night, the Korean Zombie Chan Sung Jung called for a title shot. Looking at the stats from last night, it’s quite frightening just how badly Zombie dismantled his opponent, landing 79 of his 97 attempted strikes compared to Edgar landing just nine strikes of 14 attempted.
However, despite this dominance, he is still not deserving of a title shot. Granted he has picked up two pretty sizeable wins this year, defeating Renato Moicano and Frankie Edgar, however Edgar was on his way out of the division and moving down to bantamweight, taking the fight on short notice while Moicano is only ranked seventh at featherweight.
Just say No to Korean Zombie
When you look at the guys that are ahead of him in the rankings, we see Yair Rodriguez, who defeated Zombie when they fought last year. There’s also Zabit Magomedsharipov who is on a tear in the division and is one big win away from a title shot. There is also his original opponent for this fight, Brian Ortega and former champion Max Holloway.
If Korean Zombie was able to defeat any of those guys, he could comfortably claim that he deserves a title shot, however his work to date (across the past couple of years) does not warrant a shot above at least three of those men. I would love to see Zombie take on Zabit in what could be a number one contender fight, however it would be safe to assume that Holloway will be getting an immediate rematch for the belt once he is ready to return.
Overall, despite losing two of the staples of the division, featherweight is in a pretty good place right now. With Alexander Volkanovski reigning atop the division with Max Holloway looking to get his belt back, contenders in Zabit and Zombie as well as Brian Ortega once he returns from injury. There’s the ever present and always entertaining Rodriguez who will be looking to continue his run and live up to the hype that he had coming into the UFC as an Ultimate Fighter victor.
For more like this, visit our dedicated combat sports page here. Meanwhile, follow us on Facebook for more opinions and analysis right to your timeline.