In MMA a Loss Doesn't Mean as Much as Boxing

The single champion thing is definitely cool but the continuous revolving door of champions does make it hard for me to treat wins and championships as any sort of permanent statement on who the best fighter is. I mean McGregor lost to Diaz in their first fight and Diaz didn't even spar for the fight. What kind of sport is this where you can walk in with no training camp and dominate the pound for pound best with little more than a chin and a modest size advantage?

 

You're pretty much on the money.

It's also worth noting that plenty of fighters from those "second tier" organisations came into The Big Show and won the UFC belt. At LW, for example, Benson Henderson and Anthony Pettis fought for the WEC title, then both came into the UFC and both rose above the UFC 155ers to win the UFC strap. Donald Cerrone was also a WEC LW and also was good enough to contend for UFC gold.

Fabricio Werdum was in Strikeforce while Cain Velasquez was UFC champ. Werdum made his way to the UFC, went on a 5-0 run against UFC fighters to earn a shot at Velasquez, then choked out Velasquez to become UFC champion.

There are other examples (both current WW champ Tyron Woodley and the man he beat for the belt, Robbie Lawler, were Strikeforce fighters).

Conor has never been the P4P best, that's most likely a Demetrious Johnson or a Jon Jones, but your point isn't entirely wasted.

On the other hand the fact it's so crazy difficult to build an impressive run of title defenses makes those who do all the more impressive.

For the most part (no sport is perfect) if you're #1 in your division you're fighting only the best of the rest in your division. For a Demetrious Johnson or a Jose Aldo or a Georges St Pierre to win 8 or 10 in a row under these circumstances, in this sport in which there are a million ways to lose, is nothing anyone genuinely interested in combat sports would sniff at.

 

Ok...

"Belts are given out by promoters"

There are no governing bodies in MMA. It's run by organisations. And when the BEST ONE, like the UFC, has the top talent, guess what happens? The best fight the best ALL THE TIME. That simply does not happen in Boxing.

You're talking about a sport which is TWENTY THREE YEARS OLD. It's still at the beginners stage.

Last I saw, Al Haymon - a promoter - was handing out belts. So, yeah...

The UFC was basically the very first legit/mainstream promotion, so that gives it just as much right as anybody.

"Easier paths to bigger draws" - Again, way off.

Even their biggest draw - Conor - has fought THE BEST at each weight. Also & Alvarez were the champs. Alvares KO'ed tHE MAN @ LW, and Aldo was the GOAT @ FW. Jon Jones has CLEARED OUT a division. What more do you want?

In MMA, The UFC IS the top organisation. So if you're the man there, then you're the man period.

And let's not talk about manipulating rankings when you've got a guy in Mayweather - basically undisputed WW Champ - fighting an unranked and undeserving guy in Berto AND avoiding mandatories. How about Canelo ducking GGG? Or everyone ducking GGG who held a title?

You're just another bitter Boxing fan who simply follows a sport where the best avoid the best, "prospects" have to have 25+ fights before they fight a live body, fighters fight for 20 years undefeated (do you know how ridiculous that sounds for a combat sport?) and you can't stand it that a different form of combat has taken over, where the best fight the best REGULARLY, there is no 3 year & 25 fight apprenticeship, and that the chance of losing is much greater because there are tons of ways to lose. Not to mention that the model is that different that you can't wrap your head around.

 

It's a sport where if you have the slightest weakness in one area and you end up meeting someone who is better in that area, you could very well lose.

Besides, you're talking about a guy (Conor) who fought TWO divisions higher than the one he started out in when he entered the UFC. His optimal weight for fighting is 155. not the 170 that he was for the Diaz fight.

Then again, let's not talk about the cyclist who took up Boxing at 21 and was THE UNIFIED CHAMP @ MW (Sergio) or the convict who took up Boxing in PRISON because he wanted to keep fit (Hopkins) or the Cricket player that fancied Boxing to lose weight and had a pro fight (Flintoff).

 

At the end of the day, it has 2 huge disadvantages.

1)The promotions ranks the fighters and award them in house belts; so there's no impartial competitive architecture to accurately gage who the best fighters are. Popular fighters routinely talk their way into fights (Chael Sonnen) instead of earning a shot with their record. And unpopular fighters (Jon Fitch) get cut because the boss doesn't like their style. The in house match making also allows the promotion to protect certain fighters by matching them against other fighters who are tailor made for their style while avoiding the biggest threats. For instance, if they don't want someone to get a title shot they could just match them against a fighter who is a bad match up for their style and protect the champion that way. There are all kinds of ways to do this when the promotion controls every aspect of the fights and rankings.

