The modern era of the UFC has seen a rise in the number of "money-fights" and "super-fights", as the promotion works to put together bouts that will garner the most attention. This practice has led to many hardcore fans and critics becoming disillusioned with the competitive aspect of the sport, as many fighters are given opportunities they may not have earned on merit alone.

In a sport where late injuries and botched weight cuts can cause a fight to be scrapped as late as the day of the event, many fighters are given the opportunity to step up on short notice and fight for a title. This is an inevitable part of this sport. However, the UFC has been criticized in the past for deviating from this system too much to book fights that will generate the most income, instead of booking what makes sense from a sporting standpoint. This damages the reputation and legitimacy of the sport as a whole, as the UFC are by far the largest MMA promotion in the world. With this in mind, has the legitimacy of the UFC titles been damaged? How, and in what way? These are some examples of the complaints that have been made against the promotion in the last three years:

The Interim Titles

Interim titles serve a purpose in combat sports. If the champion is unable to defend his or her championship for a prolonged amount of time, then an interim title is made in their absence. Upon the champion’s return, the titles will be unified and an undisputed champion shall be determined.

The UFC’s treatment of interim titles during the last number of years has been bizarre. Since the beginning of 2016 there have been six interim champions across all divisions. Only one of these interim belt holders fought the undisputed champion to unify the titles (Holloway). Two were promoted without having to face the champion (Aldo, Whittaker) and three were later stripped (Jones, Ferguson, Covington) of their belts. Interim titles serve a purpose, but the flippant way they are handled and treated by the UFC has made them almost worthless. In many cases they did not even serve to guarantee the holder the next shot at the champion. Examples of pointless and mishandled interim title fights in the last three years include:

Max Holloway vs Anthony Pettis (2016)

Three round fight bumped into a five round interim title fight due to the original light heavyweight title fight between DC and Rumble falling through.

The then undisputed champion, McGregor, was stripped and the interim champion, Aldo, was promoted to undisputed champ, allowing Pettis and Holloway to fight for the interim title

Pettis was 1-3 in his last four, and had fought in the division just once. He went on to miss weight and was not eligible to win the belt (though he lost regardless).

Colby Covington vs Rafael dos Anjos (2018)

A fight that should have been a title eliminator turned into an interim title fight even though the champion, Woodley, was due to make his return that summer (this fight took place in June).

Covington won but was not ready to fight when Woodley was and was stripped as a result, further devaluing interim titles.

There are more examples (Ferguson being stripped due to an injury suffered while doing media obligations, to name one), but it is clear that interim titles have been sufficiently devalued in the last few years.

Undeserved and Questionable Title Shots

These are some examples of fighters that were handed title opportunities despite the fact that there were clearly others who had earned the shot ahead of them (fights that were put together on short notice are not included).

Michael Bisping vs Dan Henderson (2016)

Henderson was ranked 13th at the time, with a 3-6 record in his last 9 fights.

The fight was a rematch of a bout that took place 7 years earlier at UFC 100, when Henderson knocked out Bisping in one of the most famous finishes in promotional history.

Michael Bisping vs Georges St-Pierre (2017)

This was Bisping’s second title defence, neither of them against a top contender in the division.

GSP had never fought in the division before and had not fought at all in four years.

Whittaker was interim champion (the interim title fight between Whittaker and Romero was made to keep the division moving while Bisping/GSP was being put together).

Man believed that if GSP won he would not fight Whittaker to unify the belts (they were correct).

Tyron Woodley vs Darren Till (2018)

Till was coming off a very contentious decision win over Wonderboy in a bout that 22 of 25 media outlets scored to Thompson.

Till missed weight in that fight, meaning he had missed weight in 2 of his last 4 bouts.

Besides this win over Wonderboy, his only other victory over a ranked opponent was against the 6th ranked Cowboy Cerrone, who was on a two fight skid.

There was an interim champion in Covington who was next in line for a shot at the champion.

TJ Dillashaw vs Cody Garbrandt 2 (2018)

There was little reason to make this immediate rematch as Garbrandt had no title defences and had been finished conclusively in the first fight.

There were several contenders waiting for their shot at the champion (Assunção, Rivera, Moraes).

Daniel Cormier vs Brock Lesnar (2019)

This fight may not be booked yet, but if it is made it is completely indefensible from a sporting standpoint.

Lesnar has fought once in the last seven or so years, in a fight ruled a No Contest due to a failed steroid test.

In his two fights before that (in 2010 and 2011 respectively) he was finished inside the first round.

Badly Managed Divisions

In the last few years, the UFC have handled some of the divisions very poorly, resulting in the titles losing their significance. For example:

Women’s Featherweight

A division consisting of one person: Cyborg.

Every opponent she has faced so far (Evinger, Holm, Kunitskaya), and her next opponent (Nunes) has been a career bantamweight.

The inaugural title fight did not even include Cyborg (Holm vs de Randamie).

Women’s Flyweight

The UFC put together a season of The Ultimate Fighter to determine the inaugural champion, with most of the contenders being relatively unknown prior to the competition.

Only one fighter was already signed to the UFC (Murphy).

6 fighters were relatively inexperienced and untested with 5 or less fights (Dobson, Eubanks, Gevorgyan, Montaño, Robertson, Whitmore).

The winner, Montaño, was eventually stripped of the title which will now be contested between Shevchenko and Jędrzejczyk, with the latter making her first appearance in the division in the UFC.

This is in no way a conclusive list of things that have hurt the legitimacy of the title over the last few years. These are just some examples of where the complaints are coming from, and that these complaints are not unfounded. Is this a problem going forward? Do you prefer to see the champion fight the top contenders, or do you enjoy the super-fights and sometimes erratic matchmaking currently employed by the UFC?











