With Cain Velasquez injured until the end of 2011 the UFC will have to put its heavyweight division on ice unless they create an Interim Championship. Will Cooling and Shawn Smith looks at what they should do next…
With UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez currently out for the better part of a year due to a rotator cuff injury, the UFC finds itself in quite a pickle once again. The organization is no stranger to interim titles, having crowned no less than three such champions in the title’s fifteen year history. Indeed one of those champions got promoted to full champion when Frank Mir was unable to return from injuries suffered in a motorcycle clash. But the past three years have really taken the biscuit when it comes to interim champions.
First there was the legal fiasco involing then-champion Randy Couture trying to break out of his contract to fight Fedor Emelianenko. While Couture was busy losing to Zuffa’s lawyers, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira defeated Tim Sylvia, to claim the interim title. He was then booked into a The Ultimate Fighter program against Frank Mir only for Couture to return. With the interim champion busy, Couture instead defened the lineal championship against former WWE superstar Brock Lesnar. Lesnar not only defeated Couture but successfully unified the two titles when he defeated Nogueira’s nemesis Frank Mir at UFC 100.
Unfortunately the unified champion was then sidelined with a career threatening bout of diverticulitis. A week before Lesnar announced his comeback with THE belt, Mir was promised a shot at a second interim championship against Shane Carwin. Carwin’s knockout victory cemented his status as number one contender but his Interim Championship was meaningless with Brock Lesnar proclaiming it a “fake belt”. Lesnar would again unify the two belts only to lose his championship Cain Velasquez. Unfortunately Velasquez injured his shoulder in winning the title and may well be out until the end of the year. Now the UFC is left with the dilemma as to whether they crown an interim champion. Shawn Smith and Will Cooling give their take on the issue:
Shawn’s Take: So does that recap of the past three years in the heavyweight division sound confusing? It was for me and I remember it pretty well.
Right now, UFC has 5 viable contenders to compete in this match: Junior dos Santos (who was to be the first challenger to Cain Velasquez’ belt), Roy Nelson, Frank Mir, Brendan Schaub and the man that Cain beat for the title: Brock Lesnar. With Mir and Nelson now clashing at UFC 130, it would appear that the best case scenario for the organization would be Lesnar-Dos Santos, a mildly ironic choice given that Lesnar wasn’t a fan of that tag being given to another man’s belt as recently as UFC 111, but I digress.
Interim titles mean little. They’re just a way to show that someone is the top contender for the belt when and if the champion is able to come back within a timely manner. If they cannot defend the belt in a certain amount of time, I am sure that their boss (in this case, the UFC) has every right to strip them of the “official” title and give that tag to the “interim” champion that they had recently crowned.
Boxing has issues like this with the number of sanctioning bodies and their “world” titles, often handing several to fighters within the same division despite not having a defense of that belt in recent months or, even, years. As it stands, Cain Velasquez is the UFC Heavyweight Champion. If he cannot defend that strap anytime soon, perhaps merely stripping the belt and proceeding with a bout that allows Junior dos Santos to fight for the title shot he earned would be best. Upon his return, Cain could be the first challenger, but not as the “UFC Champion” looking to unify the titles. It’s too much unnecessary language at a time when UFC needs to focus on growth. With the Bantamweights and Featherweights now rolled into UFC, there’s a great deal more talent to be introducing to their impressive core audience and being able to illustrate the power of their Heavyweight division when they are back and healthy.
Will’s Take: I’ve gotta disagree with Shawn. The problem with boxing is not interim titles but multiple titles. An interim title is a fairly simple concept to get over to people. There is a champion but he’s unable to fulfil his duties in the medium-term, so you get somebody in to fill their place until they are fit and ready to return. Everybody is use to dealing with such a situation in there every day life – from the school kid who has a supply teacher to the worker who has an acting manager.
The problem has been that the UFC has been negligent in promoting interim championships as something worthwhile. Back when they created the first such title the holder Randy Couture was firm in defending the worth of his belt in verbal jousts against Tito Ortiz. Mir and Carwin both failed to do the same against the barbs of Lesnar. But that doesn’t change the fact that a division shouldn’t be left without a championship for an entire year. The lack of championship puts the whole weight class in a holding pattern with contenders unable to move to the next level and actually challenge for the belt. What’s more it denies the UFC of the marketable main event and co-main events that the championship usually provides. You only have to look at the log-jam at the top of the light heavyweight division to see the damage that letting the championship take a prolonged break does.
Junior Dos Santos has already made clear that he’s not willing to wait it out like Rashad Evans has over the past year. He’s earned a title shot and so its completely unreasonable to make him fight without a championship on the line. Lesnar-Dos Santos is exactly the type of match that could regain the attention of the MMA world that is seemingly captivated with the Strikeforce Heavyweight World Grand Prix. The former champion against the man with arguably the best resume in the entire division. The UFC has a clear choice either let its glamour division fall into obscruity or create the interim championship that will justify it recieving top billing througholut the rest of 2011.
