The Naked Truth About Interim Belts

Editor’s Note: Bear with me on this one, no doubt I’ll catch heat for it!

To my mind one of the greatest tragedies in the infancy of MMA and more pertinently the reign of the Zuffa Empire, of which I’m most familiar, is the unwillingness to embrace the concept of an interim belt completely. Since the dawn of the dinosaur the concept of an interim belt has been so simple its borderline tantamount to insulting the integrity of one’s intelligence. If the reigning, defending champion and conqueror of a weight division is unable to defend his belt for an extended period of time then the no. 1 contender is allotted (earns) an interim belt in his stead, by default making him the stand in “King” while the King is on hiatus. The most classical example of said scenario is Shane Carwin stepping up at UFC 116 in the State of Nevada as interim champion, where he looks to dethrone Viking descendant and reigning UFC HW Champion of the World, Brock Lesnar. The prelude to all of this was the unfortunate and serious illness that not only threatened to champion the indomitable Lesnar but also retire him, diverticulitis. Due to his extended time away in medical care to ensure his health it was a requisite of the UFC HW division to have kingpins Frank Mir and Shane Carwin square off for interim championship bragging rights. Carwin was to triumph with thunderous shots that still echo in Frank’s skull when he lays his head to sleep. The majesty of this unfortunate scenario however is that we are now propositioned with a titanic tussle for the undisputed UFC HW gold strap involving a legitimate no. 1 contender.

That however is where my disbelief and disenchantment step on the Interim party bus and my delight steps off. Clearly, using reasonable rational that should not be made out to be the exclusive and sole occasion a champion may be unable defend his belt and in turn the sole occasion the awarding of an interim belt is justified. It’s risible that this has never been brought up before (at least not that I’m aware of any way, at time of going to press), what if the champion is to move between weight classes due to a lack of contenders and/or a wish to be an all weight division conquering bad ass mother**ker. I mean, come on people?! What’s wrong with you? Check this out, if I want to see José Aldo move down to Bantam Weight and swipe that belt too then I don’t believe I’m being unreasonable in asking for an interim champion in his stead (because we know, you know we do, that there ain’t nobody taking that strap from him). What I propose is that José moves down and wrecks some fool for 135lb gold and the right to hold two belts at the one time because he’s that good. In tandem Gamburyan faces off against say Faber for the interim belt, allowing the cultivation of a future title bout while he’s on a division conquering hiatus.

Is there anything wrong with what I have proposed? Absolutely not, you’re just jealous that you didn’t have this ingenious plan yourself (and I can’t fault you there, being honest). In short we need to utilize interim straps for exactly what they were intended for. Let’s stop f**king around people Dana Joe Silva and start giving the people what they want. I want Aldo, St. Pierre and Silva jumping weight class for meaningful fights and divisional gold, quite simply. That’s not too much to ask, it’s really just a means to an end; where the end involves awesomeness not seen since Royce Gracie was strangling fools for cash in the original blood sport. Let’s get it on.