Champions need to defend their belt

[markg171]

Champs need to defend their belt against anybody willing to fight them that the UFC offers, not simply the #1 contender. I'm sick of these champs only defending once or twice a year. Champs shouldn't be allowed to take big vacations or not defend their belt as long as there are fighters willing to fight them. Unless they are injured of course. Then just set up an interim title or strip them if it's going to be a while. If no one wants to fight them, and the UFC isn't offering them any fights, then yeah sure take time off till someone till there's a fight available but it's pretty hypocritical of some of these champs not consistently defending their belts when a lot of them got some weird title shots of their own

FLW: MM was coming off a loss to Cruz and got put into the FLW tourny and then controversially got to the finals after the major screw up of MM/McCall I where the fight had clearly swung in McCall's favour and he got robbed of his chance to win in the 4th round (I had McCall winning in 3 rounds anyways). We all know what happened in the rematch but the rematch should never have happened without the screwups that occurred
BW: Barao stepped in as an injury replacement for Cruz against Faber
WW: GSP was on a 1 fight win streak after losing to Serra when he got an interim title fight
MW: Silva was 1-0 in the UFC when he got a title shot
LHW: Jones stepped in as an injury replacement for Rashad against Shogun
HW: Cain had only had 1 fight since losing to JDS less than a year ago

Now I'm not saying that these champs aren't all not consistently defending their belts, just that these current champs got some weird ass title shots of their own to win the belt, so how could they ever deny a challenger or choose to go on vacation and not defend their belt when they won the belt from weird, beneficial circumstances of their own? If they're willing to take a title shot however they can get it themselves, they should be willing to fight anybody in the division once they are champ otherwise they're being hypocritical. If a fight is available and being offered, they should defend. If the champ doesn't think the challenger being offered is worthy, then prove it by beating them

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

What? Against anyone willing? Who WOULDN'T be willing? If they lose, using your logic, as long as they're willing again, they'll get a shot. There's a reason that higher ranked guys get a shot; because every swinging dick wants a shot, they have nothing to lose.

 

[Chernabog]

No, fighters need to earn the title shot because MMA is a sport. Lots of fighters want to fight the champ, does that mean we just give them title shots?

 

[markg171]

What? Against anyone willing? Who WOULDN'T be willing? If they lose, using your logic, as long as they're willing again, they'll get a shot. There's a reason that higher ranked guys get a shot; because every swinging dick wants a shot, they have nothing to lose.

I'm not saying they fight everybody in the UFC but if the UFC comes to them and says "we want you to fight this guy" they shouldn't be allowed to say no

 

[SPL1FF]

defend twice a year.

they have earned that right.

 

[Chernabog]

I'm not saying they fight everybody in the UFC but if the UFC comes to them and says "we want you to fight this guy" they shouldn't be allowed to say no

Is this because of Chael/ Jones and a cancelled UFC event? I don't really remember any other case like this. JDS said something along the lines of he'd rather fight someone other than Overeem (the whole "clean" thing) but he was still going to fight him until the failed drug test.

Or is this because of GSP fighting Diaz and not Hendricks?

 

[markg171]

What? Against anyone willing? Who WOULDN'T be willing? If they lose, using your logic, as long as they're willing again, they'll get a shot. There's a reason that higher ranked guys get a shot; because every swinging dick wants a shot, they have nothing to lose.

Off the top of my head, Shogun and Machida both turned down title shots recently

 

[Cygnus-X]

No, fighters need to earn the title shot because MMA is a sport.

Why would this be a prerequisite for a sport?

 

[Chernabog]

Why would this be a prerequisite for a sport?

Because you have to fight your way to the top. In football teams have to work their way the the superbowl. In the olympics competitors have to work their way to the finals to earn a medal.

And in order to fight the best in the world, you have to start from the lower tiers and work your way up.

Imagine if we took Matt Riddle when he was a middleweight and let him fight Anderson just because he wanted to. Then the whole crowd would witness one guy beating the other guy without breaking a sweat.

That's not sport, and that's why there are rankings.

