When former UFC light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans defeated Quinton "Rampage" Jackson May 29, 2010, UFC President Dana White announced that Evans was next in line for a light heavyweight title shot.

A year has passed, and Evans has yet to fight for a chance at regaining his gold.
For as stacked as the UFC has become at every weight class, especially now with the acquisition of Strikeforce, the promotion is in need of official guidelines for use of interim title fights.
For a sport that has athletes who fight hard and train even harder, injuries are expected. But when title fights are pushed back months and sometimes years, so are the development of fighters and the growth of the sport.

Evans was scheduled to face Mauricio "Shogun" Rua for the title after his win over Jackson, but Rua's knee surgery set the fight back to March 2011. Subsequently, when Rua was ready to defend his title against Evans, an injury to Evans' knee forced him out of the title fight and instead, replacement Jon "Bones" Jones beat Rua for the title.

Evans was once again ready for a title fight against Jones when Jones' hand injury nixed that main event, and Jones won't be ready until late 2011 or early 2012.

A six-month UFC interim championship rule needs to be considered. If a champion cannot defend his title within six months, an interim title fight should be sought.

Interim title fights have been awarded in the recent past - such as when former heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar suffered through a serious case of diverticulitis in 2009. Shane Carwin and Frank Mir fought for the interim title in March 2010 before Lesnar returned a few months later and defended his belt against interim champ Carwin.

The interim rule will keep each weight class in a constant flow and not create overwhelmingly long lapses in top contenders' careers.

Critics may downgrade how impressive an interim champion's credentials are if they never defeated the current champion, but title versus interim title fights will create more intrigue.

The current champion will want to prove that he has the real belt, while the interim champion will feel he has something to prove.

MMA is a sport where upsets are so easily accomplished due to one punch ending the night for either competitor. If a top contender is left to fight someone else and loses while waiting for an injured champion to return, they are downgraded out of the top contender slot.

In Evans' case, he decided to wait nearly a year to get his title fight, only for injury to occur on his end. Now, the former champion will have the stigma of being a No. 1 contender for nearly two years before he receives the title fight he earned. And there's still no guarantee that it'll happen anytime soon.