Someone is leaving Mexico a happy man on Saturday night. They'll be wrapped in a shiny gold belt and serving as an exclamation point to the UFC's first-ever visit to the country, perhaps fresh off of knocking a man out cold while thousands cheer wildly.
Seems like quite the adrenaline rush. Quite the accomplishment, too.
Only there's a problem there, and it won't matter whether it's Mark Hunt or Fabricio Werdum on the right side of the ledger at UFC 180, that problem is the same: It basically doesn't matter.
Thanks for the support troop 1 love all glory to the most high http://t.co/PR6f1HflYy
— mark richard hunt (@markhunt1974) November 14, 2014
That shiny gold belt is mostly a farce. Winning it is to win a chance at some sort of wait-and-see purgatory, and even if you come out of that purgatory ahead in the long run, no one is going to care.
The days of the heavyweight champion of the world being "The Baddest Man on the Planet" are long over, and there's no sign that they're coming back Saturday. Or anytime soon after.
That issue is a tree of many roots. Since the days of Mike Tyson, no one atop the heavyweight throne in boxing has been considered particularly bad. Now he's off solving animated mysteries and most people can't even name the heavyweight champion(s) of the world, much less try to quantify their badness.
With MMA having taken over as the premier sport in which to watch behemoths wail on one another, there have been fits and starts. No one much cared in the days of Randy Couture and Pedro Rizzo, and neither had any amount of badness to them. They were largely seen as humble martial artists trying to win a title in a fledgling sport.
The Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski era was similar, save for the humility. Frank Mir had a run around there too, but no one ever got too excited about him for his badness.
Only when the UFC landed Brock Lesnar did they truly have a star worthy of such a bombastic mantle. He was the first in MMA that people felt worthy of being called "The Baddest Man on the Planet" and was probably the first in any combat sport since Tyson to have perceived credibility in the role.
Is Saturday's winner The Baddest Man on the Planet?
Then he was utterly and completely torched by Cain Velasquez, and people realized he was largely a sham. Velasquez, though? He wasn't. He was the true "Baddest Man on the Planet," and it was clear he would be for a long time.
Only he wasn't, either.
He lost his first title defense and has been so mired in injury slumps since avenging that loss that people wouldn't even remember what he looks like if he wasn't out there getting some promotional reps in.
All of this is to recap a path that's given the world UFC 180. An event originally designed to blast Velasquez into the stratosphere of global superstardom, it now has two exciting in-cage performers fighting for an interim title in a bout that most people won't care a thing about.
It's the fifth time the UFC has implemented an interim heavyweight title in the past decade. Every other weight class combined has seen only three in the same stretch, which could be coloring the heavyweight concerns as well.
The problem, however, remains. UFC 180 will mark the end of the days of "The Baddest Man on the Planet" being the man who has the heavyweight championship of the world. It will moreso mark the continuation of a time where just being able to show up healthy and fight a top guy is enough to get in the conversation.
It's a proposition that's been all too familiar to the UFC in recent years when it comes to crowning arguably their most important champion.
Unfortunately there isn't any end in sight, and Saturday is another night in a list of them that's been collecting for the better part of a decade.
