Chad Mendes got off the Jose Aldo rollercoaster to fight Rani Yahya

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UFC featherweight number one contender Chad Mendes will "go nuts" if he's not competing.
After running through Michihiro Omigawa in his Octagon debut back in February, the Team Alpha Male product was being courted for a potential 145-pound title fight at UFC 136 later this year.
Unfortunately, for "Money," Kenny Florian has seniority.
"KenFlo" was successful in his featherweight debut, out-gunning a very game Diego Nunes at UFC 131 just last month to leapfrog into a Houston title fight against reigning division champion Jose Aldo.
And that's fine with Mendes, who now fights Rani Yahya at UFC 133 on Aug. 6 in Philadelphia, because he tells Thomas Gerbasi at UFC.com he doesn't want to wait nine months for a "possible" title shot:

"The whole Aldo thing was never official. I never had a contract in front of me to sign. It was something we were hoping for but I knew that anything could happen; it just didn’t happen for me. Basically I didn’t want to wait the nine months to possibly fight him because I knew with Florian fighting in the meantime, that there was a good chance that if he performed well, (UFC President) Dana (White) would give him the fight. That was probably the biggest rollercoaster, but once we got the contract in front of me with Yahya, that’s what I decided to do, and it was back in work mode and back in the gym training and not even thinking about Aldo’s style anymore. It was all Yahya."

Mendes had to make a choice: fight or wait. The "Alpha Male" went with the former, risking his status as top contender in the name of staying active.
And this is far from a "gimmie" fight.
Yahya was likely on the cusp of losing his job after dropping consecutive contests against top bantamweight contenders Joseph Benavidez and Takeya Mizugaki just four months apart.
Naturally, the veteran submission specialist decided it best to return to the featherweight division to try his luck in his UFC debut. It wouldn't be easy, as he was originally put up against Chan Sung Jung before an injury forced some re-shuffling.
Enter Mike Brown.
After three impressive rounds from the Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, exit Mike Brown. That put his name on the tongues of UFC fans everywhere. A win over the undefeated Mendes would shoot him straight up the 145-pound ladder.