He seems to only be willing to take bad match ups if it's for the belt. Other than that, he fought no one with any takedown ability.
Yeah, the closest is the nonsense at UFC 100, but that still makes more sense than this. In the past, Jones would have just been stripped with a promise of a title fight when he can come back into the cage.
Well, almost everybody.
I did say everybody with any sense lol.
It's never really been about that. It's always been about money. About 95% of the decisions UFC make are all based around money. On list of things that matter to the UFC merit is not at the top of the list.That's the usual logic of it, but Jon fans have informed me repeatedly "The Stipe fight was already signed" which apparently invalidates decades of understanding of what an interim belt is and what the definition of undisputed champion is.
You're going to use that clusterfuck of a card as some sort of warped justification that this is secretly a bad sign for Tom with the UFC putting him as co-headliner? Lol. Lmao even. The reach in this post is just on another level.
What there in my post did you disagree with? I'm open to hearing alternative view points. It's true, UFC is a business so obviously they care about money. It's true, UFC has data nobody here has access too. It's true, Aspinall is co-maining behind Belal. It's true, UFC has headlined an Interim over a real title, wasn't even a women's fight.
Is there any other time in history other than UFC 249 which was the first PPV during covid, was rescheduled 3 times in different countries, had about 20 fight revisions including Cruz coming out of a 4 year retirement because he was the only BW in the tri state area that could be cleared to challenge for a title where an Interim Title superceded an actual title on a card?
Well I mean look, why in the hell would the UFC put Aspinall behind a Belal Leon title fight? That fight is almost super guaranteed to be a 5 round point fest. Aspinall Blaydes is almost guaranteed to be a finish within 2 rounds. Doesn't that seem to be a way way way better way to cap off a PPV? Are we saying because 249 was a clusterfuck from here on out UFC is going to headline real titles over Interims, even when it goes against there best interest and what would make them most money and be best for them? I don't believe that at all. I'm working with the things that are going on and the knowledge of UFC being a business and making decisions that make them money. Jon Stipe isn't even relevant in this discussion.
Only time I think an Interim was defended and it sort of made sense was Frank Mir vs Big Nog at UFC 92 for the Interim Belt with Brock vs Randy happening at UFC 91 for the "Undisputed". When Randy sat out trying to get the Fedor fight the UFC would not strip him and instead created an Interim title fight between Big Nog and Big Timmy. Nog won and was booked to defend against Frank Mir and Randy was coaxed back with the Brock Lensar fight.
You gotta give em credit though. One of the very few times “paper champ” is used correctly on Sherdog.
And Jon will continue avoid real challenges while claiming he's fighting the best.
