You can look at it from different angles when it comes to a championship bout.

1 A champ needs to show he is a champ, so he needs to be active and the more dominating fighter
2 The challenger needs to show he really wants the belt and put all his heart into it and beat the champ with a big difference..
3 Consider it as a normal fight as soon as the bell rings.

There are good points for every angle. My heart says option 3 as that also kinda includes option 1 and 2.

If you compare it to other sports like for instance football, you can face the champ but the score starts at 0-0. If you look at K-1 they add another round when it is a close call. I like that in K-1 and would not mind seeing this in MMA. In MMA a judge needs to point out a winner per round but sometimes this is just ad random imo.

Considering Penn vs. Edgar, option 1 was a no no. Penn might have had the centre but did not really do a lot. No take down attempts, not many combinations, it was mostly jab and back off. Option 2 was a no no as well. There was no big difference but he did put all his heart in it. Option 3 is a yes. Overall I think Edgar just showed more to the crowd. He tried to take down Penn and even succeeded, used leg kicks and had some good punches as well. I think those take down attempts and the fact that Penn looked more hurt than Edgar gave him the advantage in the end.

Also just saw the prelims and Madsen looked rather well. When I looked at Al Turk my first impression was that he looked like a fitter fighter but when I looked at the stats I decided to go for Madsen in stead. Glad I did.

The Blackburn fight was another story. I liked the match but not the outcome. I picked Blackburn and it really looked like he was winning. 2nd round was awesome from his side. Then he made a huge mistake by going for the take down just when the 3rd round started. He should have kept it to a stand up as he was better there and maybe do a take down in the last minute. Great elbow by Johnson though after he did a wonderful reversal on the ground.

Story started very strong and showed tremendous strength. Halfway the 2nd round however he lost most of his energy. Nick should have pressured more at that moment but Rick also did a smart defence by clinching and grabbing Nick's legs to regain energy in the last round.

One match to go and Chris, it is a forum so we like to see all opinions. It is not called ranting in that case so feel free to post as much as you like

FWIW, I'm the "beat the champ" guy. I can't believe I'm the only guy who thinks that. I'm either the oldest UFC fan (watched UFC I on tape the day after it happened), or the youngest of the old school boxing guys...but....it's not like you get it or you don't. There is logic behind the theory, which is why it's been around for 100 years and nearly every experienced fight analyst will agree with it.

When someone takes the belt, the sport should move forward. Move on to a new era. When someone scrapes or squeaks by the champ, then typically you enter an era where the belt changes hands every 4 months until a real champ comes along.

I want epic battles with epic challenges, and you can't have that without epic champions. I want guys who take the belt and, in doing so, make an announcement to the world that,"I'm the new champ, and you want this belt, you're going to have be willing to die to get it!" That's what makes a great first title defense. And the outcome of that fight determines what kind of "new champ" we've got...and on and on it goes.

If Shogun had beaten Machida, did anyone really see any long reign at the top? My guess is that Machida-Shogun 2 will be a pretty good fight...Shogun is going to come out and act like he wants to be champ, and Machida is going to have to say bullshit, I still want it. But that fight doesn't happen if Shogun takes the belt on some squeak-through round-by-round ten-point must system job.

Maybe Frankie Edgar will be champ in a couple of years and we'll all be talking about who can possibly take it from him...but I doubt it. To his credit, Edgar did a better job than Shogun at "taking the title." But I do see an era of musical belt for the next two years.....sorry but those championship fights just don't mean as much as when BJ Penn defended aginst everyone in the world. And Edgar's huge upset wouldn't have been possible without BJ being such an amazing champion.

This talk about "once the fight starts, there is no champion" is ridiculous. The champ is the guy everyone loves or hates. He written about and talked about. And he's the guy everyone paid to see tonight.

Its an interesting argument G, but one I feel holds less merit in todays age of fighters and as each day passes will hold less and less.
The reason I think this is that the sport has evolved and continues to evolve such that the gaps between the top level fighters becomes less and less. There are current exceptions, such as Anderson, but it won't always be like that, and I dont see that as a bad thing.
I look forward to an age where championship fights are not easily predictable. I look forward to an age where there are 10 top level fighters in each division who are really strong multi-disciplined mma practitioners, capable of creating exciting fights withe one another

Theres nothing to say you cant have an epic fight between champion and challenger that is still hairline close of course....those are the kind of fights I want to see - wars that go back and forth.

The bottom line though, is that if its close,, but the challenger just peformed that little bit better, scored a few more decisive strikes, maybe got a couple more takedowns, tell me why he should NOT be given the title?
I cant see a valid argument anywhere to support awarding a fight to the loser, however close the fight was, just because he is the current champ.

(Note: I actually think BJ took that fight and deserved to win - i saw it very similarly to the fightmetrics system. It was very close though, since for some reason BJ allowed it to be, by fighting Edgars fight.)