Middleweight contender Marvin Vettori suffered a lopsided defeat against Jared Cannonier earlier this month at UFC Vegas 75 despite being a pre-fight betting favorite. It made it three defeats in his last five outings for “The Italian Dream” whose hopes of becoming a UFC champion — at least at 185 pounds — look pretty bleak as things stand.

That's not to say Vettori can't become a middleweight champion in the future. After all, even with 14 fights in the UFC, he still remains on the right side of 30. He's a workhorse who can not only wrestle to a high level, but can also mix it up with his striking even if some observers may not find the latter to be the prettiest. But given his recent results as well as the state of the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions, the best option may be for Vettori to move up to 205 pounds where he could have a much better shot at wearing gold.

The main issue for Vettori is he's already lost to current middleweight champion Israel Adesanya twice by decision. They were not exactly close contests so it's hard to see the Italian getting a third crack unless he goes on an impressive winning streak. That doesn't appear likely either given two of his last three fights were losses to former champion Robert Whittaker and Cannonier and they weren't close contests by any means.

Additionally, he has already faced a good chunk of the middleweight top-15. Even if say, Whittaker were to become the champion, it's hard to see Vettori beating him especially given how their first meeting went. Vettori is also teammates with the few in the top-15 that he's not faced like Sean Strickland and Chris Curtis, while it's more risk than reward for him to fight lower in the rankings in general. And so, a change of scenery with new opponents might benefit him greatly.

Light heavyweight is 20 pounds heavier than what he usually competes at, but Vettori is far from an average-sized middleweight. He's one of the larger ones and as he gets older, the weight cut will only get more and more difficult. He also has the benefit of having fought at 205 pounds already when he outpointed Paulo Costa back in Nov. 2021. For that contest — which was changed from 185 to 205 on short notice — Vettori only had to cut four pounds to make 204 during the weigh-ins.

Regular fights at light heavyweight will only mean Vettori will have a much smoother (and healthier) fight week without compromising his body as much. There's always the issue of facing more powerful opponents at 205, but Vettori has proven to have a chin made out of granite and is still yet to be finished in his professional career. Besides, he won't have to take that much damage if he mainly uses his wrestling.

The light heavyweight division is currently ruled by champion Jamahal Hill, and is pretty much the perfect division for a wrestler to dominate right now given the number of strikers. Magomed Ankalaev aside, Vettori probably has superior wrestling and grappling over the entire top-eight of the division. Whether he can consistently take down larger opponents remains to be seen, but it's not impossible, especially once he grows into a solid 205-pound frame.

He wouldn't be the only middleweight to move up to light heavyweight either as former champion Alex Pereira makes his 205-pound debut against Jan Blachowicz at UFC 291 next month. If Pereira were to become champion, there's always the threat of his power and striking — but he's still yet to face a pure wrestler in the UFC. It wouldn't be surprising if Vettori ended up being a favorite over Pereira in a potential light heavyweight title fight.

“I wanted to be the best to me,” Vettori said prior to his Cannonier fight. “I still fell short. I wanted to be champ by 30, so I fell short on that, but I'm definitely far from done, so I still have a lot to accomplish.

“I always set my goals for myself, and I keep rising to the standards (I set). I expect nothing less than that, to be honest.”

As aforementioned, Vettori can still become a champion at 185 pounds under the right circumstances. He is also a confident individual in general, so it wouldn't be surprising to see him remain at middleweight to achieve the goal he set out to do.

But that said, moving up to light heavyweight seems to be the ideal situation for him and would give him the best chance of achieving one of his major goals — becoming Italy's first-ever UFC champion.