Tom should just vacate the Interim belt.

[Bret 'The Hitman' Hart]

Uncle Dana is 100% responsible for that shit show.

 

[Mohawk Banditó]

Says Clark Rogers Temu version of Steve Rogers.

Do you know who Clark Rogers is? Temu version? It's an amalgamation. Think of another "Clark" character in comics

 

[OldBoy91]

is he even a champion at anything?
rules says the interim champ gets stripped
the moment the champ fights

No they don't, and it's provably untrue as well.

Big Nog didn't get stripped of his interim title when Randy Couture came back and defended the belt.

The reason interim champs usually stop holding the interim belt upon the return of the champion is because the champion generally fights them upon their return. So either they win and become undisputed, or they lose and the champ remains and the interim loses his belt in the unification.

Jon has elected to not fight Tom, which leaves his status as champion very much in dispute, hence no reason for Tom to have his own (less) disputed title taken away.

 

[chimpoehurricane]

We all know Jon isn’t gonna fight him, it would absolutely tarnish Jones’ legacy as a legitimate champ, a huge spit in the UFC’s face and the bald goof would go on suicide watch claiming Jones is the GOAT.

Jones is a chicken shit, his accolades at HW are garbage. Tom’s wasting his time chasing a skinny fat HW Jones, it’s embarrassing.

Why should Tom vacate because Jones is ducking? Guy can crushed and bullied as a HW at lhw and Ducked HW at its peak and used gear between breakfast and brunch

 

[chimpoehurricane]

No they don't, and it's probably untrue as well.

Big Nog didn't get stripped on his interim title when Randy Couture came back and defended the belt.

The reason interim champs usually stop holding the interim belt upon the return of the champion is because the champion generally fights them upon their return. So either they win and become undisputed, or they lose and the champ remains and the interim loses his belt in the unification.

Jon has elected to not fight Tom, which leaves his status as champion very much in dispute, hence no reason for Tom to have his own (less) disputed title taken away.

Far worse when you are a career HW ducking HW and using gear to beat dinosaurs and manlets

 

[markg171]

I like how everybody's response exposes what I've said for months now: none of you care about whether the interim title should exist or not which is the only real question.

You all instead care about it being a pathway to Tom becoming champ without fighting. Some seemingly care that Tom gets more money. Others that it keeps Tom #1 contender without fighting. Those are your justifications for it and they're laughably absurd. They all have nothing to do with whether we need an interim at the moment. Which we don't.

His belt should've been stripped the moment Jon/Stipe started. There's no point in having an interim belt after the champ's already returned.

 

[El Fernas]

Tom already owns the ONLY Undisputed HW belt.​

No, he doesnt.

is he even a champion at anything?
rules says the interim champ gets stripped
the moment the champ fights

What rules? UFC belts are "promotional belts", pretty much they dont have rules, a proof of this is how when a champion misses weight they all act like they dont know whats going to happen, because there are no written rules about it.

Interim belts are created on necessity of putting a "championship level fight", not really because of the competition, in boxing the orgs usually "mandate" a fight, if said fighter refuses to fight the #1 guy then the belt goes vacant, awarded to the interim champion if there is any, the UFC doesnt have this rules, they drag this until they strong arm champions into defending, unless they run into a Mcgregor level fighter or in this case, Jon Jones, and they end up stripping the champion but only until they have exhausted months of trying.

 

[markg171]

No they don't, and it's provably untrue as well.

Big Nog didn't get stripped of his interim title when Randy Couture came back and defended the belt.

The reason interim champs usually stop holding the interim belt upon the return of the champion is because the champion generally fights them upon their return. So either they win and become undisputed, or they lose and the champ remains and the interim loses his belt in the unification.

Jon has elected to not fight Tom, which leaves his status as champion very much in dispute, hence no reason for Tom to have his own (less) disputed title taken away.

The difference there of course was Nog/Mir had already been signed before Randy/Brock and they had already done TUF together. They were the original first title fight, regardless of event chronology.

And Nog/Mir occurring afterwards re-put the HW belt into dispute by having the interim belt be the more recently active HW title. So it gave the excuse to unify.

And lastly, the UFC was doing a mini HW tourney to lead up to UFC 100 for the unification which fingers crossed could result in Brock/Mir 2 like it did.

None of which remotely applies here. In fact it's all the complete opposite.

- Jon/Stipe was signed first
- Jon has fought more recently than Tom
- Jon/Tom is just a standard title fight, not a rematch and not on a historic card

 

[ninja boot]

That’s basically how it always was though. It’s only since Jones got a belt that this has ever happened. Multiple champs have gotten stripped for avoiding opponents with lesser of a claim than Tom and a lot, lot faster. GDR and Nicco Montano are the most recent two I can think of.

