In the 504 days between Oct. 2, 2011, and Saturday, there will have been exactly one UFC bantamweight title fight.

That was an interim title fight won by Renan Barao against Urijah Faber on July 21, 2012, in Calgary at UFC 149, one of the three worst cards of the Dana White Era.

Renan Barao, left, goes on the offensive against Urijah Faber. (Getty Images) Barao will, finally, put the interim belt on the line Saturday when he faces Michael "Mayday" McDonald in the main event of UFC on Fuel 7 at Wembley Arena in London.

One title fight every 504 days isn't the way to invigorate interest in one of the UFC's newest divisions.

The culprits were a pair of knee surgeries suffered by the great champion, Dominick Cruz, as well as the crutch that an interim belt provided UFC executives.

Interim championships are a blight on the professional fighting landscape. Particularly in boxing, they're frequently abused. The World Boxing Association has gone so far as to once have an interim champion for its interim champion.

The UFC hasn't been nearly as bad as the

Adrien Broner spends a considerable amount of time explaining just how good he is, and how he should already be regarded as boxing royalty. 

At a news conference Tuesday in New York to hype an HBO-televised fight Saturday in Atlantic City, N.J., against Gavin Rees, Broner was his usual outspoken, confident self with claims of being the greatest fighter ever to step into the ring – a laughable suggestion as long as boxing history includes one Walker Smith Jr., a.k.a. Sugar Ray Robinson. 

Adrien Broner looks on during a fight. (AP)Still, Broner is good; plenty good. He's one of the sport's best active fighters and has the chance to become boxing's leading man in the next 18-to-24 months.

Whether he achieves his goal to sit atop the sport's mythical pound-for-pound rankings will require a lot of things, not the least of which is a fair amount of luck.

And Adrien Broner hasn't had a lot of luck.

To be considered great, a boxer needs great opponents. They all look good in front of a mirror or when they're banging on

Michael McDonald stands at the pinnacle of his sport, a young man poised to make history. One more win and he'll become the youngest champion in UFC history by more than a year.

Michael McDonald will fight Renan Barao for the bantamweight championship on Feb. 16. (Getty Images)The life-altering opportunity arrives just six years after he says the sport "broke him," when he was a young and confused boy who was treated like an adult because of his preternatural ability to fight.

He'll meet interim champion Renan Barao for the bantamweight championship on Feb. 16 at Wembley Arena in London in the main event of UFC on Fuel 7. If McDonald beats Barao, he'll be 22 years, one month and one day old, and will take Jon Jones' record as the youngest UFC champion. Jones won the UFC light heavyweight title on March 19, 2011, when he was 23 years, eight months and one day old.

McDonald turned professional in 2007, a few months shy of his 17th birthday at an awkward period in his life. He'd beaten all of the amateur opponents there were to beat near his Modesto, Calif., home and was

(Updated with quotes from Reuter via telephone at 6:38 p.m. ET on Feb. 8, 2013)

Collin Reuter's knockout of Gerald Fike on Feb. 1 in Fairbanks, Alaska, wasn't nearly as violent as the one Uriah Hall scored on Adam Cella on Episode 3 of "The Ultimate Fighter." The Hall knockout was promoted heavily for more than a week by the UFC and FX and was definitely worth the hype.

Reuter's knockout was pretty run of the mill, particularly compared to Hall's. But Fike's fall, in which he lands on his head, may go down as the most unique fall ever after a KO.

Early in the first round, Reuter caught Fike on the head with a right hand during a bout on the Solid As A Rock Fighting Championship card. That was enough to end the bout at just 26 seconds nd get the crowd into it.

It wasn't the punch, though, that was so memorable. Instead, it was Fike's reaction. He fell backward after taking the shot. As he did, he arched his back. He thus hit the canvas first with his head. His feet were firmly on the

The seemingly straightforward process of putting together a fight between two boxers who want to fight each other in a bout the public is eager to see becomes anything but simple when the promoters involved are Golden Boy and Top Rank.

There is a chasm between the sides that is so wide that one manager who represents fighters under contract to both companies said he's never seen anything like it.

Top Rank's Nonito Donaire is one of the world's best pound-for-pound boxers. (Getty Images)Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer and president Oscar De La Hoya stand on one side of the feud. Top Rank chairman Bob Arum and president Todd duBoef are anchored on the other side.

"The hatred between them is very, very real," said the manager, who requested anonymity. "It's just not normal business competition. They hate each other with a passion."

A potential super bantamweight unification fight between Top Rank's Nonito Donaire and Golden Boy's Abner Mares is the latest casualty of this long-running feud.

Donaire manager Cameron Dunkin and Mares manager Frank Espinoza Sr.

Gunnar Nelson was placid in the days leading up to his UFC debut, even when he would have had great reason to be flipping out.

Fighting for the first time in the UFC is always a significant moment for a mixed martial artist. That alone can make the nerves raw.

Gunnar Nelson could be on the fast track to UFC glory. (Getty Images)Things, though, wouldn't be simple for Nelson. He'd have to go through a string of opponents and then watch the weight limit increase for his debut as he was making final preparations for the Sept. 29 bout on a card in Nottingham, England.

Nelson originally signed to face Pascal Krauss, but Krauss was injured and had to pull out. The UFC then tabbed Rich Attonito to replace him, but Attonito pulled out because he didn't think he'd be able to make weight on such short notice.

That led to the selection of DaMarques Johnson. The UFC agreed to switch the weight limit for the fight from the welterweight limit of 170 to 175 pounds to accommodate the fact that Johnson took the bout on short notice.

When Johnson was having

LAS VEGAS – If Macau, China, ever steals the mantle of Boxing Capital of the World from Las Vegas, it will have Zou Shiming to thank for it.

Top Rank announced the signing of the two-time Olympic gold medalist from China to a professional contract Tuesday in an elaborate ceremony at the swank Venetian Casino Hotel & Resort.

Zou Shiming greets Bob Arum, right, in Las Vegas on Wednesday. (Chris Farina/Top Rank)Zou became the first Chinese boxer to win an Olympic medal when he earned a bronze at light flyweight in 2004. He then won back-to-back gold medals in 2008 in Beijing and in 2012 in London. In addition, he's a three-time world amateur champion.

Whether he'll become a professional star remains problematic – he's a light hitter and at 31 has spent a lifetime using the vastly different amateur style – but he has the potential to change the very nature of the sport.

Standing in the lobby of the Venetian on Tuesday, watching as Zou was greeted by several hundred onlookers, Top Rank's Bob Arum could barely contain himself.

He's been obsessed with the Asian

In the immediate aftermath of arguably the most violent televised knockout in combat sports history, Uriah Hall's overriding emotion was fear.

He was fearful he may have killed Adam Cella with the spinning back kick knockout that was broadcast Tuesday on FX on Episode 3 of Season 17 of the reality series "The Ultimate Fighter."

He was fearful, at least for a moment, that the violence he had unleashed upon Cella would get him arrested.

The celebration that usually accompanies a big knockout on an episode of TUF was noticeably absent. Jaws dropped around the gym as fighters and observers feared for Cella's well-being.

Uriah Hall feared for the safety of Adam Cella after his vicious KO. (Getty Images) It was a phenomenally vicious knockout. According to a tweet by UFC president Dana White, Cella was out for four minutes, didn't sit on the stool until six minutes after the kick that landed on the side of his face and didn't get into the ambulance to go to the hospital until nine minutes later.