After falling short at Noche UFC, what’s next for Jean Silva?

This past Saturday at Noche UFC, we saw a highly anticipated featherweight matchup in the main event. Former title challenger Diego Lopes (27-7) took on surging top contender Jean Silva (16-3).

Everyone who broke this fight down thought that we’d get a war in this matchup and that’s exactly what we got on Saturday night. From the opening round, this was absolute chaos until the finish.

Lopes definitely got the better of things in the opening round, but Silva started to come on strong in the second. It even seemed that Lopes might’ve been hurt and Silva threw caution to the wind as he went in for the finish.

That’s when he was caught by a perfectly timed spinning back elbow from Lopes that sent him to the mat. Lopes hoped on his back and followed up with shots that stopped the fight giving him the big win at Noche UFC.

What’s next after Noche UFC?

This was a really tough loss for Jean Silva who could’ve been neck and neck with Lerone Murphy for the next title shot had he defeated Diego Lopes. Instead, he suffered a tough TKO loss and didn’t move at all in the latest rankings update.

Silva was tenth in the rankings before the fight and that’s where he currently sits. That said, I think he’s much better than tenth and my guess is that we will see him face another top-tier opponent whenever the UFC brings him back.

In terms of his next opponent, I’d like to see Silva face either the winner of Josh Emmett – Youssef Zalal next or I’d like to see him face Arnold Allen. Patricio Pitbull is calling for a fight with Arnold Allen as well which might be the fight to make.

Despite the loss, I just don’t want to see Silva go backwards as the UFC needs to keep him in there with fellow top ten contenders.