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Hughes vs. GSP on 12/29
By Zach Arnold | November 24, 2007
According to Matt Hughes, he and St. Pierre will be fighting for an interim title.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 28 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Well then. Serra who? 🙂
The belts in the UFC are worthless. This should be a number 1 contenders match and winner (GSP) should fight Serra in April in Montreal.
What happens if GSP gets hurt and pulls out (40% chance of happening, btw)?
“The belts in the UFC are worthless. This should be a number 1 contenders match and winner (GSP) should fight Serra in April in Montreal.”
– For all we know Serra could be out until summer or longer, in which case this makes perfect sense. If you crown a contender and Serra can’t defend until then, you have a contender sitting on the sidelines doing nothing, or worse yet, never getting his shot.
Excellent. With no definite timetable on Serra’s return this is the best available option.
Props to all parties involved for making this fight happen.
I’m disappointed, because I would rather have seen them fight after having a good amount of time to train for each other. I would have preferred they put it off at least a month so St. Pierre could have a little more time to prepare. Oh well.
While interim titles may seem stupid, they do turn the fights into five-rounders. People wouldn’t be happy to see a Hughes-St. Pierre match go three round and to a questionable decision. I’d rather see a five round match anyway.
I am definitely glad it will be a 5 rounder, but the UFC belts have a terrible history.
155-nobody ever beat Pulver for the belt.
170-Nobody beat BJ for the belt.
185-Nobody beat Murilo for the belt
205-Linear title (I know there was an interim belt, but it all worked out in the end)
HW-Josh Barnett is still the UFC hw champion.
Barnett failed a steroid test, he never really was champion. Everything else on your list is correct.
I think this match is probably the best one that any of us could hope for.
I know Barnett failed the roid test, but other UFC guys have failed roids tests and come back; hell a month ago Dana said Sherk would keep the title even if CSAC upholds his roid suspension.
I know that doesn’t change the fact that his (dominating) victory over Couture was/is tainted, but it is an interesting side note.
“155-nobody ever beat Pulver for the belt.
170-Nobody beat BJ for the belt.
185-Nobody beat Murilo for the belt
205-Linear title (I know there was an interim belt, but it all worked out in the end)
HW-Josh Barnett is still the UFC hw champion.”
You shouldn’t put too much stock into having a clear linear champion. There’s always going to be something that disrupts the chain of succession. The four cases you brought up involve fighters that left the UFC for greener pastures back in the dark ages. It happens.
Being a UFC champion signifies that you are the best fighter in your respective division in the UFC at the current time. Nothing more. There’s no divine right of “champion” that ascends beyond that. Josh Barnett, Bustamante, Pulver and BJ were the best in the UFC at the time, but they left the organization and relinquished the title of “UFC champion” in doing so. Randy is the one and only UFC HW champion, Rampage is the one and only UFC LHW champion, and so on.
To nip it in the bud, interim championship titles signify that you’re the best “active” fighter, but the old champ is only inactive for a short period of time and will return later on to settle the issue and create an undisputed champion.
Yeah, if the UFC titles were the “Undisputed Worldwide MMA Titles”, there would perhaps be a bit of an issue with champs losing belts without losing fights, but these are after all UFC belts, limited to UFC-contracted fighters, a voluntary commitment from both fighter and organization. When a fighter leaves the UFC, he’s simply not to be considered a UFC-Title contender or linear UFC champion, simply because he has no ties left with the UFC from that point on. It can become an issue if it happens too often in a given weight class, but UFC has pretty much been spared from this, certainly when compared to smaller orgs and what they’re dealing with. Much thanks to exclusive contracts of course. They’re not all bad.
David,
While you do make a point, Barnett does not really qualify since he was stripped for cheating. Sylvia also got caught and was stripped.
Also, BJ has since lost (x2) at 170. He even chose to wear his old belt when facing (and losing to) GSP.
JT,
There never will be “undisputed Worldwide MMA Titles” because companies will never agree to it.
While Pro-Elite has chatted about having non-exclusive contracts, Jake Shields just signed one. Shaw is now talking about allowing anyone come to fight in his company, not having his fighters go elsewhere.
Never say never. This sport is in its infancy and as it now has reached the mainstream, it is here to stay.
In the next 100+ years, anything can happen. So while there may be no unified world title in our lifetime, I believe it will happen eventually.
As much as people refuse to believe it (ahem, 45 Huddle), UFC will not last forever as the be-all and end-all of MMA.
That makes me more excited then Hughes/Serra. UFC really did a good job with this. And with 5 weeks of training for GSP, that is a full enough schedule for him to be perfectly ready for a 5 round fight.
As for the breaks in the chain of the UFC Titles….
LW: Linear Champion is Frank Edgar, who will eventually unify with champion.
WW: Linear Champion is Matt Serra.
MW: Linear Champion is Paulo Filho
LHW: Linear Champion is Quinton Jackson
HW: Linear Champion is Fedor Emelianenko
So really, Zuffa has 4 of the 5 linear champions under contract. Eventually things will work themselves out.
