There’s a definite size gap between Duffee and a lot of these younger heavyweights. Of the six heavyweights outside of the main event (and I’m leaving Couture and Nogueira out because those aren’t guys that are going to be in the UFC long term, in my opinion, while the others, discounting McCully, probably are), Duffee was the second smallest. He weighed in heavier than McCully, that’s it.

He’d have given up 7 pounds to Tuchscherer, 8 to Gonzaga and 9 to Russow, but that’s not my point. I actually think that, as a result of Duffee’s athleticism, the size wouldn’t matter.

I do think it matters if he’s going to ever looking at taking a title from a guy like Lesnar or Carwin, and there are going to be a lot more of those enormous true heavyweights coming in. It’ll be interesting to see how Duffee does dealing with that competition.

And “Duffee is going to be at a decided size disadvantage when fighting many UFC heavyweights” isnt all that accurate. 6’3″/260 is not that far off Lesnar, is taller and heavier than Fedor, and is almost the same size as #1 contender in UFC. Also both taller and heavier than Velasquez, Couture, Nog, and Mir. the Only person much bigger than him is Rogers.

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“You can’t evaluate that performance . . . I think it definitely helped build the hype machine that’s already been behind me – unwarranted, . . . but I still feel like I need to go out there and get tested. But it did feel great. Yeah, I want every fight to end in five seconds with my hand raised. Everyone does. But, I’m in this to find out about myself. You find out something new about yourself every time.

To me, my performance wasn’t any more impressive than what Gabriel Gonzaga came out and did tonight. And it’s definitely not any more impressive than Randy Couture and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. That’s historical. Those guys are history. What I did, it’s just a statistic, and it will be broken.” – Todd Duffee

All of Duffee’s wins are from KO’s and his only amateur loss was because of a broken hand. He has the potential to break the trend. What else are you reading?

“it remains to be seen whether (Duffee) will be able to transcend the greatest disability of this group, the lack of a single title belt.”

The author clearly lumps Duffee into a “group” and then discusses the implications of belonging to that group. Which is stupid. The group is too small to say anything about Duffee’s potential.

The correct tack for the article would have been to point out that the group as a whole is too small and varied to draw any relevant conclusions about, and leave it at that.

The article makes about as much sense as discussing Thiago Silva’s title potential as a function of having the last name Silva. Record KO time is a statistical fluke.

Of course, you have fighters like Frye who might very well have been UFC champions (as Frye was a two time tournament winner with only one UFC loss before he left to fight other places).

It’s not about sample size with respect to the UFC, it’s about the relevance of the record with respect to long term career advancement.