Recently Cain Velasquez has been only a part-time fighter who hasn't fought since October 19th of 2013. This is not just a one time occasion in which Velasquez has gone over a year without defending his belt. He first won The UFC Heavyweight Title Belt from Brock Lesnar in October of 2010 but paid a very heavy price. Some say that Velasquez has never been the same again. Opinions notwithstanding, it took him until November of 2011 until he finally felt ready to defend his not so newly won Heavyweight Title Belt for the first time. After spending 64 seconds in The Octagon with Junior Dos Santos, Velasquez left The Octagon without the belt.
Recently the UFC even created a special "interim belt" for another heavyweight fighter to defend so that the UFC fans could see heavyweight title fights once again and without penalizing Cain Velasquez by stripping him of The UFC Heavyweight Title Belt for spending the majority of his time on the UFC equivalent of Major League baseball's "injured reserve list."
It may be the UFC equivalent to the injured reserve list but it's far from the same thing. Can you imagine Major League baseball giving the "most valuable player award" to a guy who spent the entire season on the bench injured? The MVP award is the closest thing they have to declaring an individual player the heavyweight champion of Major League Baseball. Yet the UFC for some odd reason has so far refused to strip Velasquez of his title. On both occasions when he went over a year without a single title defense he was allowed to keep it and wasn't even fined or penalized in any way.
Apparently durability is not considered by The UFC as a quality that a champion must have if he wants to keep his title belt. In other major, respected sports, durability is a highly prized attribute for an athlete to have. "The Iron Horse" Lou Gehrig set a record for most consecutive games played that was so incredible that people thought it would stand forever. His streak of 2,130 consecutive games played ended in 1939 and remained unbroken until 1995 when Cal Ripken Jr. surpassed it.
Can you imagine what would happen in football if the Superbowl winners from last year had several of their most important players injured and therefore were allowed to not have to compete in the playoffs this season or The Superbowl but still be recognized as this year's still reigning Superbowl Champions? People would stop taking the sport seriously. And Dana White who claimed seven or more years ago that The UFC would overtake Football, Baseball, and Basketball and become the most popular sport in the country is shaking his head wondering why it is that the populace of the country doesn't take The UFC more seriously than it does or watch it anywhere near as much those other sports.
There are lots of reasons and it was an unrealistic goal unless it had been made as an extremely long term goal, but surely allowing a guy who has spent the equivalent of over three NFL seasons on the bench to still wear The UFC Heavyweight Title Belt isn't helping them to be taken more seriously.
Recently the UFC even created a special "interim belt" for another heavyweight fighter to defend so that the UFC fans could see heavyweight title fights once again and without penalizing Cain Velasquez by stripping him of The UFC Heavyweight Title Belt for spending the majority of his time on the UFC equivalent of Major League baseball's "injured reserve list."
It may be the UFC equivalent to the injured reserve list but it's far from the same thing. Can you imagine Major League baseball giving the "most valuable player award" to a guy who spent the entire season on the bench injured? The MVP award is the closest thing they have to declaring an individual player the heavyweight champion of Major League Baseball. Yet the UFC for some odd reason has so far refused to strip Velasquez of his title. On both occasions when he went over a year without a single title defense he was allowed to keep it and wasn't even fined or penalized in any way.
Apparently durability is not considered by The UFC as a quality that a champion must have if he wants to keep his title belt. In other major, respected sports, durability is a highly prized attribute for an athlete to have. "The Iron Horse" Lou Gehrig set a record for most consecutive games played that was so incredible that people thought it would stand forever. His streak of 2,130 consecutive games played ended in 1939 and remained unbroken until 1995 when Cal Ripken Jr. surpassed it.
Can you imagine what would happen in football if the Superbowl winners from last year had several of their most important players injured and therefore were allowed to not have to compete in the playoffs this season or The Superbowl but still be recognized as this year's still reigning Superbowl Champions? People would stop taking the sport seriously. And Dana White who claimed seven or more years ago that The UFC would overtake Football, Baseball, and Basketball and become the most popular sport in the country is shaking his head wondering why it is that the populace of the country doesn't take The UFC more seriously than it does or watch it anywhere near as much those other sports.
There are lots of reasons and it was an unrealistic goal unless it had been made as an extremely long term goal, but surely allowing a guy who has spent the equivalent of over three NFL seasons on the bench to still wear The UFC Heavyweight Title Belt isn't helping them to be taken more seriously.