And even if you look at the immediate future, we will see a unified LW champion by the middle of 2008 with Penn/Stevenson fighting Sherk. Probably see the same thing with Hughes/GSP against Serra.
And I have to laugh at you fans who say the UFC Champion is not the world champion. For all purposes to the vast majority of fans…. The UFC Title means that person is the best in the world at that weight class. You are fooling yourself if you try to think it is anything less meaningful.
Wouldn’t the LW liner champ be BJ since Pulver lost to Ludwig who BJ then beat at a K-1 event (IIRC)?
Unless that fight was at 170?
In which case, you’re absolutely right.
Correct, Penn vs. Ludwig was at around 170 lbs….. Which means Ludwig didn’t lose the linear title until Tyson Griffin….. And that fight (Ludwig/Griffin) was at 155 lbs…..
As for the Pride Linear Champions….
LW: Takanori Gomi
MW: Paulo Filho
LHW: Forrest Griffin
HW: Fedor Emelianenko
As for the title being for the linear championship, it looks like Matt Hughes was the one who requested that. Looks like he wanted the fight to be 5 rounds. To me, I don’t get all bent out of shape from Interim Titles. As long as they are created with good intentions and the title will be unified within short order. And Zuffa has a good track history of getting rid of the “Interim” status rather quickly.
Either way, we are getting the #2 & #3 Welterweights in the world fighting each other in a 5 round fight, with the winner to get a shot at Serra (if he is healthy). Not much to complain about that…..
Actually, he wasn’t stripped. He left the UFC because he wanted more money and Zuffa wouldn’t give it to him.
“And I have to laugh at you fans who say the UFC Champion is not the world champion. For all purposes to the vast majority of fans…. The UFC Title means that person is the best in the world at that weight class. You are fooling yourself if you try to think it is anything less meaningful.”
– They’re the most meaningful titles in MMA, by far. But no matter what, as long as there is more than one company in MMA, and titles are company restricted, there are and will be no “Undisputed Worldwide MMA Title-holders”. It’s not a bash on UFC or attempt to discredit their titles, it’s a simple fact of franchise-limited(Pardon my English if this term is slightly off the mark) sports. I.e. if Fighter X is UFC Champion and generally regarded as the best fighter in the world, there is no reason he should not still be generally regarded as the best fighter in the world if he signs for a different company the next day – however the title stays behind as it is after all a UFC title.
Lynch: I didn’t mean to give the impression that I think there will *be* a worldwide champion, I was just pointing out that there is no such thing today. What the future holds we simply do not know.
Titles are overrated. Sean Sherk being the champion doesn’t make his fights less of a snoozefest. Ditto for Tim Sylvia.
I’d rather see interesting match-ups than what hardcore fans perceive to be a fight that determines ‘the best in the world’ anyway.
Frank Shamrock vs. Phil Baroni had a great build-up and the fight delivered. It wasn’t for a title, and one of the competitors was caught for steriods – but who cares? It was more entertaining than 90%+ of the UFC fights in 2007.
People who understand the business of MMA know that Dana White and the UFC don’t WANT to know who the best in the world is – they want to appeal to the masses. Therefor, as long as they hold the majority of the contracts, we’ll never get to see a lot of the fights we should get to see.
Grape Knee High, it really isn’t that simple….
Barnett was suspended on 7/26/2002 by the NSAC and officially stripped on 07/30/2002 by the UFC. Of course, he had already bolted to New Japan by that time but he was officially stripped due to the NSAC finding.
mose, thanks for the clarification, I stand corrected. For some reason, I had been under the impression that even though Barnett tested positive under the NSAC, that the UFC never actually stripped him due to testing controversy.
Why didn’t they strip Sherk yet if it only took 4 days to strip Barnett? The former is a horribly boring and uncharismatic guy who couldn’t finish a chair, the latter is an incredibly marketable white US hw who is ruthlessly aggressive, finishes most of his fights, almost always puts on a good show and can cut a promo.
Just goes to show that going under Dana’s desk has its perks..
The Nevada State Athletic Commission stripped Barnett. They were also going to strip Sylvia but Sylvia voluntarily gave up the belt (if memory serves) and threw himself on the mercy of the commission.
Sherk tested positive for steroids in California, under the jurisdiction of the California State Athletic Commission.
The NSAC is very well run and official. The CSAC is a circus run by a self-absorbed megalomaniac.
The NSAC didn’t strip Barnett of the belt, they announced that he tested positive. It was the UFC that stripped him of the belt shortly thereafter. The NSAC nor any other athletic commission has no legal control over any of the UFC belts.
I think Tomer’s right. The story I’ve heard is that if Barnett hadn’t had his contract issues at the time, then he’d have sat out a while and come back with a belt or at least a fight with an interim titleholder.
Doesn’t really matter. He hasn’t come back to the organization to defend his title and won’t any time soon, so it’s a classic use it or lose it case to me, which is how titles go. I scoff at linear championships.