The (Possible) UFC HW Interim Championship Tournament

NOTE: Actual Article!

Oh what a bad day for the UFC. Almost every high level heavyweight is out simultaneously. Lesnar and Big Nog out with illnesses and Carwin for Surgery. That is every UFC top 10 HW coming off a win right now. (Note: I’m going by the USAToday Consensus Rankings, mainly because I needed a reference that went past 10 or 15). It could be worse though, imagine if this had happened to Strikeforce. Now I’ve seen the phrase “Interim Championship” thrown around A LOT today and I have to say this is a horrible idea.

Let’s look at what’s left of the UFC heavyweights right now:
Name – Current Ranking
Frank Mir - 4
Junior Dos Santos - 7
Cain Velasquez - 11
Gabriel Gonzaga - 15
Cheick Kongo - 16
Ben Rothwell - 17
Roy Nelson – 21

Having anyone in that list fight for an interim belt would just cheapen the idea of a UFC title. 6 top 20 fighters and not a single one is coming off of a top 10 victory. What I’d like to see is a 6 man tournament with what’s left.

Although market it like a real tournament as opposed to the last one. Mir – Dos Santos is already set to go. Velasquez needed a real top 10 fight to justify a title shot, but there just aren’t any left. So Velasquez-Gonzaga will have to do. Setting up (let’s just say) Mir – Velasquez. By the time we’d have a better idea of the time frame for Lesnar, Carwin and Nog.

Hopefully Lesnar would have a set return date by then, but from the tone of the news about him, its possible he’ll be down for awhile. But Carwin should have a regular surgery recovery time and Nog will most likely be ready to fight by then. Which would give us a great fight in Nog-Carwin. Carwin needs a decent win to justify that title shot anyways. And since Nog and Carwin were both hyped for title shots as it is, they can easily pull a “bye” in this little tourney.

Afterwards you have a dynamite fight between the winners of Mir-Velasquez and Nog-Carwin for either the actual UFC HW title if Lesnar is out for good or an Interim Championship (which will actually mean something as opposed to throwing it at the first marketable HW who wins a fight) which would set up the biggest HW Superfight outside of Lesnar-Fedor to unify the belts.

So basically the HW tournament should look like this (also my predictions for these fights)

Round 1
Frank Mir vs. Junior Dos Santos
Cain Velasquez vs. Gabriel Gonzaga

Round 2
Frank Mir vs. Cain Velasquez
Shane Carwin vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueria

Round 3
Frank Mir vs. Big Nog for the UFC (Interim) HW Championship

Round 4 (Possible)
Brock Lesnar vs, Big Nog for the Unified UFC HW Championship

That’s 4 or 5 Headliner level fights right there with 3 easily capable of carrying a major PPV. All being 3 rounders, this would help minimize possible injuries and time between rounds. Also would open up the possibility of terrible judging decisions, setting up big selling rematches outside of this tourney. While I doubt the UFC will take the time to crown a proper interim champion if need be, I can only hope they don’t rush it out either.