Steve Sievert’s post on MMA Junkie this morning can best be summed up in this manner: WAMMA hasn’t completed a deal with an unnamed sponsor to sell ad space on their world championship belts — belts which have zero credibility because they exclude the biggest fight promotion in the world, mind you — and somehow, this incomplete deal is going to give them credibility.
I don’t know why Sievert considered this news or even column-worthy material. He’s supposed to be a fight business analyst for one of the biggest MMA sites in the entire world, but this material comes off as nothing more than shilling for a corporate sponsor. There’s no way that WAMMA selling advertising space on its belt could be construed as a good, credible thing, and that’s even if the deal were completed. But the deal isn’t finished, so we’re left with a speculative piece about a bad business idea that hasn’t even been fully executed yet.
I was on the WAMMA rankings team for a brief period of time, but then I realized the idiocy of recognizing Shinya Aoki as the “world” lightweight champion without even giving consideration to BJ Penn. I tendered my resignation to Sam Caplan, but I think I’m still listed on the committee page. I made a conscious decision to stay out of the WAMMA debate since I’d been involved in the rankings, but Sievert’s non-story brings up a fact that can no longer by ignored: WAMMA’s championship belts are a sham.
In order to build and sustain credibility, a rankings team needs to fully recognize the scope of the MMA world, which WAMMA does not do. The UFC chooses to ignore them (because they have no reason to give them any publicity, since they’re the only game in town), so WAMMA ignores Zuffa’s champions in return. The problem with that stance is that every fight fan in North America knows who the UFC champions are, in every single weight class, but there’s probably only 1% of the UFC fanbase who could even tell you what WAMMA is or who the champions are.
Until WAMMA starts recognizing UFC champions, they’ll continue to be nothing more than a footnote in the story of mixed martial arts.