I suppose what burns me is the inconsistency, its not a rule and each case is treated individually and decided mostly based on the fighters popularity and ability to draw fans.
Truthfully I really don't expect change about this. The UFC just drops the "we're an entertainment company" line when they need to leverage things lol

 

[Mohawk Banditó]

- Jon/Stipe was signed first

Jon/Stipe was signed after Tom was the interim champ. The fact a fight was signed and didn't happen doesn't mean a fucking thing.

Do you think the UFC should have stripped Tom so that Jon could defend his belt against Dan Henderson? Ya know, since that fight "was signed first"

 

[El Fernas]

I suppose what burns me is the inconsistency, its not a rule and each case is treated individually and decided mostly based on the fighters popularity and ability to draw fans.
Truthfully I really don't expect change about this. The UFC just drops the "we're an entertainment company" line when they need to leverage things lol

Company belts, they make up their own rules, there are none of them.

 

[markg171]

Interim belts are created on necessity of putting a "championship level fight", not really because of the competition, in boxing the orgs usually "mandate" a fight, if said fighter refuses to fight the #1 guy then the belt goes vacant, awarded to the interim champion if there is any, the UFC doesnt have this rules, they drag this until they strong arm champions into defending, unless they run into a Mcgregor level fighter or in this case, Jon Jones, and they end up stripping the champion but only until they have exhausted months of trying.

A lot of Sherdoggers aren't prepared for the very real scenario that the UFC treats this exactly like McGregor/Tony where BOTH were stripped for a new vacant title even though Tony was part of that vacant title fight. They didn't just promote him and have him defend against Khabib, they wanted him to fight Khabib for a new title.

They're all just parroting to strip Jon because they think Tom will automatically become champ when he may still need to win a title fight.

 

[markg171]

Jon/Stipe was signed after Tom was the interim champ. The fact a fight was signed and didn't happen doesn't mean a fucking thing.

Do you think the UFC should have stripped Tom so that Jon could defend his belt against Dan Henderson? Ya know, since that fight "was signed first"

It's been this long and you guys still refuse to acknowledge that the real reason interim champs go next is because they're the winner of the original contender who had the title shot vs a new contender. Of course that person goes next.

That wasn't Tom. The UFC moronically threw him in instead of doing Stipe/Pav where that winner unquestionably would've been next and instead gave us the scenario of Stipe who'd never lost and Tom who simply beat another contender.

Jon/Stipe was always the fight. It's self-inflicted errors, but burying your head in the sand about them is even stupider.

 

[skylolow]

Who cares? Jones is no draw that's why they cant pay him FU money, he doesn't bring it in. Besides, if all else fails, he can always crush Stipe in 1 round instead of 3.

Actually I believe Jones is highest PPV generator that is even active right now, if you want to call him that.

According to Luke Thomas, Jones outside of Conor is the only fighter that guarantee a solid 500K+ in PPV buys everytime out right now. Jones is actually more around 750K in buys.


UFC won't pay FU money simply because they don't get leveraged and if they do it isn't by millions. Jones people have had a long time history with dealing with the UFC. They know what they can get and what is a no go even before they walk in the room. Jones mouthing off is just working the public interest and nothing more than that. I'm sure the UFC is willing to throw a little extra at Jones to get it done if need be. UFC knows paying Jones an extra 750K or whatever is better than not doing the event at all.

 

[mkess101]

I like how everybody's response exposes what I've said for months now: none of you care about whether the interim title should exist or not which is the only real question.

You all instead care about it being a pathway to Tom becoming champ without fighting. Some seemingly care that Tom gets more money. Others that it keeps Tom #1 contender without fighting. Those are your justifications for it and they're laughably absurd. They all have nothing to do with whether we need an interim at the moment. Which we don't.

His belt should've been stripped the moment Jon/Stipe started. There's no point in having an interim belt after the champ's already returned.

Or, dumbass...maybe we'd like to you know, actually get some sort of indication if Jones plans to unify or not. Some of us actually like seeing the best fighters fight each other. So ideally Jones would say he does in fact want to fight Tom. But if he decides he doesn't, then at least we can figure out who Tom WILL fight next for the belt.

It's not that difficult.

 

[mkess101]

A lot of Sherdoggers aren't prepared for the very real scenario that the UFC treats this exactly like McGregor/Tony where BOTH were stripped for a new vacant title even though Tony was part of that vacant title fight. They didn't just promote him and have him defend against Khabib, they wanted him to fight Khabib for a new title.

They're all just parroting to strip Jon because they think Tom will automatically become champ when he may still need to win a title fight.

No, actually that's fucking great! Strip them both TODAY. Then set a date and offer them to fight each other for the belt. If one refuses, next man up takes his place.

