Media Demetrious Johnson/Rockhold: Tom Aspinall Should Be "STRIPPED" Of Title When Jon Jones Fights Stipe

[AmonTobin]

Total nonsense. The longer Jones avoids the unification fight, the further in dispute his "champion" title becomes.

 

[Plissken]

Neither Jones nor Aspinall won their titles off of the legit champ in Francis, they are equally illegitimate in linearity so Jones' belt should not matter any more than Aspinall's.

 

[AL-Tappo McSnappo]

Happens around the 57 Minute Mark

They agree with Chael Sonnen's original take and emphasize Tom should be stripped of interm title even if Jones doesnt wanna fight him because the real champion is active again

Blaydes might win

 

[Killhippies]

Interim title has so much clownery now that it doesn't even give #1 contender status anymore. What a joke, worse than being a paper champ now.

Interim title essentially means you just get a little 15k bump or whatever in your pay than you otherwise would. Just more to add to the not a real sport pile I guess.

 

[sonhow]

For as great as MM is he is starting to reach for the most terrible takes title

 

[AfroBanana]

I been waiting for hardcore fans to not like DJ’s takes. He often has takes or goes with narratives that upset certain “hardcores” emotionally.
He seems to have them a lot.

 

[Domitian]

Blaydes might win

Oh shit, someone not automatically assuming Tom is going to win.

 

[Yep]

He’s oht and Injured. And was in the ufc after 6 months of stepping into an mma gym and won tye belt and has been champ ever since. 15 years later.

What’s Tom done?

Won his fight for the belt? Jon’s accomplishments have nothing to do with today. Jon should be fighting Aspinall and unifying the belt. It’s lame. Jon being a great fighter doesn’t mean Aspinall didn’t do what was asked of him.

 

[Yep]

I been waiting for hardcore fans to not like DJ’s takes. He often has takes or goes with narratives that upset certain “hardcores” emotionally.
He seems to have them a lot.

Sounds like a guy who spent his career getting hit in the head.

 

[Yep]

Have anyone of you so called expert read the rules? Or are you all just speculating because you hate Jon?

And sorry Tom is on a 2 fight win streak and 1 fight away from being irrelevant.
He could be great but its too soon.

What are the rules?
This is what I’ve seen out there.


“Then, the undisputed and the interim champion fight in a “unification bout,” after which the winner becomes the only division champion.”

 

[xhaydenx]

Aspinall shouldn't be an interim champ at all considering the actual champ actually has a fight lined up or sorta lined up.

 

[fzoid4454]

Pulled from the wiki article dedicated to boxing and mma interim titles

"Once the original champion can return, at the discretion of the sanctioning body or promotion concerned, they must defend their title against the interim champion - who will relinquish their interim title to fight for the full world title. If the original champion cannot return, refuses to defend their title, or transfers to a different weight division, the interim champion is promoted to full championship status."

Interim championship - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

So yeah kind of sounds like it's defend to unify the belts, or be stripped.

I can edit that wikipedia article to remove it, or make it say something else, so take that with a grain of salt. Wikipedia CAN be a good source of info, but the crowd-sourced nature of the content means that reliability is something that is arrived at over time, and is always being refined. The strength of Wikipedia is being able to look at the sourcing used for any particular passage to check on that reliability.

The thing is, "at the discretion of the sanctioning body or promotion" does a HUGE amount of heavy lifting and completely negates the "must" part of "they must defend their title against the interim champion." Either they must, or the promotion has discretion not to if they don't want to. There's really no in between.

If you look at the sourcing, that claim mostly comes from a single article from MMA channel. In that article, the writer makes that assertion, but never backs it up with any rules, regulations, quotes from anyone, at all, let along people who are in charge of those designations, or policy statements from any MMA promotion.

So, no, it doesn't sound like they have to, at all. It sounds like it's up to whatever the whims of the moment are of the organization handing out interim belts. Now, that "sounds like" would change if anyone can find any kinds of promotional or sanctioning body rules or regulations regarding interim belts, but the Wikipedia article doesn't point to anything like that.

 

[Elvis.]

No , that’s dumb , Jones is going to be allowed to go forward with his already scheduled fight with Stipe for his legacy or whatever other masturbatory way you want to describe it , and in fairness Jones probably deserves to have that fight if that’s the fight he wants after all of his accomplishments. After that he should have to fight Aspinall or whoever the interim champion may be if he wants to fight again , or surrender the title , or retire

 

[fzoid4454]

Sometimes common sense can take you far in life. If the UFC is creating an Interim belt with the intent to have Jon fight Stipe first, it doesn't really change anything. If we are talking about tradition here, traditionally an unification bout should happen between the winner of Stipe/Jon vs Tom

I take it you're talking about common sense from a third-person perspective, then. As anyone with common sense can tell you the purpose is much more simple than you seem to be imagining - The UFC is creating an interim belt so they can have more interest and PR for heavyweight fights while the champ is on a shelf and can't fight.

There's no "tradition," there are no rules, as demonstrated by how long it takes Dana to award an interim belt for a weight class where the champ is a sacred cash cow like Conor, vs. someone who doesn't toe the party line like Francis, despite Francis never being inactive, at all, before they booked and held an "interim" title match between Gane and Lewis, less than five months after Francis got the strap.

It's not supposed to change anything but box office numbers.

I'm not arguing against using that as a lever or excuse to make that matchup. I'm just pointing out that, by definition, and interim belt disintegrates into the ether whenever the original and still champ steps into the cage again, and whether a "unification" happens is at the whims of the same people who have no standards to handing out the belt.

I'm not arguing about what it SHOULD be, I'm talking about what it actually is.

 

[CC27]

So people think UFC is gonna strip Tom of interim title and then have Jones/stipe fight and winner probably retire and have no champ?

Do people even think things through before speaking?

Jones/Stipe will happen and then UFC will ask to the winner to fight interim champ, if they decline and say no I'm retired then interim champ will become real champ.

And if Jones gets hurt again or something and cant fight this year I think UFC will strip him. By the end of the year it will be cleared up. They will either be planning a unified title fight for 2025 or Tom/Blaydes interim champ will be promoted to undisputed champ.

 

[markantony20]

DJ has been on a questionable take streak for a long time.

100% a goat candidate but very sus takes.

 

[Iroh]

The retarded affinity for Jon from fighters strikes again.

 

[legcramp]

So much hurt in this thread

 

[BigOlJeet]

To be the champ, you gotta beat the champ. Champ is goat bones!

Name checks out, delusional.

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

Tom has beaten almost half of the current top 10 at HW, all in the first round, and won his belt by destroying someone who was on a 6 fight first round KO streak. Meanwhile Jones won his belt by getting an immediate title shot vs a guy who, while a great technical striker, is pillow fisted and had been strategically kept away from grapplers.

It shouldnt even be a question who the real champion is right now. There is an obvious easy way of settling it beyond a shadow of a doubt, but Jon doesnt seem too keen.