Update: 4/7/2015

“I want to congratulate Rafael Dos Anjos on his recent victory over Anthony Pettis but hey Rafael Dos Anjos don’t forget about that guy who gave you that two metal things man, that piece of titanium in your jaw don’t forget where it came from. Your holding on to my strap. That being said guys when I went down to 145 division it was never permanent…” (Clay Guida) Quote post fight interview after defeating Robbie Peralta April 4, 2014 via unanimous decision.

Clay Guida acknowledged he has unfinished business in the lightweight division. Looks like a move back up to the lightweight division is imminent. In the past Clay has called out Josh Thompson, Conor McGregor and now Dos Anjos. Clay Guida caused Rafael Dos Anjos to get titanium pieces in his jaw that alone should motivate Dos Anjos to avenge that loss. Clay hopes that Dos Anjos is still the champ to speed up the process to finally receive his first title shot.

Remember back in 2010 when the UFC announced that they would merge the WEC fighters onto their roster and dissolve the company all together? Remember at the time the WEC champion was Anthony Pettis? Also remember when Pettis was supposed to face the winner of the Frankie Edgar/Gray Maynard fight but he got tired of waiting for the trilogy to be completed and instead took a fight against Clay Guida for his UFC debut? Do you remember who won that fight between Pettis and Guida? Clay Guida won that fight, he won it by a unanimous decision too by the way. Yet nobody seems to remember that.

Clay Guida is scheduled to face Robbie “Problems” Peralta in a featherweight bout at UFC Fight Night: Mendes vs Lamas on April 4th 2015. Guida has been competing in the featherweight division since 2013. Since moving down in weight Guida has only compiled a 2-2 record and has look out of place competing with the other 145 pound fighters. Guida has went from one of the most energetic and fun to watch fighters in the UFC to kind of an after thought. It almost makes you wonder if his move to featherweight was a little premature.

After suffering back to back decision losses to Benson Henderson and Gray Maynard, Guida and his camp decided that the best thing for him to do was to drop down. But losing to Henderson, who eventually went on to win the UFC lightweight championship, and losing to Maynard, who was a former title challenger, were not devastating losses. He lost to two elite fighters and they both had to take him to the judges scorecard to do it. And since moving to featherweight he has been finished in both of his losses.

So losing twice to championship worthy opponents was incentive enough for Guida to move down a weight class so wouldn’t owning wins over the current and former UFC lightweight champion be a reason enough to move back up to lightweight for Guida?

Guida has a unanimous win over Anthony Pettis, the former lightweight champ, and a submission win over Rafael Dos Anjos, who is the current lightweight champ. Granted it was 4 years ago the last time Guida faced these two but “The Carpenter” seemed to have a good formula at lightweight. At 33 years old Guida is young enough to get a couple of wins in Lightweight and hopefully receive that title shot to finally be a UFC champion.

People want to talk about how stacked the lightweight division in the UFC is but in all reality it is a two man race between Donald Cerrone and Khabib Nurmagomedov. The lightweight division is less of a log jam on top with Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar in different weight class, Nate Diaz becoming a mystery,  and TJ Grant is still inactive. Clay Guida’s advantage was how active he was in the lightweight division. His movement threw off a lot of the bigger lightweight fighter but that advantage is gone in the featherweight division because everyone is great shape and lightning fast. We shall see after April 4th where Guida goes with his career.

In the mean time here are some highlights of Guida and face it who doesn’t enjoy some Clay Guida highlights!?