Well depends on what time that space fight was. Wasn't it even the legendary battle one where Char became the Red Comet? It would make sense by the time then that the suits move quick and agile specially the Red Comet.
While your initial assumption is correct (it depends on the specific time in the UC era), your argument doesn't quite justify the way the battle was displayed. The battle of Loum was famous for being a huge federation defeat at the hand of a new weapon. That new weapon being the Mobile Suit. It's performance was, in relation to the rest of UC, rudementary at best. The fact Char became the Red Comet was thanks to his personal skills and had very little to do with Mobile Suit performance. Everyone had the same suit. Heck the Zaku I prototype had no limiters, making it faster/more agile then the Zaku II's being used during the battle of Loum. Char outperformed everyone else, which led to him being called the Red Comet. There's no way that a Zaku II moves like the fricking F91 in terms of agility. It's also very inconsistent with 0079 and the way the show and movies portray Mobile Suits (despite internal inconsitencies there and Sunrise not caring a single flipflop about continuity).
I kinda disagree I feel like it does deserve the Gundam name It has Gundams in it after all. Also 00 also pretty much deserved the name. If its because of only Celestial Beeing having Gundams and the rest frames and stuff then Gundam wing shouldnt have Gundam infront of it too since they mostly used Leos too.
There are various criteria you could use to describe a Gundam show. You could simply say that if there's something called a Gundam, it's a Gundam show. But then what makes it different from Code Geass for example. Would you qualify Code Geass as a Gundam show? Pretty sure you won't. Would you qualify Evangelion as a Gundam show? Again, pretty sure you won't. [Obviously I am naming other popular shows]. So then that begs the question, what makes a Gundam show a Gundam show?
The most obvious answer is: (1) Sunrise decided it should be a Gundam show. Gundam is a cashcow and a huge toy commercial on top of that. So if Sunrise says it's a Gundam show, it's a Gundam show. This is a very narrow definition of course and Sunrise had very little to do with the inception of Gundam.
So let's look at what the creator of Gundam, Yoshiyuki Tomino (with the help of Yoshikazu Yasuhiko and mech designer Kunio Okawara), intended for Gundam. (2) Gundam is supposed to be an anti-war story and occasionally has environmentalist influences. This is all related to the various cultural changes Japan went through after WWII (this has been dissected on Mechatalk and /m/ for quite some time). To be an anti-war story however, Tomino had to create a war story. The fact he treated Mecha as real weapons (possibly analogues for atombombs, much like Godzilla) was what set it apart from earlier Mech shows (often reffered to as Super Robot shows, in which the Mech is more similar to a superhero). Through this more serious approach, Tomino focussed on civilians getting caught up in a war and showing the effects it had on them. In the end
There is however an alternative presented: the newtype. The newtype is an anolgue to people actually communicating and starting to understand each other. Compassion should be used to avoid war (this is a personal interpretation). So in short: Gundam has a philosofical message (anti-war/environmentalist) and deviates from existing conventions (real-robot instead of super robot*). If you look closely at G-Reco, this is exactly what Tomino has done again.
Of course 0079 didn't play out exactly like that. But these elements are visable troughout the quadrology (0079, Zeta, ZZ, Chars' Counterattack), which I personally take as refference for what a Gundam show should be. Other Gundam shows that follow these steps (in some capacity) are 0080, 0083, F91, Victory, Unicorn, Seed, Wing, 00 and G-Reco. Iron Blooded Orphans seems to build up to something similar
Turn A changed the game a little by showing
while G-Reco
Then there's also the more superficial similarities, like having a Haro, a bunch of kids on a ship, the whole carrier aspect, catapults, beam weapons. Etc. These are minor and don't really mean much IMO.
To round up this argument. Other Mech shows have philosophical messages too, like M3, Getter Robo, Gunbuster, Gaogaigar and Evangelion. But never in the same capacity Gundam had or has IMO. This is of course debatable.
As a comparison, I think a concept like After War X and G-Gundam would've worked great without the Gundam label. Gundam Wing, Gundam 00 as well as Gundam Seed could've gone without the Gundam label, but they do utilize similar concepts as the original quadrology so in essence you could consider them Gundam shows. Gundam AGE was a badly worked out concept and it has no depth whatsoever, so this is only a Gundam show in terms of visuals for me.
I do have to point out I am big on the U.C. timeline. I enjoyed Wing (nostalgia goggles), G Gundam, After War X, Gundam 00 and the various mentioned OVAs. I did not enjoy AGE, SEED and somehow Turn-A all that much. So generally I am not so interested in seeing Alternate Universes (AU) being 'Gundam', despite some of them being very true to the story of the original quadrology once told. Whether or not Iron Blooded Orphans will be an exception will be clear after the 25 episodes it runs, but thusfar I am staying skeptical based on my Non-AU perference.
*The real robot - super robot distinction is pretty outdated these days. Just so you know 
I mean I'm still wondering how the hell they designed those Gundams if all they had was Tallgeese designs and those weren't really Gundam looking either.
