Cons

The tournament format

This harkens back to the PRIDE days, where Takanori Gomi could go nuh-night at the hands of a Marcus Aurelio arm triangle and still be considered the lightweight champion. These days, Joe Warren can show up and fight the exact same way every single time because he hasn't bothered to attempt improvements as a mixed martial artist. And guess what? He can even be brutally knocked out and still keep his "title"!

Even though Pat Curran finally put his title "reign" down for a mercifully permanent nap at Bellator 60, it's nothing short of laughable that Warren held a belt in a major promotion for so long. Even announcers Jimmy Smith and Sean Wheelock made no attempt to gloss this over; their call of Curran-Warren was filled with them saying things like "Joe Warren has 7 MMA victories and he's been rocked in all 7 of them!" and "This is a typical Joe Warren round; he gets rocked and somehow survives and keeps pushing forward!" Not exactly a ringing endorsement. I could go another 1,000 words on Joe Warren, but I'll spare you. The point is, the fact that you can lose in a tourney and still conceivably keep your belt is both bogus and lame. Congrats to Pat Curran.

For my full take, I refer you here.