Robert Whittaker thinks the BMF belt is tacky. He’s right about the word and wrong about the fix.
The former UFC champion took his shot on his MMArcade Podcast, and MMA Junkie ran with it Wednesday. The timing is good. Charles Oliveira (37-11 MMA, 25-11 UFC) makes his first defense of the novelty strap against Diego Lopes (28-8 MMA, 7-3 UFC) in the UFC 335 main event on Dec. 12 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, so the belt is about to get two months of promo packages and close-ups.
Whittaker didn’t come in swinging wild. He opened with “Firstly, BMF title, I still don’t know,” which is about as honest as a guy gets with a microphone in front of him, then gave the thing its due before he turned on it.
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“I am happy for the fighters that it’s around because I think they get championship-level money,” he said. He called it “an extra bonus, an extra incentive to earn cash,” then admitted, “but I don’t understand it.”
And then my favorite part. He caught himself mid-thought and corrected the record on air: “Or no, I just don’t fully agree with it.”
I’ll take that over a polished talking point every day of fight week. A fighter who changes his own answer halfway through because the first version wasn’t quite true is a fighter worth listening to.
He’s right about the name
The BMF title showed up in 2019, and as MMA Junkie’s own history of the belt puts it, the whole idea was inspired by Nate Diaz. That’s the origin story. A catchphrase got a belt.
Since then it has passed through Jorge Masvidal, Justin Gaethje, Max Holloway and now Oliveira, who dominated Holloway at UFC 326 in March to take it. That’s a strong list of people to have worn anything, and none of them needed three letters on a plate to convince anybody they were dangerous.
Whittaker’s line on the branding was “even the BMF sounds tacky a little bit, you know what I mean?” Yeah, Rob. We know what you mean. Every time a ring announcer has to say the full name with a straight face, a little part of the sport dies in a Las Vegas ballroom.
He’s wrong about boxing
Here’s where I get off the bus. Whittaker’s alternative, in his words: “Secondly, why don’t we just have more titles like boxing?”
Absolutely not.
I already can’t stand interim belts, which exist mostly so a poster can call something a title fight when the actual champion is hurt, busy or negotiating. Boxing-style title stacking would take that problem and multiply it. If one fake-ish belt is tacky, a shelf of them is a pawn shop. Fans should be able to name the champion in a division without pulling out a phone, and more hardware makes that harder, never easier.
To his credit, Whittaker didn’t pretend he had it figured out. Right after floating the boxing idea he said, “I don’t know the answer to it.” Fair enough. Nobody does, apparently, including the people who made the belt.
The answer he tossed away
The best idea in the whole clip was the one he spent the least time on. “Or maybe they’re just superfights because they’re main events,” Whittaker said.
That’s it. That’s the system.
Look at UFC 335. Oliveira against Lopes headlines a card at T-Mobile Arena. It would be a main event with or without a belt. Two guys who come forward, a big room, a December date. The belt adds a walkout prop and a line on Oliveira’s record that will confuse people in 10 years.
What the belt does add, by Whittaker’s own account, is money. He said the fighters get championship-level pay out of it, and he’s happy for them. So keep that part. Book the action fighters into designated superfights, pay them like champions, put it in the contract, and skip the jewelry. The incentive Whittaker likes survives. The fake stakes he dislikes go away. Nobody has to pretend a fourth-round scramble between two lightweights decided who the baddest man on Earth is.
The UFC won’t do this, obviously. Belts move pay-per-views and look good in photos, and a promotion that has spent seven years building up three letters isn’t going to retire them because a former champ got thoughtful on a podcast.
But Whittaker landed the right punch with the wrong hand. The BMF title was a bit from the start, and stacking more belts on top of it just gives you more bits.
Oliveira and Lopes don’t care either way. On Dec. 12 they’ll get paid like it matters, and somebody’s getting that tacky belt wrapped around his waist in Las Vegas.
