Dana says Stipe Miocic might be stripped of title...

[Thuglife13]

Morning Report: Stipe Miocic explains delay in Daniel Cormier trilogy bout, Dana White implies an ultimatum

Morning Report: Stipe Miocic explains delay in Daniel Cormier trilogy bout, Dana White implies an ultimatum
Jed Meshew@JedKMeshew
Recently, former UFC heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier renewed calls for a trilogy fight with current champion Stipe Miocic. Miocic has been reticent to defend his title during the coronavirus pandemic and Cormier has been getting a little antsy, calling for a bout with Miocic this summer. But unfortunately for Cormier, the heavyweight champion says that is not going to happen.

“I didn’t know he was calling his shots,” Miocic told ESPN in reference to Cormier’s recent comments. “Wow, I can’t really do anything because, again, my state is shut down for another month. Who knows how long after that? They were supposed to open in May and then they said another four weeks. Every gym shut down. I literally can’t train so how am I going to take a fight? I don’t understand what he’s (talking about).

“Listen, I’ll fight him. I never said I’m ducking or leaving or running or trying to fight someone else, like he did. I just can’t train, dude. I’ll fight you. I don’t care. But let me make sure I get a full camp, dude. I’m down.”

Aside from being in the middle of a statewide lockdown, Miocic is also a full-time firefighter, an essential service during this global pandemic. Miocic has been pretty clear that right now, fighting must take a backseat to the more pressing health concerns going on, especially as those concerns severely inhibit his ability to perform at his best. Miocic says. the fall is a more likely timeline for his return and he’s not going to move that up just to satisfy Cormier’s personal timeline.

“It’s not gonna be in August, I can tell you that,” Miocic said. “More like the fall, but who knows if it comes back stronger? I’m down to fight him. I never said I wasn’t. How am I gonna sign a contract when I can’t even train? . . .

“I worked hard to get where I’m at. I’m not gonna sit there and put half my effort into it or get half my training because the dude wants to fight me in August. He just wants to fight me so he can retire. Good for him but I’m not on his schedule.”

But while Cormier’s timeline may not hold much sway over Miocic, UFC President Dana White’s certainly could. Speaking recently with Barstool Sports, White addressed the heavyweight divisions current situation with Miocic on the shelf, saying that if champions don’t want to fight right now, they might not be champions for long.

“I don’t think so,” White said about an interim heavyweight title. “We’ll see a championship fight. Listen, fights can happen right now. You either want to fight or you don’t.”

White then was asked point blank if that means a champion who doesn’t want to fight may be stripped, to which he responded, “Possibly.”

The old show business adage is that “the show must go on” and now it seems that the UFC is getting close to carrying on without their heavyweight champion.

 

[Buddeh]

Would be typical to strip an actual professional hero, during an actual crisis, of his belt because DC is being an entitled selfish cry baby.

 

[Atto]

Its just a tactic to make him fight.

 

[Sheepdog]

Would be typical to strip an actual professional hero, during an actual crisis, of his belt because DC is being an entitled selfish cry baby.

A champion who doesn't defend his belt is not a champion, regardless of what is going on outside the cage. Stipe has only fought once in just under two years. You can't pull the 'I'm only not fighting because it's a pandemic card' when you don't fight anyway.

It's fine and noble for him to be a first responder. And he is well within his rights not to want to fight for the foreseeable future, obviously. That's his choice.

But it's not his call to get to just hijack the belt while he does it if others are willing to fight for the belt.

 

[Sheepdog]

Its just a tactic to make him fight.

Well, yes and no. Dana is just trying to force his hand for now.

But he will get stripped at some stage too.

 

[Atto]

Well, yes and no. Dana is just trying to force his hand for now.

But he will get stripped at some stage too.

Stripped, If he doesn't fight and that would be right call.

 

[kneeblock]

Doesn't really matter at the end of the day what the UFC does with their paper titles. Stipe will be the real lineal Heavyweight champion until someone earns it from him.

 

[MrSandman]

Would be typical to strip an actual professional hero, during an actual crisis, of his belt because DC is being an entitled selfish cry baby.

I'd say it's more a case of Dana using Stipe as a threat to other champions who don't bend to his will than DC being entitled.

 

[Sheepdog]

Doesn't really matter at the end of the day what the UFC does with their paper titles. Stipe will be the real lineal Heavyweight champion until someone earns it from him.

Does this mean Rocky Marciano is still the boxing heavyweight champion?

 

[MondoIDIOT]

LOL

 

[kneeblock]

Does this mean Rocky Marciano is still the boxing heavyweight champion?

Lineal rules say a lineal champ can be crowned if the champ vacates the title for 3 years and over that 3 years a consensus #1 and #2 emerge and face one another to restart the lineage. That's how we sort out the clusterF that is the LW title.

 

[MondoIDIOT]

Member when stipe got knock out cold by DC who then went on to do the cheesy wwe promo .

And

After that Brock Lesnar a WWE Wrestler got in the cage and said " naganoo is a piece of shit , miocic is a piece of shit "

I member .

Must have been so embarrassing for stipe to still be in the cage at that point haha

 

[Sheepdog]

Lineal rules say a lineal champ can be crowned if the champ vacates the title for 3 years and over that 3 years a consensus #1 and #2 emerge and face one another to restart the lineage. That's how we sort out the clusterF that is the LW title.

You can't handwave 'paper belts' and then present arbitrary 'lineal rules' shit as if it means anything.