2)There is never any cross promotion. So the UFC can just claim it has the best fighters without ever having to back it up by matching it's guys vs other companies fighters (Pride, Bellator). Also, stable mates and friends often won't fight each other, or can hide in separate divisions to avoid the biggest threats (Silva, Machida).

Best not fighting the best. The fights that never happened:
Fedor Emelianenko vs. Randy Couture
Jose Aldo vs. Anthony Pettis
Chael Sonnen vs. Wanderlei Silva
Anderson Silva vs. Matt Hughes
Josh Barnett vs. Fedor Emelianenko
Condit vs Daley
Diaz vs Mayhem
Jones vs Dan Henderson
Brock Lesnar vs. JDS
JDS vs. Alistair Overeem
Anderson Silva vs GSP or Jones
Lytle vs Condit
Cro Cop vs Couture
Sakuraba vs Rickson Gracie
Tito vs Dana
Gus vs Moose
Fedor vs Lesnar
Carlos Condit vs Matt Brown

 

Why? Because Dana says so? They didn't even rank the fighters until three years ago. Guys would just pop up out of nowhere as the "next big threat," get fed a couple of bums to build them up, get humiliated by the champ, go on a losing streak, get cut, and fade into obscurity again.

This is a sport where a WCW wrestler with a 2-1 record was allowed to fight for a title, a promotion that gave us Kimbo Slice.

 

The mma argument always seems to fall back to "if the UFC says something it must be true". This is wishful thinking at best. Until MMA has the same kind of crossover between sanctioning bodies it will continue on the se "kiss the ring and get signed" system Dana white has implemented. Until that happens you are swallowing what a promoter tells you whole which should obviously feel stupid if you are being honest with yourself

 

Again, miles off.

The UFC is THE BIGGEST MMA company IN THE WORD. It IS where the best go. How don't you see this?

 

Sergio Martinez: Failed cyclist who took up Boxing in his 20's.

AJ: Drug dealer up until 2009, now a HW champion.

Hopkins: Discovered Boxing IN PRISON.

Lucas Browne: Not even a C-Level MMA'er, yet he was the HW champ or might still be.

Stop it with the silly notion that EVERY SINGLE BOXER ALIVE or past great started the sport at 5 years of age.

 

No it's not.

1) The nature of combat sports is that you can't be certain who the number one fighter in any division is most of the time. This isn't a league where everyone would fight each other twice a year like teams play each other twice a year in football. A champion could lose to a fighter fighters he beat would beat due to styles make fights or can have an off day. Also, it takes a while before people get to title shots even if everything is legit.

2) UFC has no legitimacy to hand out world titles. UFC isn't a legitimate sanctioning body of the sport, it's a private company and a promotion. They handing out titles has as much legitimacy as me personally declaring some random bum on the street "MMA champion of the world". They are NOT a sanctioning body, why is this so hard to understand for some people? Their fighters are not part of any legitimate competitive system that would be supervised by an independent body which would determine the rankings, mandatory opponents etc.

3) UFC openly protects fighters who bring money to them and give them favorable match ups while at the same time denying title shots to certain contenders like Yoel Romero who is 8-0 in the UFC. They also give title shots on short notice to people who don't deserve them just to keep the show going.

4) UFC doesn't have all the top fighters in the roster. There is no way of knowing who the real top MMA fighters are because the UFC doesn't co-promote and doesn't let their fighters fight with people from other organizations. In the past fighters from WEC, Pride and Strikeforce walked into UFC and became champs. Who's to say M-1, KSW, WSOF Bellator, Rizin etc. don't have the best fighters? In fact, Jake Shields who is basically an MMA ATG has a victory over the current 170lbs champ as well as victories over like half of the top 5 fighters in that division yet he was cut out of the UFC for being "boring". They couldn't/didn't want to sign Askren, Fedor, Minakov etc.

5) MMA is a very limited sport in terms of talent pool, most of the fighters are either from USA or Brazil. It's hard to even call fighters in the UFC athletes because they either have regular jobs or will have to have them in the future because the pay is so small. I would say they're more hobbyists than athletes. Let's face it, put the UFC roster into boxing, even if they were training nothing but boxing for 5 year or more they would still be nothing more than club fighters, all of them.

 

How can they protect their biggest stars when their biggest stars are winning TITLES?

 

Again, you only believe this because the ones ranking the fighters and handing out titles also are required to promote them and the brand itself as much as posdible. You have no other argument you just keep asking people how they don't see it. Do you honestly believe the UFC is scouting the globe for fighters who can take out McGregor? If you do you are a naive foool