MMA analysis: What does the interim title truly mean for Justin Gaethje?

On Sunday, January 25, Justin Gaethje claimed the interim lightweight title in one of the greatest fights of modern MMA.

It was an all-out war between the two fighters, with Gathje saying in a post-fight interview: “I went off the game plan a bit by trying to kill him as per usual.”

A true fight that displayed everything fans love about MMA and gave the lightweight division a new top dog, but what exactly is an interim champion? Sports News Blitz writer Cameron Cleugh gives his thoughts.

What is an interim championship?

The interim championship belt keeps a division active while the current undisputed champion is unable to fight.

Whether this is due to a long-term injury, legal issues or otherwise.

Then, upon the return of the undisputed champion, the interim champion will fight him as soon as possible in order to unify the two belts.

For Justin Gathje, this means fighting Ilia Touporia when he returns from his legal difficulties in order to find out who the true champion is.

Is the interim belt really meaningful?

Some people have argued that an interim championship is just a marketing gimmick for the UFC, as it holds little significance as to who is the best fighter in the world.

It’s thought of as almost a glorified No. 1-ranked position.

This is supported by the fact that Paddy Pimblett and Justin Gathje were not the number one and number two ranked fighters in the division.

If the UFC is really trying to work out who is the best in the division behind the champion, then it makes more sense to have Arman Tsarukyan fight Charles Olivera, as they were the number one and number two in the rankings.

There are also ways of unifying the belts without the two champions fightin,g take for example, Andre Arlovski was made the undisputed champion when frank mere was stripped of his title due to medical issues.

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When interim titles actually matter

In the interest of fairness, fights like these do save events and give us some of the biggest fights in the sport.

For example, one of the fights that massively boosted Conor McGregor's stock was his interim title bout against Chad Mendes.

This also applies to Tom Aspinall vs Sergei Pavlovich. Their interim title bout caused a lot of people to start taking an interest in Tom before the controversies between Aspinall and Jon Jones began.

Both Gathje and Pimblett fought tooth and nail on Saturday, January 29, and had there been nothing on the line for either of them, then it would have been a less-than-satisfactory outcome.

What comes next for Gaethje?

Of course, next up for Gathje is now ilia Topuria an absolute nightmare match up in terms of style for Gathje as he is renowned for wildly swinging and creating carnage.

This is something Topuria could easily capitalise on during the wild exchanges like in his fight against JaiHerbert.

This is not to say that Gathje is not in with a chance of winning.

Gathje had labelled as too old, and a has-been coming into this fight and proved to the fans never to count him out.

In what is most definitely a game of inches, it only takes one mistake from either fighter to lose.

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