By now UFC fans may be used to Interim Titles changing hands and being promoted and demoted frequently, but a report that circulated on Thursday seems hasty even by UFC standards. Welterweight contender Darren Till made waves by tweeting that Interim Welterweight Champion Colby Covington was "out" of his rumored unification bout with Tyron Woodley, and that Champion Woodley should instead accept a bout with Till. ESPN later confirmed that Covington will not be ready for the September date targeted for his fight against Woodley, and that UFC executives are in fact trying to book Till as the replacement.

Booking Till instead of Covington for the title shot would be defendable but for UFC's decision to book Covington in a fight for the Interim Title less than two months ago, when he defeated Rafael Dos Anjos on June 8th. Though both Covington and RDA were top contenders, many fans felt that Tyron Woodley was active enough that there was no need to name anyone as an Interim champion. Indeed, the fight was announced less than a year since Woodley's last title defense, and Woodley had publicly targeted a mid-late summer date for his return. Plus, Woodley is a particularly active champion, competing in four UFC title fights from July 2016 through July 2017.

With Woodley active and set to return, it seemed that UFC's motive in naming an Interim champion served no "sporting" purpose, but instead solely operated to create another "title fight" to help market a PPV. Cynical fans will not be surprised that UFC prioritizes business and promotion over pure sporting and competition, but this latest turn of events demonstrates how the UFC's liberal use of Interim Titles cheapens the value of holding a UFC title, and thereby hurts the sport.

Since 2016, UFC has named Interim Champions at Light Heavyweight, Middleweight, Welterweight, Lightweight, and Featherweight. That means that five of the eight men's weight classes have had Interim Champions within a three year period. To contrast, in the preceding three year period from 2013-2015, only two Interim Champions were named. One was Heavyweight Fabricio Werdum; a well-justified opportunity to name an Interim during Cain Velasquez's title reign, which featured many long layoffs. The other was Featherweight Conor McGregor; a controversial decision made during Jose Aldo's reign, which may have in some ways kick-started the UFC's current philosophy of throwing Interim Titles around whenever they are in a promoting pinch and need a bonus title fight on a PPV card. When Aldo pulled out of his scheduled title defense against McGregor in July 2015, Aldo had defended less than one year ago and intended to return to action within the year. It seemed though that the UFC didn't want to "waste" the massive promotional push it put behind McGregor/Aldo (including a high-profile world media tour), and so decided to ensure that it was still selling a "Conor McGregor title fight," even if that meant pulling a new title out of thin air.

An obvious problem with the idea of naming Interim Champions is that it cheapens the prestige of the Champions. In a division with an Interim Champion, being the "proper" Champion is no longer an exclusive distinction. In fact, with an Interim Champion the proper Champion can not rightfully claim to be the "undisputed" champion (though this didn't stop Bruce Buffer from announcing Michael Bisping as such while Robert Whittaker was the Interim Champion in his division). From a promoting standpoint, the idea of having a champion is that whoever the champion may be, fans should tune in to see him because he is the one guy who is best in the division. The idea that the champion instead is one of the two guys makes the championship less valuable.

But worse even than the theoretical issues with naming Interim Champions is the UFC's actual treatment of Interim reigns. At least two UFC Interim Champions were stripped of their Interim Titles without even getting the chance to fight to unify. First Tony Ferguson was stripped of his Interim Lightweight Title when injury caused him to pull out of his unifying bout (which, to further complicate matters, was against a fighter who himself was not the proper Champion). Then Jon Jones was stripped of his Interim Title when he failed the drug test for his unifying bout at UFC 200.

Meanwhile, another two Interim Champions never had a chance to fight to unify, but were instead promoted to undisputed Champions. Namely, Robert Whittaker and Jose Aldo were promoted because the proper champions in their weight classes were both woefully inactive MMA celebrities -- Georges St-Pierre and Conor McGregor, respectively. Ironically, both Whittaker and Aldo saw the UFC schedule Interim Title bouts with other contenders during their reigns. In both such fights, only one contender was even eligible to win the Interim Title, as each Interim Title fight saw one of the opponents miss weight and therefore be deemed ineligible to win a title.

That is much more confusing and harder to follow than the traditional model -- one fighter is the champion, and no one else can dispute that claim unless and until he is defeated. Now instead, there seems to be no method to the madness. To track how this looks linearly, try to follow who has the rightful claim to the Middleweight title. From 2013-2016, the Middleweight title could be tracked from Anderson Silva, to Chris Weidman, to Luke Rockhold, to Michael Bisping. Simple enough, one becomes champion by defeating the prior champion. Then from 2016-2018, Bisping was champion, but then Robert Whittaker won an Interim Title, but then Bisping defended against Georges St-Pierre instead of Whittaker, but then St-Pierre relinquished the title so Whittaker was promoted, but then Whittaker was injured so an Interim bout was made between Luke Rockhold and Yoel Romero, but Romero missed weight so he could not be named a Champion despite winning the scheduled Interim bout.

Lightweight is also particularly egregious -- current "Undisputed Champion" Khabib Nurmagomedov defeated neither the Interim Champion Tony Ferguson, nor the prior reigning Champion Conor McGregor, yet he is the man who holds the belt.

Now the UFC is reportedly set to make an even sloppier mess by stripping Colby Covington of his Interim Title less than two months after he earned it. It's enough to make a fan wonder why Covington was named Interim Champion in the first place. If the UFC is going to name and strip UFC Champions based on who is fighting on this month's PPV, instead of based on who is the best, then fans have little reason to care about the titles.

As fans wonder what a UFC Title even means anymore, or which division will next be highjacked by title-naming nonsense, your guess as to what's next is as good as mine, and maybe even as good as Dana White's.