Tourneys to settle No.1 Contenders?

[insomnico]

We all know the UFC rankings are worthless. And in a landscape where viewership numbers are dropping, one way to bring more excitement to the sport would be to start 4-men tourneys in each division to settle the true No.1 contenders.

(I'm not talking about same night tournaments, of corse)

Sure, injuries could plague some of these tourneys. But that's why you have alternates.
It's just a thought. But I really think fans would get behind this format. I sure would.

Imagine if we had these 4-men tourneys to settle the next contenders:
MW: Rockhold, Jacare, Kelvin and Weidman.
WW: RDA, Wonderboy, Lawler, Covington.
LW: Ferguson, Alvarez, Barbosa, Poirier.
FW: Ortega, Aldo, Edgar, Swanson.
Etc...

 

[myjohnson9]

Yea but I’m some cases there are two very good cases for contenders and you could just do them back to back

 

[loisestrad]

I know it's the cool thing to do to hate on the UFC matchmaking, but there's really no other way to do it. "Tournaments" is impossible when you risk injuries all the time.

 

[MMAProfessional]

We all know the UFC rankings are worthless. And in a landscape where viewership numbers are dropping, one way to bring more excitement to the sport would be to start 4-men tourneys in each division to settle the true No.1 contenders.

(I'm not talking about same night tournaments, of corse)

Sure, injuries could plague some of these tourneys. But that's why you have alternates.
It's just a thought. But I really think fans would get behind this format. I sure would.

Imagine if we had these 4-men tourneys to settle the next contenders:
MW: Rockhold, Jacare, Kelvin and Weidman.
WW: RDA, Wonderboy, Lawler, Covington.
LW: Ferguson, Alvarez, Barbosa, Poirier.
FW: Ortega, Aldo, Edgar, Swanson.
Etc...

Doesn't need to be an official tournament but the UFC basically was ran like this at one point. Unfortunately now they have to create fake belts to force the champs to fight a contender.

 

[Shcooby Dooby Doo]

I'm personally a fan of yearly tournaments over holding belts simply so that MMA/UFC distances itself from the boxing format.
It would also give incentive for all the fighters to achieve a good pay day. Rather than twitter wars and pretend fake drama to make fighters worth more money. Rather than just bleed fighting style and ducking opponents for a strategically easier match up, opponents who make it to the semi and finals are guaranteed a better pay day.

I like title holders defending more, yet many belt holders are ruining it because they use it as a bargaining chip.
Even Khabib is now going for the GSP money fight, since his Russian oligarch benefactor may no longer be around to finance his training.

 

[Pequeño Corey]

Tournaments are the way to go. Do the brackets on TV to get folks emotionally invested, and the eventual TS would be a PPV event. Wood buy.

 

[BRaVo cHoKe]

As long as we call it a "Grand Prix" and never use the consensus top 4 guys, I'm down.

 

[TheGZA]

Turrible. It would only insulate champs from contenders. Mcgregor fans should support this.

 

[Swing the Axe]

This would limit the champion to on fight a year, while they sit around and wait for this tournament to happen.

The real problem is certain fighters not defending their belts and holding up divisions.

 

[Otto!]

At the rate that fighters get injured and pull out I think this would result in more delays. We”d end up with a bunch of interim champs...

 

[Straightcross]

I think tournaments that don't take place in the timespan of a week or less are stupid.

 

[zxyss25]

Only would work for MW right now

Ortega destroyed 2 of the other FWs in a potential tourney

RDA Colby is basically the finals of the WW tourney

Fergy should get next shot at LW

 

[insomnico]

Turrible. It would only insulate champs from contenders. Mcgregor fans should support this.

I think tourneys would have the exact opposite effect.
It would end the super-fights bullshit and force the champions to fight the contenders.

 

[sabretitan]

I know it's the cool thing to do to hate on the UFC matchmaking, but there's really no other way to do it. "Tournaments" is impossible when you risk injuries all the time.

Unfortunately

 

[insomnico]

Only would work for MW right now

Ortega destroyed 2 of the other FWs in a potential tourney

RDA Colby is basically the finals of the WW tourney

Fergy should get next shot at LW

I'm not talking about "right now" though.
At the moment a tourney wouldn't work in the divisions that have a clear No.1. That's BW, FW, WW and HW.
I'm talking about a possibility moving fwd.

 

[insomnico]

Tournaments are the way to go. Do the brackets on TV to get folks emotionally invested, and the eventual TS would be a PPV event. Wood buy.

Yes.

 

[insomnico]

I know it's the cool thing to do to hate on the UFC matchmaking, but there's really no other way to do it. "Tournaments" is impossible when you risk injuries all the time.

The injuries are plaguing the sport already. They'll happen wether you have the tournaments or not.
If you do the tourneys though, you can set specific alternates and don't have to run into the problem of finding last minute replacements as it happens right now.

 

[Shcooby Dooby Doo]

I can see the tournament structure working really well so long as contingenies are planned well ahead.

Really, the current format can still work if contingencies are put in place. Backup plans for injuries and what not.
However, all the fighters want a good pay day. What you have now are politics, ass kissing, choosing perfect opponents stylistically, chasing 'money fights' and many other things.

I would not be suprised if some recent champs have tactically pretended to be injured in order to duck a rightful contender. I wont name names.... I just have a feeling it has happened recently.

Anyways, someone here mentioned the champ would only defend once a year. I would respond, how about having no belt holder and just have a tournament winner with a trohpy or something. If they held a tournament next year, the person who won, say, middleweight, will be middleweight champ of 2019. They'd be immediately placed at the top of the rankings so they are a shoe in for being placed in the rankings next year.
If the people at the top are only sitting on their placement so that they always can be in the tournament, have a strict policy of someone going down one or two spots in the rankings for every 6 months of inactivity. It will soon right itself.

Rather than chasing money fights and politics, the final of each tourney WILL be the money fight. And it will be the money fight rightfully earned. None of this Floyd Conor bollocks. You don't attract real MMA fans with that shit. You attract reality TV celeb nonsense horseshit...okay I'm just spewing words from my keyboard but you get my point.

There are some problems with the tourney structure. Still, I reckon the pros well outweight the cons. Bottom line is, tourneys are cool.

Say you had the top 8 seeded. Whoever is at the top gets to pick first who they want to fight amongst the other 7. So, the guy at the top could tactically choose mister 8 ranked. Then number 2 gets to choose next.

If someone misses weight, can't make it to the tourney or is not willing to play ball, that is when you reward guys ranked 9 and onwards, they can be step ins as replacements.

As you can see, I'm very on board with the idea of tourneys. I could type up a whole article on it.