I see where you are coming from and respect it ....but don't you think it makes a farce of our sport??
No. Not really. Maybe I don't take this all as seriously as a lot of people. But I probably enjoy it just as much, if not more than most people. But then again, I'm pretty indifferent. I love the sport. I don't have favorite fighters. I don't dislike any of them. So I never really have any vested interest in the fights. I'm able to enjoy them for what they are. I feel like the fans who do play favorites and haters get more emotionally invested, and when things don't go the way they want, it ruins their day. They are just disgusted. I don't have that. So most of my experiences are good ones.
In regards to this specifically making the sport a farce, I don't have some preconceived notion of what it should be or what they should do. Hell, look how popular Pride was. Their titles were almost meaningless. Champs fought non-title fights and in tournaments just as much as they defended their titles. It was a spectacle. It was a freak show. But fans loved that shit. But not with the UFC. With the UFC, everything needs to "make sense", be calculated, and all of that. My top priority is good fights. You give me that and I'm happy.
Now, I do like the usual formula. Fighter comes in, works his way up, becomes contender, fights for title, defends title, and all of that. I enjoy it. I respect it. But it isn't the end all be all. For starters, while it is a symbol of accomplishment, it doesn't really mean you are the best. It just means you were able to beat the guy who was champ on a given night under a given set of circumstances.
For example, Frank Mir beat Minotauro Nogueira for the interim HW title. Was Mir really better, or was he just better on that night? Was he just better on that night because Nogueira had a staph infection? Did he just happen to have one of the best fights of his career on the same night Nogueira wasn't 100%? We will never know. But regardless, Mir won, and Mir was the champ. So it really didn't matter. Also, parity has been proven to be true in MMA over and over again. Even when a dominant champ does come along, somebody has their number. Nobody could beat Ronda, including Miesha Tate. But Holly Holm beat her. Then, Miesha was able to beat Holm.
So I don't believe in a such thing as "best". So it does devalue the title some for me. But then again, I can still enjoy it for what it is. I like the way it is set up. I like the title system. But at the same time, when they do things like issue interim titles, give title shots guys coming off losses, or guys on the lower end of the top 10, or whatever, I don't see it as some unacceptable travesty the same way somebody who takes the titles more seriously might.
Sometimes, I think you have to overlook the titles, though. How many guys are in the LW division? How LW fights are there in a year? It's gotta be a lot. How many title fights? Sometimes, you are lucky if there is 2. 3 is a good year for a title. This idea that we should avoid some great matchups in favor of making more calculated matchups that don't disturb the title picture isn't as good to me. If you have two prospects, for example, somebody might not want them to fight because one will derail the other, and if they are kept apart, maybe one day they can both navigate their way to a title fight unscathed. More than likely, one or both will end up losing at some point to somebody else anyways. More than likely, neither will ever see a title shot. If one of them does, they will have probably lost and some point en route to their shot. But there is no guarantee. You know what is a guarantee? The fight you can make now. What's that saying again about one in the hand being worth two in the bush? Some people didn't want Rumble to fight Gustafsson. Some people didn't want Edgar to fight Mendes. Hell, some people didn't want McGregor to fight Mendes. People accused him and the UFC of keeping him away from wrestlers. But it was a lot of the fans who didn't want him to fight one because they thought it would prevent the McGregor/Aldo fight.
Make the best fights you can at the time. Strike while the iron is hot. Let the chips fall where they may. If it works out to the benefit to the established title system, good. If it doesn't sometimes, it's okay. If you have to shake it up to put on good fights, do it. No champs want to move up and fight the bigger guy. Penn is the only guy in the UFC to ever do it. When you finally have a guy willing to do that, I say why not?