5 of the most questionable interim title fights in UFC history

#4. Andrei Arlovski vs. Justin Eilers – UFC 53

Andrei Arlovski made an odd defense of his interim UFC heavyweight title at UFC 53 in 2005

One of the first times the UFC introduced an interim title was back in 2005. Reigning UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir had been sidelined following a motorcycle accident and so the promotion decided to crown an interim champion by matching Andrei Arlovski and Tim Sylvia. Arlovski duly won the fight. To be fair, it wasn’t exactly a bad thing for the UFC to have an active heavyweight champion at the time.

However, Arlovski’s first title defense was genuinely bizarre, to say the least. After failing to find him a viable opponent for the main event of UFC 53 when Ricco Rodriguez reportedly withdrew, the UFC inexplicably decided to match him against Justin Eilers.

Eilers was seen as a solid prospect at the time, but he was also coming off a somewhat embarrassing knockout loss at the hands of Paul Buentello. Given the UFC had never really put a fighter coming off a loss into a title fight before, to say the move made no sense was an understatement.

Worse still, Buentello was actually booked to compete at the event too, albeit in the opening fight against newcomer Kevin Jordan. Naturally, tthedecision instantly made fans question the whole thing even further.

In the end, Arlovski vs. Eilers proved to be just as fruitless a fight as everyone expected. ‘The Pitbull’ stopped his challenger inside the first round. He then went onto defend against Buentello just four months later. Quite why the UFC booked the fight in the first place remains a mystery over 15 years on.

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#3. Tony Ferguson vs. Kevin Lee – UFC 216

Quite how Kevin Lee was given an opportunity at the interim UFC lightweight title at UFC 216 remains a mystery

The period between 2016 and 2018 was a strange time for the UFC lightweight division. The strangest point was probably UFC 216’s interim lightweight title fight between Tony Ferguson and Kevin Lee.

It made sense for the UFC to introduce an interim title at the time. After all, champion Conor McGregor was just coming off his mega-money boxing match with Floyd Mayweather and there were all sorts of questions swirling around his future with the UFC.

It also made sense for Ferguson, who was on a nine-fight winning streak at the time, to be involved in any title fight in the division. Despite his own five-fight streak, it made very little sense for Lee to be challenging for the title. At the time, ‘The Motown Phenom’ was only ranked at No.7 by the UFC and the best opponent he’d beaten was probably Michael Chiesa.

Sure, some of the fighters ranked above him were already booked, but quite why the UFC didn’t just wait for Khabib Nurmagomedov to return for a clash with Ferguson was a real head-scratcher. After all, ‘The Eagle’ fought just two months later, beating Edson Barboza, who, in fact, was also ranked above Lee at the time and would’ve been a more viable fight for Ferguson too.

Lee actually acquitted himself well in the clash, only falling to a third round triangle choke. However, realistically, the fight never made sense from the word go and ended up being a weird stopgap when Ferguson never defended his interim title anyway.