 

[markg171]

Is this because of Chael/ Jones and a cancelled UFC event? I don't really remember any other case like this. JDS said something along the lines of he'd rather fight someone other than Overeem (the whole "clean" thing) but he was still going to fight him until the failed drug test.

Or is this because of GSP fighting Diaz and not Hendricks?

No reason in particular, was just kinda thinking about how each champ got their belt and I noticed a lot of them had weird circumstances surrounding their own title shot and then I was thinking about how Silva has said in the past that he didn't think Chael or Weidman deserved titleshots, GSP said he thought Hendricks lost to Koscheck and thus didn't deserve one, JDS said he wanted to fight someone other than Overeem like you said.

Jones surprisingly had nothing to do with it. I mean I'm pissed he didn't fight Sonnen and I think he should have taken the fight as he'd already done his camp and Chael hadn't, but he did end up fighting like 3 weeks later and is only out so long now because he injured his arm against a short notice opponent and is still ending up fighting Chael so can't really complain

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

I'm not saying they fight everybody in the UFC but if the UFC comes to them and says "we want you to fight this guy" they shouldn't be allowed to say no

Well that's a much different point that what you originally posted. I don't really disagree; they're employees of the UFC, so if the brass suggests a fight, they should take it, barring injuries. However, a ranking system is really the best way to go about it, because it gives the lower-ranked guys a well-defined plan for getting to the top, as opposed to some sort of patronage system where whoever the flavor of the week is gets a shot because he's marketable or what have you.* Just randomly picking people seems arbitrary and would probably discourage a lot of less charismatic yet talented fighters from even trying.

* not aimed towards any fighters in particular :icon_chee

 

[Cygnus-X]

Because you have to fight your way to the top. In football teams have to work their way the the superbowl. In the olympics competitors have to work their way to the finals to earn a medal.

And in order to fight the best in the world, you have to start from the lower tiers and work your way up.

Imagine if we took Matt Riddle when he was a middleweight and let him fight Anderson just because he wanted to. Then the whole crowd would witness one guy beating the other guy without breaking a sweat.

That's not sport, and that's why there are rankings.

None of that matters when you determine if something is a sport or not.

But anyway, let's humor the notion

In most sports it's even IN THE SYSTEM that the top guy gets to face the worst guy in tournaments/playoffs. When teams work their way to the Super Bowl they get the seeded against worse teams until the finals.

Nobody claims that a basketball or hockey wouldn't be a sport just because some #8 seed who played half-assed in a regular season would suddenly go hot for 2 months during the playoffs and get to the finals. Deserve to be there?

Nobody deserves anything in a sport. Nobody gives a shit about deserving or earning anything. It's about seeing opportunities and then capitalizing on them.

 

[_Keyser_Soze_]

No, fighters need to earn the title shot because MMA is a sport. Lots of fighters want to fight the champ, does that mean we just give them title shots?

I wish you were correct. The sad thing is - the UFC operates more like the WWE model - giving the fans what they want - than in having legit rankings in house to determine the true number one contender. And yes, Zuffa has the right as they own the business - but lets stop pretending that the MMA and the UFC is truly a sport. It's entertainment without pre-determined outcomes. In the NFL, the Ravens won today - but if the Colts would draw a bigger TV audience, would the NFL just say - too bad Ravens, the Colts are moving on? Nope.

 

[Rollotomassi]

People don't realize that fighting 3 times a year means 3 camps, that's
At LEAST 6 months away from family. Very few champs are willing to do that.

 

[Hanoi Rox]

Is this Tyson Fury?

 

[Unbreakabull]

because acquiring the belts up until this point has been a bit erratic doesn't mean we have cause to proliferate some rigid system of taking on all comers. Title fights happen because Dana wants them too because he thinks that's what will sell. Fans didn't mind Sonnen jumping in to fight Bones at 151, but I don't know if serving as coaches on TUF and prolonging a losing MW to challenge a top 5 p4p LHW champ is actually something the fans had in mind.

