Conor McGregor won the UFC featherweight title by defeating Jose Aldo December 12, 2015. He then fought Nate Diaz, twice, and welterweight, and won the lightweight title. After that, he said he was taking a break from fighting until May of 2017, and the only fights he indicated any interest in are vs. Tryron Woodley or the winner of Woodley vs. Wonderboy at welterweight, or boxing Floyd Mayweather.
So the UFC stripped him of his belt. That makes sense.
Then they moved Jose Aldo’s interim belt up to the full belt. That makes sense too. The interim belt is by definition in addition to the full belt.
Then UFC 206 desperately needed a title fight, so Max Holloway vs. Anthony Pettis became for the interim featherweight belt. That is a contrivance.
Sanctioning bodies in boxing only make money for title fights, so there are a lot of sanctioning bodies and a lot of titles and a lot of weight divisions. In its heyday, boxing had eight weight divisions, and one champion in each.
Last year boxing reporter Joaquin M. Henson pointed out there were 74 different world champions and four vacant titles with only 17 weight divisions, and that was WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO only. The IBO and WBF had their own champions. So boxing has maybe 100 world champions, maybe more. This absurdity is because calling a fight a world championship bout is the only time a sanctioning body can charge.
The UFC is now under extraordinary pressure to realize a return on a four billion dollar investment. One well-traveled path in combat sports is to make more title fights, but it has grievously hurt boxing. Every real sport has world champions. Virtually every hardcore MMA fan can name all the world champs in MMA. It is likely that not one single person on Earth can name all the world champions in boxing. So the UFC should tread lightly.
That said, if you are fighting for a UFC title, it’s awesome. Holloway appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour and discussed the shake up.
“Whole lot of s***,” said Holloway, as transcribed by Chuck Mindenhall for MMA Fighting. “It’s like domino effects, it’s crazy man. But it’s like my nickname, I’m blessed to be in this opportunity, I’m blessed to do my first main event on a pay-per-view, and my first title shot even though it’s an interim. It’s been a long time coming. So I’m just excited man. People want to see what hard work is, tune in Dec. 10 and I’m going to show you guys what hard work is.”
“Our division was in murky water because of [McGregor]. After this fight I had no idea who I’d be able to fight, because of him taking out and [Aldo] having the interim title and all this blasphemy and this malarkiness. Now it’s super-clear. The winner of this get Aldo, and the division is way more clear.”
“At the end of the day, Aldo had the chance to fight. There were rumors of us fighting at 205, and there were rumors of us fighting here at 206, but the motherf***er kept saying no, so we’ll see what happens. With all these things going on this makes it super-clear, whoever wins gets Aldo next. And everybody knows how vocal I’ve been with Aldo, so everything go good, the road is straight, and Aldo is going to be next, and they say it’s for undisputed.
“Worse comes to worse, I don’t really care. All I want to do is prove I’m the best in the world, and come Dec. 10 it’s going to be one more step towards greatness.”
“If everything go real good I’ll get my hand raised. And everybody know what I’ve been saying, [Aldo] got that disease, pussyitis, and there’s one guy that’s got the vaccine and his name’s Max Holloway. So he can come see me if he ever wants the vaccine, but if not he can do whatever the hell he wants to do. He said he wants to go play soccer or something? Good for him. But at the end of the day, if he wants to see me, he can see me.
“But first thing’s first, it’s Pettis. The guy is a former champion in the world, and he knows what it takes to this position, and I’m fully focused on him. And everything all goes good, then I’ll have some words for Aldo after the fight.”
“Maybe if everything goes good and I take care of Pettis, and we get the road to Aldo and I take care of Aldo, maybe it makes [Conor McGregor] want to come back down. I’m only turning 25 this Sunday, so there’s this thing called growing. Now I’m growing, I getting bigger.
“So if it’s at 155, it’s going to be at 155, if it’s at 170, it’ll be at 170, wherever it goes. If he wants to fight, even if he said he wants to fight heavyweight, I will go fight him. It is what it is. If he wants to fight, that’s the fight to make. It’s one of them fights a lot of people want to see, and can’t really go too far from me. I’m Polynesian, so I can get big.”
Max Holloway fights Anthony Pettis at UFC 206 on December 10, 2016, at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Also, Max Holloway for president.
