Although it hasn't been officially confirmed yet, Matt Lindland has been rumored to have made a deal for his services with an unnamed upstart MMA promotion. Why? Why an unnamed new promotion, Matt? Instead of solidifying a name for himself as a top Middleweight in the world once again and pressing the question as to why he wasn't given a shot in the UFC, we'll see Matt Lindland fighting can after can in an upstart promotion that will likely die.

I'm not optimistic, and I was hoping the DREAM rumors would be true. According to MMAWeekly.com, Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions and Affliction could be both starting their own promotions and may have already bought the services of Lindland. Affliction's partner, Golden Boy Promotions, would gain one of the better Middleweights in the industry, but with nobody to fight.

This is the biggest problem for new promotions coming into the game. Sure, Golden Boy has some money to throw around, but many fighters are locked in with other organizations. The only real saving grace here is that Middleweight talent overall is lacking. Silva and Henderson are two of the best, and they are locked into the UFC. Lindland and Henderson are friends, and likely would not fight each other. Silva is in the UFC, that fight won't happen. Who else is out there?

New talent will have to emerge, period. I can only think of Nick Thompson as being a potential threat to Lindland, and a potential matchup in the new promotion. Other middleweights are signing on with promotions at the time, but Golden Boy has another edge. If they are willing to co-promote events, it opens up Lindland's opponent pool to promotions like M-1 Global, EliteXC, Strikeforce, and HDNet Fights.

Although I'd love to see Lindland fight some significant competition, it doesn't look like it'll be happening soon. Hopefully, we'll see some non-exclusivity in his contract that will allow him to take on some bigger names that the new Affiliction promotion won't be able to touch just yet. We'll keep an eye on Affliction as well. It could be intriguing to see who they actually bring in. Developing your own talent seems to be what many of these smaller promotions are trying to start out with, let's hope it works.

My only worry... who will he fight? And will it draw a crowd? Not likely.