Moving up vs Reigning as Champion

Jones may have settled on LHW but he never thoroughly cleaned it out given his failure to fight the obvious next best fighter and lineal champion during his time there.

 

I prefer reigning as champion, especially in this era. There are so many belts that one can simply choose easier styles when moving up, but reigning as champion means sooner or later you're going to see some who presents a match-up problem.

 

Well in truth, both are impressive, but for me it's really WHO you beat. For example, tho MAB is mostly well known for beating Naz , being a multi-division champ, and Pacman's springboard to fame, it's his wins over El Terrible I'll remember him the most for and for me it was really Morales, not Hamed, that should be his most significant win. You have to look at what point in their careers they fought. Alot of fanboys don't look into that, or if it was an even playing field, they just care that their fav fighter beat a future legend they don't care if he was shot or not and that's it. Reigning as champ or division hopping has no point if you're not fighting the best.

 

There were reasons for that, and it sucks it happened, but regardless of where blame lies for them not meeting & unifying, the fact remains that between them Jones and Michalzewski did effectively clean out the division.

No worthy contender was left out in the cold. Everybody who mattered fought one champ or the other.

 

Of course there were reasons for it, but that means saying one guy cleaned out a division is fallacious.