How would the landscape of champions (and fighters) change if the UFC mandated the titles to be defended every 6 months?

[fractal]

Champions have to defend at least once every 6 months

No excuses or reasons - injuries, ramadan, birthday parties, custody battles. If you can't defend you can vacate and fight for the title upon return.

The only exceptions I can see if the challenger drops out too close, less than 6 weeks, to find a replacement.

I think this would not only legitimize the sport more, but also be good for it in terms of activity and title defences. And you wouldn't need 25 interim titles either.

 

[loisestrad]

Cool by me, in theory. No interim belts as well.

It's just that it doesn't work, cuz the dominant champ that gets injured two month ahead of his mandatory fight would still be perceived as the champion and fans/sherdoggers would be like: The new champ isn't the real champ, something needs to be done!

It's definitely the biggest problem with MMA, or boxing for that matter: The long time between fights.

Football, soccer, basketball, whatever, the worlds biggest sports, have the competitors competing every week.

 

[SpiderCrawl]

Should be 3x a year...

 

[Here's Johnny!]

They are independent contractors not employees.

 

[fractal]

They are independent contractors not employees.

They can be independent of the title after 6 months of inactivity

 

[fractal]

Should be 3x a year...

In an ideal world, but here we have trouble to get some champions to fight even once a year lol. Let's start small.

 

[Here's Johnny!]

They can independent of the title after 6 months of inactivity

You would lose all credibility to the title and it would just be chaos...

Example,

Chimaev gets stripped, Sean vs fluffy fight for undisputed.... Sean wins... KC fights sean for title wins... KC gets stripped... DDP beats whoever for the title wins....

It just wouldn't work... and yes I want champs to fight more and stop changing weight classes

 

[fractal]

Cool by me, in theory. No interim belts as well.

It's just that it doesn't work, cuz the dominant champ that gets injured two month ahead of his mandatory fight would still be perceived as the champion and fans/sherdoggers would be like: The new champ isn't the real champ, something needs to be done!

It's definitely the biggest problem with MMA, or boxing for that matter: The long time between fights.

Football, soccer, basketball, whatever, the worlds biggest sports, have the competitors competing every week.

Change will always breed resistance, especially from those not educated enough to understand it.

Once it's implemented though, people will eventually come around to it and those that choose to whine about it will just be minority of background noise.

 

[fractal]

You would lose all credibility to the title and it would just be chaos...

Example,

Chimaev gets stripped, Sean vs fluffy fight for undisputed.... Sean wins... KC fights sean for title wins... KC gets stripped... DDP beats whoever for the title wins....

It just wouldn't work... and yes I want champs to fight more and stop changing weight classes

It happens in every other legitimized sport that way. If a team fails to perform because of an injured player, they don't hold up the league for them to recover. The game moves on. It's just a matter of educating and evolving the fans.

It'll be interesting to see how often champions are sidelined due to injuries.

 

[Koro_11]

There would never be any chinstrap champs.

 

[KillerIsBack V2]

Should be 3x a year...

Statistically, Impossible. Maybe 3 times every 15 months. But then we also wouldnt have any champs past age of 36. Certainly HWs will get stripped regularly.

By the time anybody becomes a champ in any combat sports the body will be at certain limit and they will get “medical suspensions” all the time.

 

[Tokoloko]

Champions have to defend at least once every 6 months

No excuses or reasons - injuries, ramadan, birthday parties, custody battles. If you can't defend you can vacate and fight for the title upon return.

The only exceptions I can see if the challenger drops out too close, less than 6 weeks, to find a replacement.

I think this would not only legitimize the sport more, but also be good for it in terms of activity and title defences. And you wouldn't need 25 interim titles either.

I think that its impossible unless u pay fighters monthly/weekly for staying in shape and in "full preparation" mode...then u can probably make them fight 4-5 times per year (if injury free).

BTW I can’t let go of thought of turning MMA into a tennis-like system. Fighters would sign up for sponsor-backed tournaments, earn ranking points based on wins and performance, and move up purely through results rather than promotion politics. Rankings would be transparent, opportunities would be open, and careers wouldn’t depend so much on matchmaking or hype. - Its absolute sci-fi, but i think that both fans and fighters would benefit from this.

 

[Egészségére!]

IDK but if you’re not injured a champ shouldn’t be able to take some time off to deal with your marriage or whatever it’s ridiculous just book a fight or vacate & return with a ts when you’re ready

 

[honzo]

I hate the notion of fighters being 2x world champs; it's basically celebrating that they lost.
With the above idea it's a lot more logical, a fighter may not be fit when the next defence is so they will fight 6 months later.
Conor now claims his win against Mendes was a world title win, his twitter says 5x world champ. I guess thats because he won the belt once he was interim champ.

 

[Tweak896]

Every year, I'm more certain something like this needs to happen. It's wild how inactive champs have become. Sadly people would cheer this on if Khamzat gets stripped, but get super pissed off if Aspinall does. The UFC needs more mandatory rules with titles and even rankings while we're at it.

It's a sport, let it be more dynamic. The current state of the UFC basically freezes the whole division. Take off the soft kid gloves, do what you did for LHW. I'd rather have it be a little unfair but you can earn your way back then year long waits.

I think the issue is when UFC has a champ like Jones get injured for the Stipe fight, the UFC would lose control and their 1 champ that sells PPVs essentially gets booted when he passes the 6 month mark. Fuck it, we're on Paramount now. Stars are basically dead. If there's another Conor let them break the rule 1 time for them, but get the champs out in the cage more frequently.

 

[Kung Fu Kowboy]

In theory ... defending every six months should be mandatory.... Hell. Just fighting every six months should be mandatory.

 

[liner]

They call it a sport so it can be sold to the masses. But its not really a sport. Its prize fighting with belts and champions being a marketability label. Understand this and enjoy the fighting. It has always been like this and it'll never change. The end

 

[theincognito]

No real change to the landscape.

Six months give or take is pretty much already the norm.

When it doesn't happen, it's often the UFC keeping them out, not champions refusing:

Aspinall while they were being jerked around by Jones.

Saving Volk for Australia instead of fighting last year like he wanted.

Holding Muslims for Abu Dhabi cards.

Etc.

 

[bjjwar]

They have to do sth like this, specially now that the champs just use their status to grow on their socials instead of fighting. They get less money from sponsorships, less views etc if they're not champs anymore so they would chose to fight more.

In other indidivual sports you also dont see it getting postponed due to injuries or if certain people dont want to compete. The event just goes on with whoever is there.

Imagine if US Open said, not this year, Sinner or whoever was the winner and had the title is injured so maybe next year lol. The company has to move on from lazy fighters and set a standard that will be beneficial for everyone. Rn a guy just fights to get a belt then sits out as much as he can while keep posting on his socials and doing podcasts and sh**...

 

[Adamant]

Every 6 months?


How about 3 times a year?