Too Much Time Between Title Matches?

[IrishCanadian25]

I think that we can all agree that Pro Wrestling shows its hand when it comes to being staged just in the sheer fact that major titles are defended at least once per month, sometimes 2 or even 3 times. I get that.

In pro boxing, a champion might go a year between title defenses. It often comes down to the promoters, which means that important and relevant title fights take a back seat to money, politics, and bullshit.

In MMA - more specifically UFC - they seem to have gotten it right. It seems like only one PPV out of three goes without a title match, and the PPV's without title fights are often big ticket even still. Champions have 2 or 3 title defenses per year.

But I have to ask - with so many fighters joining the sport late (early 30's is what I consider late in MMA) and with the window of effectively so much smaller, does the UFC need to ramp up the title defense schedule to shoot for each title being defended quarterly?

In the Randy Couture / LHW Title Shot thread, jmt asks the question whether the 40-something Natural deserves a LHW Title shot after dismantling two consecutive opponents in Vera and Coleman. Many posters have pointed out that Evans, Bader, Jackson, Jardine, Griffin, 'lil Nog, etc are all involved in fights that could somehow lead to a LHW Title shot. Meanwhile, with a Rua / Machida rematch scheduled, it means that there likely won't be another LHW Title Match until December, and if Couture DOES earn a #1 contenders fight with a Bader or a Nog, it may not be until late 2010 / early 2011. The title fight would be more than a year away.

So I ask you - does UFC have the right length of time between title matches? Does this make a title match a bigger event? Or does it keep a title on a champion for too long and shorten the chances of a solid fighter getting a title match?

 

[INDYjon22]

Interesting question IC. My favorite year of MMA was 2004 and the titles during that year were being defended on every other pay per view, granted they did not have nearly as many shows and there was about a month interval between events.

I believe the UFC does have the time schedule for title fights correct, now they do get off of that schedule such as the Heavyweight division is right now, but for the most part they do a great job of getting 2 and maybe sometimes 3 titles fights in a year. Of course, I would love to see each title defended quarterly like you suggested but that would be very difficult taking into account injuries and what not.

I think the best idea is for the UFC to shoot for 2 or 3 title fights a year per champion. 2010 is already off to an interesting start seeing as both the March and April pay per views both have two title fights scheduled. That will throw off the hope of having as many title fights this year but it will draw crazy numbers. 2 to 3 title defenses a year should be what they shoot for, I would love to see a title fight every four months but I just don't think it is as possible as it once was, in fact I don't know how AA or Matt Hughes were able to fight for the belt on basically every other show.

Maybe if the champions were younger a title defense every 4 months would be more possible but every champion is in their 30's right now with the exception of GSP and many of the top contenders are around that age as well. Maybe and only maybe if the champions were younger would we be able to see more title defenses in a year, but that is just a theory.

 

[jmt225]

In the Randy Couture / LHW Title Shot thread, jmt asks the question whether the 40-something Natural deserves a LHW Title shot after dismantling two consecutive opponents in Vera and Coleman. Many posters have pointed out that Evans, Bader, Jackson, Jardine, Griffin, 'lil Nog, etc are all involved in fights that could somehow lead to a LHW Title shot. Meanwhile, with a Rua / Machida rematch scheduled, it means that there likely won't be another LHW Title Match until December, and if Couture DOES earn a #1 contenders fight with a Bader or a Nog, it may not be until late 2010 / early 2011. The title fight would be more than a year away.

I think if there are no injuries, another LHW Title match will be scheduled for August/September, rather than December.

The UFC tries its hardest to make sure they get in as many title shots a year. I mean, just look at how they invented the Interim Championship... when a fighter is taking too long to defend his title for whatever reason, in comes the Interim Title to make up for that, and we eventually get a clash of the two champions, like we will sometime in July/August when Brock Lesnar faces the winner of Frank Mir/Shane Carwin.