 

[dipstickjimmy]

He gets PPV points etc as the interim champ. It comes with more pay. Why would he vacate when Jones should have vacated and fought Stipe for the Big Boy BMF belt instead? We made a BMF belt for much less. Why didn't they just create one for the Jones vs Stipe fight and let the division move on.

I thought they should have made a "Legacy" belt for Stipe vs Jon but they didn't and if you read between the lines the answer as to Why is simple.

Jon Jones. That is the reason Why. He did not want any other fight then Stipe and he didn't want any fight that wasn't for the "Undisputed" HW title. Just like Jon only showed up at HW when he had a perfect style match up gifted to him so he could "Win" the title without having ever fought an actual HW champion. He could have fought Stipe 6 months after vacating the LHW belt but he didn't. Stipe was 233 lbs against DC in 2020. Jon weighed 222 lbs at LHW against Gus in 2018. 11 lb difference and Jon took 3 years to bulk up to be a HW and yet he still was 11 lbs lighter then Stipe. But he needed Stipe to be older and 3 years retired in order to be confident enough to face him. Hell Jon could have challenged DC for the HW title since he faced him twice at LHW but was afraid to "Give DC that weight advantage".

Jon is happy not fighting unless it is 100% under his own terms. I personally think it would add to Jon's Legacy to fight Tom, win or lose, rather than Duck him and retire or fight Alex Pereira but he is so afraid to lose he simply won't do it. The UFC needs to set a firm timeline for this fight to happen but it is their own fault for letting the Tail wag the Dog in this instance. I wish they would set this for the Int'l fight week but I suppose Jon will try to string them along to see if they can get him for the November NYC fight card. If Jon doesn't agree to a fight by the end of July they need to strip him and make an Undisputed HW title fight for Tom so he can move on. Keep Jon iced by offering him a fight with Tom in perpetuity.

 

[markg171]

Or, dumbass...maybe we'd like to you know, actually get some sort of indication if Jones plans to unify or not. Some of us actually like seeing the best fighters fight each other. So ideally Jones would say he does in fact want to fight Tom. But if he decides he doesn't, then at least we can figure out who Tom WILL fight next for the belt.

It's not that difficult.

Tom doesn't need an interim title for Jones to defend against him though. There's no such thing as an interim unification bout, it's just marketing. Only the actual belt is on the line. Whether Tom has it or not is completely irrelevant to the title as it disappears the moment the fight starts anyways.

Thereby proving my entire point that none of you want to address the elephant in the room that Tom's interim belt isn't actually warranted any longer. You all want it's continued existence for completely unrelated issues.

 

[dipstickjimmy]

is he even a champion at anything?
rules says the interim champ gets stripped
the moment the champ fights

There isn't any rule that says that is what happens and in fact there is precedent that indicates the opposite.
Go look up the history of the HW lineage when Randy sat out and an interim was created. Big Nog beat Big Timmy for the Interim, Frank Mir vs Big Nog was booked for the title which would be threatened to be promoted to "Undisputed" and Randy was lured back to defend the title against Brock. This happened at UFC 91 and Nog vs Mir at UFC 92. It was then unified. In your scenario Nog would have simply have been stripped and that did not happen so your "Rule" clearly doesn't exist.

Logic would say that the moment an Interim Champion is crowned the "Undisputed" title is in dispute. An Interim title has to be the next opponent when a "Undisputed" champion returns. The Randy, Brock, Nog, Mir saga was a little different in that the fights took place 6 weeks apart and the second one was booked before the firts. Tom was crowned Interim Champion in Nov 2023. Jon was out for a whole year so rebooking the Stipe was while there was an Interim was actually against the "Rules" since Tom was ready, willing and able to be his opponent. If they wanted an Interim Champion and wanted it to be Stipe they should have booked him in the Interim fight but they didn't. Because Jon only wanted to fight Stipe and he only wanted it to be for the "Undisputed" title which was 100% in dispute the second an Interim Champion was crowned. Jon's title is a paper belt.

 

[NovaJon93]

Ideally, Jones vacates ASAP if he has no real intention of fighting Tom. In the meantime, holding the interim title and, worst case, having to defend it again will still bode the same for his legacy.

When counting title wins, it always seems like interim title fights are usually regarded without asterisks for dominant champs. GSP's interim title win over Hughes is often counted toward his 13 title wins, Jones' interim title win over OSP toward his 16 title wins, and the same for Izzy and his interim title win over Gastelum toward his 8 overall.

As long as Tom can keep winning and racking up title wins long after Jon is retired, he'll still receive all the credit for his title accolades during this time. Stipe and Randy still hold the HW title win record at 6, but I'd like to think Tom is only 4 away from tying that, interim or not.