Twitter Mailbag: On talk of more interim titles, and medical marijuana for pre-fight injuries

In this week’s Twitter Mailbag, are we seriously talking about a UFC interim lightweight title now? Really? Also, why would a former heavyweight champ go out of his way to tell us he’s hurt (and possibly high) a week before a very big rematch?

All that and more in the TMB. To ask a question of your own, tweet it to @BenFowlkesMMA.

If you’re trying to delegitimize your own championship belts, I really can’t think of a better or quicker way to do it. It would make zero sense to have Jose Aldo fight for an interim lightweight title. It undermines the actual meaning of the words “interim” and “title,” leaving only “lightweight” in tact, at least until you remember that Aldo has never fought at 155 pounds in either the UFC or the WEC.

So why do it? Why even put the possibility out there? Maybe to pressure other, actual lightweights into being more conciliatory. Maybe to make the real lightweight champ feel like he has to hurry back. Maybe out of a lack of better ideas. None would be particularly good reasons.

Yeah, that was weird, right? Cain Velasquez isn’t the type who starts talking and just can’t stop until he’s accidentally revealed his deepest secrets, so we’ve got to assume it was an intentional decision to tell us that he has an injured back that he’s been treating with medical marijuana. Now the question is, why reveal that a week before a fight with the last guy to beat you?

One possibility is that he wants to dispel the notion that he pulls out of a fight every time he’s hurt. He wants us to know that he’s hurt, but going ahead with it anyway, just so we’ll know that he’s willing to tough it out when he has to. Plus, if he should happen to lose at UFC 207, he won’t have to do the “I don’t want to make excuses but here comes an excuse” thing. A lot of fans will do it for him.

There’s also the possibility that he’s unsure how the medical marijuana use will play. Velasquez said he turned to cannabidiol, or CBD, to deal with the pain from his injury, and he plans to discontinue use when he approaches the USADA definition for “in-competition.” But he’ll also be dealing with the Nevada commission for this fight, and I wouldn’t blame him if he were feeling nervous about unexpected drug test results after weeks of use.

Maybe the thinking is that explaining his therapeutic use to the public beforehand will lay the groundwork for a defense later on, should he need it. And, I don’t know about you, but when I see a fighter explaining that he turned to a relatively harmless drug for pain management because he didn’t want to risk addiction with prescription pills, I’m nothing but sympathetic.

Two things about that: 1) Recognize that the things that make a fighter unlikable to one person might ingratiate them to someone else. Similarly, things that annoy media members (being difficult to access, giving boring interviews, etc.) are often things that most fans don’t notice or care about.

But just as importantly, 2) I think it’s way more difficult to be impartial toward the fighters you do like than the ones you don’t. The negative bias seems like an easier one to recognize and rein in. You’re more aware of it, and you don’t want to be the media member who’s holding a grudge (leave that to the promoters and the managers).

But when you get to know and like someone, it’s tough to write negative things about them, even when it’s warranted. That’s a harder bias to recognize at times, and a harder one to talk yourself out of.

I already discussed the unlikely title run of Michael Bisping, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t also give some props to the fall, rise, and rise of Conor McGregor.

He began his 2016 with the kind of loss that would have destroyed the whole aura of a lesser fighting celebrity (or maybe just send them into a Rousey-esque retreat). Then he ended it as a two-weight UFC champion. You could argue that he benefitted from getting to call his own shots, and I wouldn’t disagree, but watching him ratchet up his star power while also standing up to the UFC when necessary, that was easily one of the most compelling stories of the year.

As for a lowlight, I have to say it was Jon Jones. He’s probably the best all-around fighter in the sport, and yet 2016 saw him fight just once, with a relatively lackluster win over an opponent he easily outmatched. After that, he was pulled from his UFC 200 rematch with Daniel Cormier over his use of a contaminated sexual aid, which is just dumb enough to sum up the worst aspects of this crappy year.

It’s kind of a brilliant move by Mark Hunt. By asking for a clause in his contract that would give him all of his opponent’s purse if his opponent fails a drug test, he’s put the UFC in a position where it has to either say no to a tougher stance on drugs or else give in to a fighter who’s been aggressively unhappy with how he’s been treated.

And saying yes here is tricky. It would presumably require Hunt’s proposed opponent, Alistair Overeem, to agree to potentially fighting for free. He’s probably not going to want to do that, but then look at his history and tell me Hunt doesn’t have some cause for concern.

In fact, look at the histories of the last three fighters Hunt’s faced. They all have a history with performance-enhancing drugs, and Overeem is no different. I can’t blame Hunt if he’s feeling like he’s sick of being punched in the head by juiced-up heavyweights. And if he’s willing to forego his payment in the event of a failed test, why can’t he ask the same of his opponent?

As for whether he’ll get it, nah, probably not. Letting fighters add clauses like this to their existing contracts sets a troublesome precedent if you’re the UFC. If he wants to go to court with the UFC, that’ll probably spell the end of his fighting career. He is 42, after all, and even Hunt can’t keep eating punches forever.

Tank Abbott, obviously. Have you seen him lately? Plus he could hand out sirens and cold soldiers (along with copies of his novel “Bar Brawler” to help you get the reference) to all the good boys and girls, while the bad ones get beatdowns because they were totally “begging for it.”

The updated unified rules (explained here in great detail by referee John McCarthy) do two major things. One is to impact the rules within the fight, slightly tweaking the definition of a grounded opponent and giving referees more power to crack down on outstretched eye-pokey finger movements. The other is to streamline and clarify judging criteria from outside the cage.

They’re all good changes, in my view, but they still rely on the willingness of officials to change their approaches.

While it’s a good idea to tell referees that they can start deducting points if fighters don’t stop turning their fingers into potential eyeball skewers, we’ve seen how reluctant refs are to deduct points even for repeated violations. And while I’m all for encouraging judges to hand out more 10-8 or 10-10 rounds, as well as moving them away from an over-reliance on cage control as a judging criteria, that’s no guarantee they’ll actually do it.

Still, these rule changes should, at least in theory, make it easier to win fights as an effective counter-puncher, and give more options to fighters who find themselves on the pleasant end of the front headlock position. And if it cuts down on eye pokes, hey, that’s good for everybody.

I had a completely different response all written up prior to today’s news about Cristiane Justino’s “potential anti-doping policy violation.” In that now useless response, I acknowledged that you had a point about the stylistic match-up between Holly Holm and “Cyborg” being one of the more competitive possibilities available, but I also expressed skepticism about how Justino’s size and power would factor in. Those seem like quaint concerns now.

We don’t yet know the full story on Justino’s out-of-competition drug test, and certainly USADA has given us smoke without real fire before. Still, it doesn’t look great, either for her or for the nascent UFC women’s featherweight division.

I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt until we hear more, but let’s just say I wasn’t holding my breath for that Justino-Holm fight before, given all the potential variables standing in the way. Now it’s only feeling more hypothetical.

At this point, does it really matter whether Fedor Emelianenko wins or loses? The Bellator heavyweight class is not exactly a shark tank right now, and a lot of the most interesting fights for him are actually outside the division, with the aging misfits on the roster. My interest in a potential Fedor-Tito Ortiz or even Fedor-Chael Sonnen fight is the same whether “The Last Emperor” wins or loses. Which is to say, I will absolutely watch it while feeling weird about it.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Twitter Mailbag appears every Thursday on MMAjunkie.