Former UFC and Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez made headlines earlier this week when, at a ONE Championship open workout, he ripped into the UFC’s habit of crowning interim champion at a more frequent pace than most fight promotions.
Alvarez called the belts a ‘sick joke’ and claimed the company uses the belts as a way to avoid giving fighters raises.
These comments come as the UFC gets ready to present a pay-per-view card featuring a pair of interim title matchups: UFC 236 on April 13 in Atlanta, which will be headlined by an interim lightweight championship fight between featherweight champion Max Holloway and Dustin Poirier, and co-featured by an interim middleweight title fight between Israel Adesanya and Kelvin Gastelum.