The reality is there is not a single UFC belt right now that isn't around the waist of its rightful champion, so on what basis are you calling the belts 'paper'? Stipe, Jones, Adesanya, Usman, Khabib, Volkanovski, Triple Cringe, Zhang, Shevchenko, Nunes - not a single one of these fighters is a paper champion.

It's fashionable for fans to think they are edgy by saying that 'belts mean nothing', mainly because they misunderstand the UFC's convenient legal argument with the subjective value we collectively place on the symbol. It's horseshit. In the UFC, belts still almost always represent the deserved, consensus number 1 fighter in a weight class. The belts still have tangible and subjective value, whereas nonsense rules for nonexistent linear titles do not.

And that is their function. You have to continually prove you are the best to say you are the best. It's absurd that in any given point in time, the guy holding the belt has the 'right' to hijack it for years without defending it and still call himself champion. You are the champion only as long as the UFC says you are - and that's a good thing, mostly. It's good that we place value on linearity at times, and it's good that we ignore it at others.

The entire point of the Stipe-DC rubber match is to work out who the best HW is. Stipe got knocked the fuck out in the first fight and was getting beaten in the second before a good comeback. He has as much to prove as Cormier.

 

[kneeblock]

You can't handwave 'paper belts' and then present arbitrary 'lineal rules' shit as if it means anything.

The reality is there is not a single UFC belt right now that isn't around the waist of its rightful champion, so on what basis are you calling the belts 'paper'? Stipe, Jones, Adesanya, Usman, Khabib, Volkanovski, Triple Cringe, Zhang, Shevchenko, Nunes - not a single one of these fighters is a paper champion.

It's fashionable for fans to think they are edgy by saying that 'belts mean nothing', mainly because they misunderstand the UFC's convenient legal argument with the subjective value we collectively place on the symbol. It's horseshit. In the UFC, belts still almost always represent the deserved, consensus number 1 fighter in a weight class. The belts still have tangible and subjective value, whereas nonsense rules for nonexistent linear titles do not.

And that is their function. You have to continually prove you are the best to say you are the best. It's absurd that in any given point in time, the guy holding the belt has the 'right' to hijack it for years without defending it and still call himself champion. You are the champion only as long as the UFC says you are - and that's a good thing, mostly. It's good that we place value on linearity at times, and it's good that we ignore it at others.

The entire point of the Stipe-DC rubber match is to work out who the best HW is. Stipe got knocked the fuck out in the first fight and was getting beaten in the second before a good comeback. He has as much to prove as Cormier.

I think you should maybe reread my post. The statement wasn't that their belts in general are paper, but that if they did this, it ultimately would be. I could've probably worded that more clearly, but I thought it was fairly self-evident.

I didn't make up these lineal rules arbitrarily. They've been deliberated and debated over since MMA started, and come from a long tradition of how people tried to make sense of boxing and its sanctioning rules. If you're familiar with that history, it's pretty straightforward. Corporate belts do mean nothing except they confer on the titleholder more exposure and financial opportunities. That's why deliberation over the actual historical circumstances of who beat who and how to rank them accordingly has always been part of how we understand what it means to be a champion. Sanctioning bodies comes and go. Promotions rise and fall. There have to be other methods that are tried and true and they've existed for a long time.

The point of hastening a DC-Miocic rubber match isn't to see who the "best HW is," it's to cash in on DC's popularity to sell PPVs while he's still presumably able to compete. As Stipe rightly says, if DC wasn't in his early 40s having had his foot out the door for retirement, this wouldn't be an issue. It's also well documented how they've never quite figured out how to market Stipe.

At the end of the day, even if DC gets a fight for the belt and wins it, he'll immediately retire, and there couldn't be anything more meaningless than that. No matter what, there's no passage of the lineal title except through the usual process.

 

[Robbie Hart]

If they strip Miocic, then they need to strip Conor of his shorts to make up for not stripping him of his belt

 

[Buddeh]

A champion who doesn't defend his belt is not a champion, regardless of what is going on outside the cage. Stipe has only fought once in just under two years. You can't pull the 'I'm only not fighting because it's a pandemic card' when you don't fight anyway.

It's fine and noble for him to be a first responder. And he is well within his rights not to want to fight for the foreseeable future, obviously. That's his choice.

But it's not his call to get to just hijack the belt while he does it if others are willing to fight for the belt.

He says he can't train because all gyms are closed. Should he fight unprepared and massively disadvantaged just to appease Dana's greed? He last fought 17th of August. If a full year passes without fighting for him, it will definitely be because of the pandamic.

 

[Buddeh]

I'd say it's more a case of Dana using Stipe as a threat to other champions who don't bend to his will than DC being entitled.

I'm calling DC entitled mainly because of his interview(s) with Ariel and general mentality he has had in the past regarding fighting Stipe. Dana's powerplay is a big part too. i'm sure he wants to milk the DC Stipe opportunity for as much as he can before DC actually retires. Dude has a huge hard on for promoting HW fights and especially HW title fights, and DC is his buddy. So I am sure he is on DC's entitled side.

 

[Thuglife13]

A champion who doesn't defend his belt is not a champion, regardless of what is going on outside the cage. Stipe has only fought once in just under two years. You can't pull the 'I'm only not fighting because it's a pandemic card' when you don't fight anyway.

It's fine and noble for him to be a first responder. And he is well within his rights not to want to fight for the foreseeable future, obviously. That's his choice.

But it's not his call to get to just hijack the belt while he does it if others are willing to fight for the belt.

Shish Khabib should've been stripped the second he went full-retard in the ring after beating Conor. Him not defending his belt only makes it super necessary...

 

[Rambo John J]

Be Nice