Imagine winning the UFC heavyweight championship. You are crowned king of the world’s most prestigious MMA organization. The belt has been strapped around your waist. You’re elated. All the sweat, toil, and ultimate sacrifice paid the dividends that you knew in your heart you deserved. Such was the case for Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira when he captured UFC gold in his submission victory over former UFC heavyweight champion, Tim Sylvia. Now imagine you and the entire MMA world learn the championship is no longer yours and you did absolutely nothing wrong to deserve that fate.
What did I miss? I took a day off from Sherdog in favor of some human interaction in the form of a first date at the horse races in Del Mar, CA and I return to find the MMA world turned on its head. Randy Couture has returned to the UFC following negotiations for a three fight deal and will be fighting for the heavyweight championship belt against new number one contender, Brock Lesnar? Someone pinch me, I must be having a wickedly bad dream.
Never mind what is fair; I think I need some serious strength Mylanta to digest this distasteful news. I’m not sure who I’m more upset with, the UFC or Couture. Okay, probably the UFC. They are after all always the bad guy. But Couture doesn’t appear to have the cleanest hands in the kitchen either.
The UFC has been playing legal chess with their heavyweight strap ever since Couture first attempted to flee their organization late last year. First, the UFC stated that their heavyweight title would be up for grabs in a match-up between Nogueira and former UFC heavyweight title holder, Tim Sylvia. This was an obvious attempt to show Couture that the UFC was over him. But then the UFC’s lawyers earned some of their presumably monstrous retainer fees, and realized that it made more legal sense to refer to the winner of that match-up as the “interim” heavyweight champ instead of the “official” champ. Couture’s championship status was maintained, which triggered the championship clause in one of his confusing Zuffa contracts, and effectively precluded him from fighting anywhere else while still recognized as the UFC heavyweight champ.
Fast forward beyond the epic come-from-behind and almost typical Nogueira submission victory over Sylvia. Still further past the daily expansion of the Couture v Zuffa legal files which undoubtedly stretched to redwood-like thickness. We began to return to a state of normalcy and calmness that carried a sort of silent consensual understanding that Nogueira was unofficially the UFC heavyweight champ (*note the absence of the word “interim). Couture’s antics, including his buddying up to billionaire MMA newcomer, Mark Cuban, and his consistent stance that showed him bent on fighting the best fighter on the planet, Fedor Emelianenko, at any cost and under any banner, didn’t do much in the way of refuting the unofficial recognition of Nogueira as the “official” UFC heavyweight champ.
Couture continued to bark his desire to be free of his UFC contracts, and the fans grew increasingly confident of their acceptance of Nogueira as the rightful UFC heavyweight belt holder. Then the UFC decided they wanted to continue on with their use of the Ultimate Fighter reality show to promote some of their marquee fighters and simultaneously scout and develop new talent. The UFC created TUF Season 8, Team Nogueira v Team Mir. Plenty of fans voiced their concern that the TUF show was placing yet another UFC weight division’s belt on hold. But in the UFC’s defense, their heavyweight division was not in its best shape (to be polite), and the buzz that could grow out of a TUF season was well worth the plan.
The two coaches of TUF 8, Nogueira and Frank Mir, were to coach a new cast of up-and-coming fighters and then following the TUF Season 8 Finale, the two heavyweight veterans were scheduled to square off in what would have been Nogueira’s first UFC heavyweight title defense. Things changed; drastically.
Enter the twilight zone. Presently scratched is the Nogueira v Mir title bout. That bout will almost surely still occur, but it will not be for the belt. Why? Because, Couture wanted back in the UFC and part of the deal he signed included being officially recognized as the heavyweight champion. He was tired of walking around “beneath a black cloud” (Couture’s description of the effects his legal dispute with Zuffa was causing him) and he wanted to settle up with the UFC. Following some text messages between Captain “Opportunist” and Dana White, the parties settled their legal dispute.
The results were nothing less than incredible. Couture would return to the Octagon to face an apparent former buffalo calf that grew into a monster of a man, Brock Lesnar, for the UFC heavyweight championship. Sounds pretty strange, right? I thought so. Dana White stated that the “rest of the heavyweight division would be figured out in December.” More than anything, it’s the “figured out” part that frustrates me. What is there to figure out in a sport that matches contestants mano a mano so each fighter can beat his way through the rankings? Nothing needs to be figured out. Things are already figured out. At least they should be; to any reasonable MMA fan.
Nogueira is the rightful UFC heavyweight champ. His victory over Sylvia in the midst of Couture’s patent attempts to break free of his ties to the UFC solidified him as the champ (all legal B.S. aside). Although Fabricio Werdum was likely the most deserving heavyweight candidate to face Nogueira for a crack at his belt, Mir was officially selected to take that role.
And take it, he did. Mir dived head first into an intense championship training mode at Striking Unlimited, under the tutelage of renowned MMA coach Ken Hahn, in his hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada. He became bent on re-capturing the UFC heavyweight belt that he technically never lost in the first place (Mir was stripped of his title after suffering a violent motorcycle accident that left him unable to fight for a approximately fifteen months). It seems plausible now that Mir will have to get passed Nogueira before he earns a title shot against the winner of Couture v Lesnar. That isn’t exactly unfair, but you have to feel for Mir who was so close to another title shot that he could literally smell it.
And what’s worse, it’s not outside the realm of possibilities that Lesnar beats Couture in their November-slated match-up, and Mir beats Nogueira in December, setting the stage for a Mir v Lesnar rematch. Imagine Mir having to beat a fighter that he already beat within the last year to earn the UFC heavyweight title. That’s a little bizarre. Of course, the other possible UFC heavyweight title matches include Nogueira v Lesnar, Nogueira v Couture, and Mir v Couture- all very intriguing match-ups.
The UFC’s heavyweight title picture is massively disrupted. Nogueira will likely react to the news with unparalleled class and an unwavering show of loyalty to the UFC. Nogueira is simply too easy going and professional to display public outrage to the news of Couture’s return to the UFC as the heavyweight champion. But fans of both TUF 8 heavyweight coaches, in addition to fans that simply expect high levels of integrity from the sport’s top promotion, should be very upset. What does this say about the integrity of the UFC heavyweight title picture? In the words of the UFC’s very public leader, Dana White, things will be “figured out.” I reject that miniscule explanation and sincerely hope that the UFC puts their heavyweight title picture back on the level.
I suspect that the confusion in the heavyweight division is due to the fact that the UFC and other MMA organizations do not follow a standard ranking system that allows a fighter to truly work their way up the ranks. Instead, fights are scheduled based on what the promoter’s feel will get the highest ratings. It would would be like Major League Baseball taking a spot in the Word Series away from a team that earned in order to promote a Red Sox vs. Yankees game that would get higher ratings.