I appreciate the nuance brought but this really just makes it even clearer to me how unbelievably unlucky Tony has been. I think it's fair to say he's been the most unlucky fighter in history. The anti-ufc talk is wrong in this instance as you pointed out but the community is rightly anti-ufc for a variety of other valid reasons. This just fits that narrative. The point here isn't that the ufc screwed him. The point is that he has been unbelievably unlucky. He deserves more acclaim. He deserved to be champion. He did deserve the shot over Eddie. He did beat RDA. Then he won another 3 fights after that. The fact that he wasn't the champion was just pure unluck. That should be the emphasis of this story in my opinion.
I appreciate the nuance brought but this really just makes it even clearer to me how unbelievably unlucky Tony has been. I think it's fair to say he's been the most unlucky fighter in history. The anti-ufc talk is wrong in this instance as you pointed out but the community is rightly anti-ufc for a variety of other valid reasons. This just fits that narrative. The point here isn't that the ufc screwed him. The point is that he has been unbelievably unlucky. He deserves more acclaim. He deserved to be champion. He did deserve the shot over Eddie. He did beat RDA. Then he won another 3 fights after that. The fact that he wasn't the champion was just pure unluck. That should be the emphasis of this story in my opinion.