The BMF belt is meaningless and needs to be retired

UFC 291 featured the BMF title as its crown jewel, fought over by former interim lightweight champions Justin Gaethje and Dustin Poirier in a rematch of 2018's Fight of the Year, which Gaethje lost. But at UFC 291, he avenged his previous defeat to 'The Diamond' with an emphatic second-round knockout.

In doing so, he became the promotion's latest BMF champion, replacing Jorge Masvidal, who retired in early April as, what many had assumed, the only BMF champion in UFC history. But since his departure, the promotion reinstated the title, a decision that drew significant criticism from the MMA community.

There's good reason for the backlash. The title was introduced as a one-off championship, with no competitive merit. It was poorly defined and didn't represent anything, besides a fairly nebulous concept of the 'Baddest Motherf*****.' The title has no true meaning and would be better served if it was retired in its entirety.

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Its questionable origins as a gimmick

Nate Diaz is one of MMA's biggest stars, owed in part to his historic rivalry with former UFC double champion Conor McGregor. Despite the permanent state of his popularity among the casual MMA fanbase, the Stockton cult icon has never been a threat to any of the champions in the divisions he's competed in.

His lone crack at undisputed gold came against Benson Henderson, in a bout where he was thoroughly out-grappled and even dropped by a notoriously pillow-fisted opponent. Diaz never climbed his way back into a title shot, and no one has ever confused him for one of the best fighters in the world.

From an MMA standpoint, he is less accomplished than his older brother Nick Diaz, who, at the very least, once held the Strikeforce welterweight championship. However, Nate Diaz never regarded his inability to become a world champion as stemming from his own drawbacks as a fighter or the level of his competition.

In his mind, it was because the rules favor wrestlers, which says nothing about his struggles with low kicks. His losses weren't due to his lack of evolution as a fighter, it was because everyone else refused to engage him in a 'real fight,' which he implied was one where his foes don't use lateral movement, wrestling, or low kicks.

It was his only safety net, given how often he lambasted other fighters. He even went so far as claiming that he's never been finished and that he has never truly lost a fight, neither of which is true. He further claimed that, in a 'real fight,' he'd beat anyone. So upon his return from a three-year hiatus, he faced Anthony Pettis.

After defeating the former champion, he claimed that he was defending his title. Which title was it though? The BMF title, as he proclaimed himself the 'Baddest Motherf*****' in the UFC. He then chose to defend it against Jorge Masvidal, a fighter regarded as a journeyman by some of his peers.

But what exactly constituted a BMF was never explained. The title was symbolic and the parameters by which it was defined were vague and unclear. What makes someone a BMF over someone else? Is it toughness? A willingness to fight anyone and everyone? A violent fighting style?

Nate Diaz didn't describe it properly and neither did Jorge Masvidal after winning it. The title has no true identity beyond being a platinum trinket that stands for 'Baddest Motherf*****,' which is a poorly defined concept with no set parameters. What even is a BMF and does everyone agree on one definition?

Clearly not, as Nate Diaz does not regard Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje as being worthy of the BMF title, but the UFC disagrees, as 'The Highlight' is now the reigning BMF titleholder. The closest that Diaz came to defining the title was when he claimed it was something he introduced to entertain the masses.

He said as much before later claiming that all of the UFC's champions, besides Jon Jones and Israel Adesanya, were not entertaining, thus making them ineligible (in his eyes) to be BMFs. But what is his definition of entertaining? Hardly anyone else would claim that Gaethje and Poirier, of all people, are boring fighters.

The two men are among the most exciting fighters on the entire roster. They have never had an uneventful fight and are frequently in Fight of the Night wars, where someone gets finished. The parameters are so poorly set that anyone can come up with their own definition for the title, making it meaningless.

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The BMF title is a glorified interim title

Without a proper definition by which to set it apart from the promotion's other titles, there is only one other comparison that comes to mind for the BMF title. The UFC has one primary championship for its divisions: the undisputed title. But there is another title used in the event that a reigning champion is sidelined.

That is where the interim championships come into play. If a division's resident titleholder is unavailable for a long enough period of time, usually due to injury, an interim title bout is scheduled between two top contenders to determine a provisional champion.

However, the UFC sometimes creates interim title bouts for other ends, whether it's pressuring a certain champion into defending their belt sooner than they'd hoped or a way of trying to bolster a fight card. Whatever the reasoning, an interim title has a clearly defined purpose.

Upon becoming the interim champion, a fighter must then unify the belts with the undisputed champion. In practice, this seems to be the case with the BMF title, in some respect. Jorge Masvidal became the BMF champion and was subsequently thrust into an undisputed title fight with Kamaru Usman.

This also seems to be the case with Justin Gaethje, who—besides a potential money fight with Conor McGregor—will likely face the winner of the Islam Makhachev vs. Charles Oliveira rematch at UFC 294, which will be contested for the lightweight title.

But a title that guarantees a fighter a crack at undisputed gold already exists, and that's the interim title. The only difference between it and the BMF championship is that there's no unification between them, nor does the BMF champion stop being acknowledged as such even if they lose.

However, it is also a title that is never defended and is merely symbolic. So what's the point of having a less purposeful interim title? For all of Dana White's criticisms about boxing being too focused on gimmicks, the BMF title is a gimmick. It's meaningless and would be best left retired.