To me, it's like when a guy gets a completely undeserved shot for the belt, but then still wins, like Bisping in a pinch or Cody being booked for the title. It doesn't retroactively make the shot deserved, it just means they are legitimately the champ now. Doing some long ass duck job and then winning doesn't mean the avoiding never happened. If anything, it just allows people to paint the duck behind bigger reasons like popularity or pay or recovery.
Well, he's always doing both so it's a fair assumption