CagePotato Ban: Having Your Champion Fight in Non-Title Fights

Bellator light-heavyweight champion Christian M’Pumbu lost his non-title super fight against Travis Wiuff at Bellator 55. That created an awkward situation: Wiuff had decisively beaten Bellator’s champion in a light-heavyweight fight, yet would still need to win the promotion’s tournament to earn an official title shot against the man he had just defeated.

Wait, what the f**king what?

Having your champion fight in non-title super fights was a dubious idea in the first place. Other organizations had tried it with mixed results, and Bellator 55 illustrated the worst-case scenario. There are three main reasons why.

1. Non-Title Fights Can Reduce the Stakes

The purpose of these non-title fights is to showcase how dominant the champion can be, yet they can do the opposite. As Overeem vs. Werdum demonstrated, putting an organization’s champion in a non-title fight can reduce the stakes because the champion has little to lose while the challenger has relatively little to gain.

Aside from the loss on his record, M’Pumbu remained Bellator light-heavyweight champion regardless of the outcome. Meanwhile, Wiuff’s reward was a potential future title shot — something he would still have to earn through the tournament.

2. They Can Look Like Showcase Matchups

Falaniko Vitale received a fight with Hector Lombard after beating Kalib Starnes, while Ryan Roberts entered a non-title fight with bantamweight champion Zach Makovsky carrying an 0-1 Bellator record. Lombard stopped Vitale in the third round and Makovsky submitted Roberts in the first.

If a promotion puts somebody across the cage from its champion, fans reasonably expect that opponent to be credible competition. Refusing to put the championship on the line can send the opposite message.

3. Beating the Champion Changes How Fans See the Belt

Those of us who aren’t ashamed to admit to watching some pro wrestling back in the day know the saying: to be the man, you’ve got to beat the man.

After Wiuff controlled M’Pumbu for much of their fight, Bellator was left with an uncomfortable distinction between its official champion and the fighter who had just beaten him. If a championship is supposed to identify the promotion’s best fighter in a division, a non-title loss by that champion inevitably complicates the picture.

Bellator consistently put on exciting fights, but its experiment with champions in non-title bouts created more problems than it solved. The M’Pumbu-Wiuff result was a strong example of why the concept deserved reconsideration.

— Seth Falvo