The UFC Is Debuting A New Championship Design On Saturday Night And Unfortunately It's Horrible

So, this has been in the works a while. The UFC announced they were going to change the design of all of their championship titles, across the board, and teased us with this ominous video during the broadcast of UFC 231…

Initially, my thoughts, which aligned with many mixed martial arts fans’ thoughts, were simply, “Why?”

I get that we’re entering a new era of the UFC here, on ESPN and ESPN+, but in the world of combat sports, where so many belt designs are utterly horrendous, and don’t at all represent the prestige they should…why change this fantastic design?

It’s sleek, clean, classy, fitting for the sport, and at this point, I think it’s fair to say: pretty damn legendary. That’s the title that the likes of Ronda Rousey, Conor McGregor, George St-Pierre, Brock Lesnar, Anderson Silva, Jon Jones, Daniel Cormier, and so many other super recognizable names have held. I think if you showed that, on a quick glance to non-UFC fans, even without seeing the company’s logo, they would be able to tell you the organization it belongs to. It’s perfect.

With all of that in mind, I was skeptical of this announced change, but decided I’d go into the decision with an open mind. Maybe this really would be an improvement, I thought. I mean, they certainly took their time with it, not even debuting the titles when they originally announced they would, just to make sure they reeeeaaaally got it right.

Then, I saw this:

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What in the flying fuck is that? It looks like a championship you and your buddies ordered from overseas to crown the winner of your fantasy football league this year. Or maybe a championship your local independent wrestling company uses as their midcard championship, because using a WWE replica as their heavyweight championship is more honorable than that piece of garbage. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to just be a Negative Nancy on all things UFC related recently, I really don’t, but that’s just a serious piece of shit I wouldn’t hold above my head if I knocked out Jon Jones myself.

The ONLY aspect of the title I do like is the new customization of the left side-plate, allowing for a little color representing the country the champion holding the belt is from, as well as a name/weight division engravement, but that should’ve just been added to the current title if they really wanted it that bad. This is just…putrid. I mean, YIKES.

At least Conor likes it?

Hopefully it’ll grow on me when it’s wrapped around his waist this year.

The ESPN era of the UFC is certainly off to some start.