Non-Title Fights, Paper Champions, and Takanori Gomi

Marcus Aurelio has really done a number on the lightweight picture in Pride. He summarily dispatched Gomi in a non-title fight, casting a huge shadow across the belt that Gomi still wears. For his next act, Aurelio took a beating at the hands of Mitsuhiro Ishida, a relatively unheralded fighter that 'experts' who had never watched him fight in shooto gave little chance. So Aurelio simultaneously put himself in the title picture, destroyed Gomi's image as an unbeatable winning machine, and pushed Ishida into the picture too.

What a lot of confusion.

So first, the role of non-title fights. UFC doesn't have them... aside from Hughes/Riggs and Hughes/Gracie. Those were fights we as fans were happy to see, right? That's why non-title fights should exist. Sometimes a guy doesn't deserve a shot at the title, but you want to see him fight the Champ. Big Nog/Henderson is a great example here. It was a revenge match, and one of my favorite fights of all time, but it wouldn't make any sense at all if Henderson had been able to win the fight and had to defend a heavyweight title belt. Sometimes fights have a backstory like that, or Liddell-Horn II. Horn had no business trying to win the LHW title belt in the UFC, but there was a history. Sometimes it's just nice to see the champ smash someone to remind us why he's the champion. This would be Fedor/Zulu and Hughes/Riggs. Don't ask me about Franklin/Quarry because there was no reason for it to happen.

However undeserving of a title shot the challenger may be, sometimes they win. A fighter can have an off night, or they can just fall victim to the fact that at the top level of competition any mistake can lead to a loss immediately, as Gomi found out. Aurelio might not have belonged in the title picture, but he's a solid fighter and dispatched Gomi with ease once the mistake was made. The only sensible solution at this point is to give that fighter an immediate title shot rematch. That way you can't have fluke belts awarded to fighters who had a great night, only to have them lose it to a better man in their first defense, but you have an undisputed champion who's unquestionably the best in his division, like Wanderlei Silva after Wand/Arona II.

If you don't have that, you end up with a paper champion. While the term is bandied about on internet forums for any champion seen as undeserving, it is literally reserved for situations like Gomi is in, where he is no longer indisputably the champion, having lost a fight or received the belt through some other shady means. A non-title fight that has the champion losing must immediately be followed by a title-fight rematch to preserve the integrity of the belt and the status of the champion.

Where does this leave Aurelio, Gomi, and Ishida in the rankings?

To this writer, Gomi is still unquestionably number one with a bullet. His past performances have cemented that. However Joachim Hansen, and to a lesser extent Sakurai are nipping at his heels. He is beatable, but I don't expect we're going to see him taking back-to-back losses again anytime soon.

Ishida has exploded onto the international scene with his impressive wins in Pride. With his sub defense and stamina, it's only a matter of time before he earns his way to a title shot, but he needs a few more solid wins to join the elite. Azeredo is in the same position, racking up close losses to the titans of his division. Have them fight.

Aurelio? While he's earned another shot at Gomi, and needs to fight for the title, I don't expect him to emerge as a world-beater. He's huge for the division and very dangerous, but he doesn't have the stamina, wrestling, or drive to be able to force his game onto elite fighters. I expect him to have some more ups and downs in pride and then move back out of the organization and into the smaller shows. DSE doesn't maintain foreign fighters who aren't contenders, popular heros, or reliable company men.