Total bullshit.
Interim titles are supposed to be when they don’t know when or if the champion is returning.
And wasn’t Ngannou just bitching about the HW division being held up, now he’s doing it?
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Lmao VU
This is Dana sending a message to Francis (and Jones). They both want to sit out to fight each other, go ahead…the division is moving on with an interm title featuring Gane vs. Lewis. Now Dana has forced Francis’ hand as he’ll have to fight the winner to be undisputed champ again.
If anything this should be called a spite title instead of interm lol.
Posted 25 minutes ago:
Imagine this
Group of people paid to see who could possibly sell more via PPV sales and marketing.
Francis is dead in the water, marketability is next to nothing. Barely speaks English, personally of a wet mop.
Lewis has the potential to be a big seller, he’s active, he has a personality, he’s funny, people love him. PPV potential is 10x that of Francis.
So who do you think they rather see with the belt?
Francis was offered a fight and declined. Whether it was due to money or what, UFC didn’t want play that game and moved forward with or without him.
Having an interm creates a potential for a bigger fight and a more epic show down. They can show Lewis with the belt, put him in interviews, build up the fight. Potential for a bigger PPV is the end game here.
That all said, it’s fucked up, I like Lewis, seeing him as champ would be dope, but Francis had been only champ for 3 months. We’ve seen some champs not fight for a year after they won before this. It’s fucked up but we don’t know the whole story so
Here’s the problem with your scenario, Cyril Gane doesn’t put butts in seats. He doesn’t put on exciting fights.
That said, he has a serious skill set and surely better cardio than Black Beast. So it’s entirely possible that Gane avoids getting hit with a bomb and wins a boring 5 round decision.
That sets up Gane vs. Ngannou, which is not a hot seller at all. So there’s significant risk in this approach by the UFC.
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Does anyone get excited about interim belts? Even the winner must feel like they’re walking around with an asterisk bigger than the belt.
Derrick didn’t have to accept it but this fucking SUCKS for him. He has a much better chance of beating Francis than he did DC. Now we just get an interim title… because the champ can’t defend in a couple of months? This is like the opposite of before where it would be an entire year and nothing happened.
The only difference is the fighters matched up will get paid more so it absolutely benefits them. But as far as the “interim belt” goes, I doubt more than a few of them feel like champions.
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old school UFC fuckery
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