"I honestly felt after the [Evan] Dunham fight that it was going to move me a lot higher," Guillard told ESPN.com ahead of his UFC 132 bout with Shane Roller. "But they’re still ranking guys like Dennis Siver ahead of me, and I knocked this chump out in less than two minutes. He even called me out again, trying to fight me again. But a lot of fights aren’t making sense, and I don’t really have a choice [but to fight Roller] because of the traffic jam with the weight class."
Melvin has a solution though, one that a lot of fans would salivate over:
"The only solution I see is them doing a 155-pound grand prix tournament, and putting everybody in brackets and weeding the losers to giving a true No. 1 contender a fight here in the next year or so."
While it's extremely unlikely, the idea of a Pride-style Grand Prix is music to a lot of ears, especially if it was contested at lightweight. In the meantime though, Guillard has Shane Roller in front of him at UFC 132. And he's not exactly enamored with the choice in opponents:
"Shane Roller likes to come forward and because he’s a wrestler he reaches a lot, and that’s the kind of guy that’s tailor-made to be knocked out," he said. "But this Roller fight really doesn’t make any sense for my movement, as far as moving me up the ladder," he said. "I’m going in there to knock Shane Roller out, but it does nothing for my stats.
"Honestly, you guys and all the fans are going to be like, ‘well, we kind of knew that was going to happen ... why was Shane Roller even in the cage with Melvin?’ So it’s just one of those fights where, for me, it doesn’t make any sense ... but it always makes sense when you’re in there to make a paycheck. As far as I’m concerned that’s all it’s going to do for me is bless me with another paycheck. But as far as moving me up the rankings and making me more elite? I don’t think that’s going to do anything."
Hard to argue with Guillard's logic. Beating Roller doesn't really get him anywhere closer to the top of the division. He also talks some smack about Kenny Florian in the interview, which you can read in its entirely here."Honestly, you guys and all the fans are going to be like, ‘well, we kind of knew that was going to happen ... why was Shane Roller even in the cage with Melvin?’ So it’s just one of those fights where, for me, it doesn’t make any sense ... but it always makes sense when you’re in there to make a paycheck. As far as I’m concerned that’s all it’s going to do for me is bless me with another paycheck. But as far as moving me up the rankings and making me more elite? I don’t think that’s going to do anything."