Glover Teixeira
41-year-old Glover Teixeira is entering 2021 as the UFC light heavyweight division’s deserved number-one contender while riding a five-fight winning streak.
That fact, along with Adesanya’s clearing out of the middleweight title picture (and subsequent Jon Jones trash talk), has set the promotion up to overlook the Brazilian-born veteran when it comes to setting up Blachowicz’s first title defense.
Teixeira has challenged for the UFC light heavyweight title once before, losing a unanimous decision to Jon Jones in April of 2014. While it would be a great story to see him do it again, nobody seems particularly interested in seeing that scenario come to fruition.
Like Whittaker, there’s still some interesting stuff for Teixeira to do outside of an immediate title fight. Rather than giving Teixeira a shot at the Blachowicz, utilizing his ranking as a way to give the likes of Dominick Reyes, Aleksandar Rakic, Jiri Prochazka, or Magomed Ankalaev a shot at rising up the ranks sounds more likely in 2021.
