When the news of Sam Caplan becoming the "interim" Chief Operating Officer of WAMMA broke I reached out to CEO Dave Szady and Vice-President of Fighter & Promoter Relations Pat Miletich to find out if Caplan would remain in his current spot as Vice-President of Fighting Ranking.  I just received an e-mail back from Mr. Szady saying that Sam will indeed remain in his position of overseeing the WAMMA rankings.  The VP of Fighting Ranking position is listed on GoWAMMA.com as a non-voting administrative role.

While I will say that beyond the confusion and dishonest representation of the true feelings of the ranking board created by crowning "champions" WAMMA's rankings are fairly solid.  Still, I think one has to see some rather fundamental issues with a sanctioning body having their Chief Operating Officer overseeing the ranking committee.  It certainly lacks the transparency that they have claimed is so important with their rankings.  Especially when Pat Miletich is on ESPN talking up every non-UFC fighter as being ranked too low and giving the impression that if the company had their way the rankings would slant away from the UFC fighters.

In the interest of not confusing facts there have been interviews where Caplan has been confirmed as being compensated in his previous VP of Fighting Ranking role by WAMMA.  So his being a paid WAMMA staffer has not changed.  Still, the idea of a COO overseeing rankings which in turn are used to try to sanction (and profit from) WAMMA championship fights is a bit unsettling for me.  Far more than when Caplan's only position for the company to was oversee the rankings.

Then again, if a story didn't reek of multiple potential avenues for corruption it just wouldn't be WAMMA would it?