When Sonnen was the replacement it was on a short notice fill in and anything would do, but spending 6 months talking about this fight sucks and so would more defenses

 

[markg171]

Because you have to fight your way to the top. In football teams have to work their way the the superbowl. In the olympics competitors have to work their way to the finals to earn a medal.

And in order to fight the best in the world, you have to start from the lower tiers and work your way up.

Imagine if we took Matt Riddle when he was a middleweight and let him fight Anderson just because he wanted to. Then the whole crowd would witness one guy beating the other guy without breaking a sweat.

That's not sport, and that's why there are rankings.

I personally find MMA a sport, but the UFC entertainment if that makes sense. Bellator treats MMA the most as a sport I find. You kind of touched on it yourself when you mentioned rankings. There's no official rankings in the UFC. The rankings are all done by outside sources who pick where they think fighters belong in the top whatever. Now if it were the UFC who came out and released the rankings saying this guys here, this guys here, and they have to beat this guy and this guy to get this rank, now that would make it a sport. In the NFL you have to beat a bunch of teams in the right order to make the Superbowl (your "title shot"), but in the UFC you can get a title shot however it's available. There was no real order to receiving your title shot or next opponent. There's a perceived order, but reality is it can all be wiped away pretty quickly whereas in the Stanley Cup it's going to be LA vs NJ because of their record. If that makes sense to anyone

 

[613]

I wish you were correct. The sad thing is - the UFC operates more like the WWE model - giving the fans what they want - than in having legit rankings in house to determine the true number one contender. And yes, Zuffa has the right as they own the business - but lets stop pretending that the MMA and the UFC is truly a sport. It's entertainment without pre-determined outcomes. In the NFL, the Ravens won today - but if the Colts would draw a bigger TV audience, would the NFL just say - too bad Ravens, the Colts are moving on? Nope.

It is stupid to even compare a sport like football to a combat SPORT like MMA. If MMA is not a sport then almost no combat "sport" is.

 

[Cygnus-X]

but lets stop pretending that the MMA and the UFC is truly a sport.

Of course the UFC are not a sport. They're an organisation. Just like NBA is not a sport.

MMA is a sport. This is not even debatable.

Seriously, this "MMA is not a sport" crowd are the most retarded on Sherdog. Any of the rabid [insert fighter] fanboys, any [insert fighter] haters, the "MMA is not a sport" crowd have them all beat as the most retarded people on Sherdog with just zero insight and intellectual capacity.

 

[ThunderStruck]

Champs need to defend their belt against anybody willing to fight them that the UFC offers, not simply the #1 contender. I'm sick of these champs only defending once or twice a year. Champs shouldn't be allowed to take big vacations or not defend their belt as long as there are fighters willing to fight them. Unless they are injured of course. Then just set up an interim title or strip them if it's going to be a while. If no one wants to fight them, and the UFC isn't offering them any fights, then yeah sure take time off till someone till there's a fight available but it's pretty hypocritical of some of these champs not consistently defending their belts when a lot of them got some weird title shots of their own

FLW: MM was coming off a loss to Cruz and got put into the FLW tourny and then controversially got to the finals after the major screw up of MM/McCall I where the fight had clearly swung in McCall's favour and he got robbed of his chance to win in the 4th round (I had McCall winning in 3 rounds anyways). We all know what happened in the rematch but the rematch should never have happened without the screwups that occurred
BW: Barao stepped in as an injury replacement for Cruz against Faber
WW: GSP was on a 1 fight win streak after losing to Serra when he got an interim title fight
MW: Silva was 1-0 in the UFC when he got a title shot
LHW: Jones stepped in as an injury replacement for Rashad against Shogun
HW: Cain had only had 1 fight since losing to JDS less than a year ago

Now I'm not saying that these champs aren't all not consistently defending their belts, just that these current champs got some weird ass title shots of their own to win the belt, so how could they ever deny a challenger or choose to go on vacation and not defend their belt when they won the belt from weird, beneficial circumstances of their own? If they're willing to take a title shot however they can get it themselves, they should be willing to fight anybody in the division once they are champ otherwise they're being hypocritical. If a fight is available and being offered, they should defend

Cry me a river.