But to answer the question, no I don't think there is too much time between Title matches, because the UFC has done such a terrific job of making each division as important as the other. Nobody used to give a shit about Lightweights, and now it's regarded by many as the most stacked division in MMA.

The Heavyweight Division became the weakling of MMA, and people stopped caring about the division as whole, and now with the rise of Brock Lesnar, Couture's run before that, guys like Mir being better than ever, and young exciting fighters like Carwin, Cain Velasquez, and Junior dos Santos... people are more excited about the division than ever.

Now, of course... the Middleweight and Welterweight Divisions are dominated by its respective champions, but I think people don't mind dominating champions to be honest. Might as well just look at Anderson Silva and GSP's runs as Dynasties in sports.

Anyway, my main point here is that since every division is so cared about by the fans, each title fight period means a lot, and since there are 5 champions in the company.... we get at least one title shot every two months, if not more. However, if you rewind the clock back 6/7 years ago, when Tito Ortiz would take forever to defend the LHW Title, that was KILLING the UFC because Tito was the only champion fans gave a damn about. Today though, fans care and respect EVERY champion, and look forward to each title defense. So, that's ultimately why it wouldn't matter if it takes a lot of time for the winner of Machida/Shogun to defend their title, because in the meantime there will be other championships defended that people care just as much for.

 

[Via Armbar]

It's the nature of the game at this point. Fighters records are more important to them more then ever now because of the increase in talent across the board. There are more contenders then ever and second chances at titles are harder to come by. Fighters are training harder and longer now then ever, and while i wouldnt say its an oversaturation of talent, there are alot more willing and deserving contenders. Since fighters are training more rigirously, their competitors are too and that includes title holders.

The sport is more profitiable then ever and when your a champ, especially in the heavywieght companies like UFC and Strikeforce, you could be entitled to a ppv share. Such is the case with Lesnar and GSP and I believe Penn had the same in his contract now as well. While guys like Lesnar will probably keep this perk whether or not he remains champ, this is only given to some fighters while champion unless they're a proven draw. So with the title comes more income from pay per view shares, adn those numbers could be huge. Fighters aren't so willing to let that go. They up the training camp and expand it by a month or two. And along with harder training comes more injuries, which i think is one of the larger problems with booking fights without proper down time for the champ.

In the infancy of the sport, not only were fighters paid only a fraction of what they are now but there were no real regulations on the sport. The atheltic commisions have a 40 day no compete rule, whether injured or not after all sanctioned fights. That was not in effect until a couple of years ago. So fighters would fight injured or not, it didnt matter and they would fight far more frequently as there were no governing bodies to regulate this things.

Im sure everyone would like to see titles defended more frequently, but with problems like these i think theyre happening as frequently as possible while insuring a certain amount of safety and wellbeing for fighters. Not to mention there are maybe only 3 or 4 payperviews a year without a single title on the line. And if there is no title on the line, there is a contender fight, not to mention a free Fight Night live on television the week before. They might not feature the Lesnars or the Coutures, they still showcase future champs and alot of the time the best fights are on undercards.

 

[Kasey]

I think three or four times a year is a realistic proposition (depending on how the champ wins the fights). However, fighter burnout was a problem with Pride and there are several fighters who are definitely worse for the wear because of it. Wanderlei, Nog and Crocop both had some serious road mileage on them. Not to mention that guys like Henderson were often quoted as saying that they'd be given next to no notice before fights sometimes (Henderson was given two weeks to prepare for Bustamante).

A happy medium is good. However, I do remember one of Tim Sylvia's caveats in terms of his UFC departure being that he was sometimes ready to fight two weeks after his last contest (particularly the Nogueira submission) and that he was basically told to sit on the shelf. This is also so that they can't control the payrolls and keep the matchups open for each division instead of burning stuff out.

The last issue on why I think three or four is a good amount is that just because a fighter isn't fighting, it doesn't mean that he isn't tearing his body up while training. Everybody needs to rest sometime if they perform at that level, and the human body can only take so much.