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Download as PDF Printable version. Khabib Nurmagomedov. Mark Coleman def. Dan Severn. Maurice Smith. Randy Couture. Bas Rutten def.

Kevin Randleman. Kevin Randleman def. Pete Williams. UFC 23 Tokyo, Japan. Randy Couture 2. Josh Barnett. Ricco Rodriguez def.

Tim Sylvia. Frank Mir def. Andrei Arlovski def. Tim Sylvia for interim title. Andrei Arlovski promoted to undisputed champion.

Tim Sylvia 2. Randy Couture 3. Brock Lesnar. Shane Carwin def. Frank Mir for interim title. Cain Velasquez. Junior dos Santos. UFC on Fox: Velasquez vs.

Cain Velasquez 2. Mark Hunt for interim title. UFC Curitiba, Brazil. Daniel Cormier. Stipe Miocic 2. Frank Shamrock def. Kevin Jackson.

Tito Ortiz def. Wanderlei Silva. UFC 25 Tokyo, Japan. Randy Couture def. Chuck Liddell for interim title.

Vitor Belfort. Chuck Liddell. Quinton Jackson. Forrest Griffin. Rashad Evans. Lyoto Machida. Jon Jones. Daniel Cormier def. Anthony Johnson. Jon Jones def.

Ovince Saint Preux for interim title. Jon Jones 2 def. Alexander Gustafsson. Dominick Reyes. Dave Menne def.

Gil Castillo. Murilo Bustamante. Evan Tanner def. David Terrell. Rich Franklin. Anderson Silva. Chris Weidman.

Luke Rockhold. Michael Bisping. Robert Whittaker def. Yoel Romero for interim title. Georges St-Pierre. Robert Whittaker promoted to undisputed champion.

Israel Adesanya def. Kelvin Gastelum for interim title. UFC Melbourne, Australia. Pat Miletich def. Mikey Burnett. Carlos Newton. Matt Hughes.

Matt Hughes 2 def. Matt Serra. Georges St-Pierre def. Matt Hughes for interim title. Georges St-Pierre 2. Carlos Condit def. Nick Diaz for interim title.

Johny Hendricks def. Robbie Lawler. Tyron Woodley. Colby Covington def. Rafael dos Anjos for interim title. Jens Pulver def. Caol Uno. Sean Sherk def.

Kenny Florian. Penn def. Joe Stevenson. Frankie Edgar. Benson Henderson. UFC Saitama, Japan. Anthony Pettis. Rafael dos Anjos.

Eddie Alvarez. Conor McGregor. Tony Ferguson def. Kevin Lee for interim title. Khabib Nurmagomedov def.

Al Iaquinta. Dustin Poirier def. Max Holloway for interim title. Justin Gaethje def. Tony Ferguson for interim title. Conor McGregor def. Chad Mendes for interim title.

Frankie Edgar for interim title. Max Holloway def. Anthony Pettis for interim title. Max Holloway.

Dominick Cruz def. Scott Jorgensen. Urijah Faber for interim title. Dominick Cruz 2. Danny Roberts. David Zawada. Kenan Song. Diego Sanchez.

Court McGee. Siyar Bahadurzada. Mickey Gall. Abubakar Nurmagomedov. Jason Witt. Christian Aguilera. Jared Gooden. Matt Semelsberger. Sergey Khandozhko.

Sasha Palatnikov. Emil Meek. Ramiz Brahimaj. Gabriel Green. Carlton Minus. Louis Cosce. Rhys McKee. Niklas Stolze. Anthony Ivy.

Cole Williams. Leon Edwards. Conor McGregor. Santiago Ponzinibbio. Dong Hyun Kim. Michel Prazeres. Jesse Ronson. Chad Laprise.

Alberto Mina. Bradley Scott. Erik Koch. Luan Chagas. Uros Jurisic. Phil Rowe. Sheldon Westcott. Orion Cosce. Calen Born. Kevin Randleman eventually won the title and held it until , when Couture was offered the chance to return to the UFC to take a shot at his previous title.

Couture won by TKO in the third round to begin his second spell as heavyweight champion. Couture finally lost the title for the second time in a gruelling five-round encounter against Ricco Rodriguez at UFC 39 in Rodriguez in turn lost the title in his first defence, to Tim Sylvia, who began a rivalry with Andrei Arlovski form Belarus at the top of the heavyweight division, with neither man able to hold onto the title for more than a couple of fights.

After losing and regaining the title from Arlovski, it was announced that Sylvia would defend his belt against Couture who was returning from retirement in a bid to regain the title for the third time.

The fight took place at UFC 68 in , with Couture putting on a dominant display of both striking and wrestling. Despite his time away form the octagon, Couture won the fight by unanimous decision.

Despite losing his debut fight in , Lesnar won his next match and earned a shot at the heavyweight title.

Lesnar beat Couture via TKO in the second round and just like that, Couture had lost the belt for the third and final time.

Velasquez produced a ferocious display of striking, leading to a first round TKO and a new heavyweight champion. Velasquez was a dominant force in the division for the next five years, defending the belt three times in total as well as losing it to Junior Dos Santos in before reclaiming it.

He finally lost the title to Fabricio Werdum in , who lost it in his very next fight to Stipe Miocic. Between and , Miocic set the record for the most consecutive title defences in the heavyweight division with three, beating both Dos Santos and heavily favoured Francis Ngannou along the way.

As it sits Cormier is the most likely contender for the Heavyweight title meaning there will be a rematch style fight in our near future!

Heavyweight fighters are the biggest and strongest in the UFC. Unsurprisingly, heavy striking is the biggest weapon for most fighters in the class.

Early stoppages are common and fights which do last a long time tend to see fighters gas out quickly as the fight goes deeper. When a heavyweight fighter does get injured, it can be harder for them to regain peak fitness compared with the more resilient and wiry lighter athletes.

Just look at the history of the heavyweight title — of the sixteen different champions only one man has managed to defend the belt three times consecutively.

The second heaviest weight class in UFC, light heavyweight fighters often move up and down from the heavyweight class to compete in both.

The light heavyweight class had some great champions in the early years of the UFC, with Frank Shamrock the first man to hold the belt.

Shamrock was champion from , and was considered one of the first MMA fighters to excel in a wide variety of styles. Shamrock won the inaugural title in just 16 seconds, forcing Kevin Jackson to submit via armbar.

He successfully defended his title four times, the final time in a match against Tito Ortiz. Ortiz was perhaps the hottest prospect in MMA at the time, and had to cut weight to fight Shamrock.

After the fight, Shamrock retired from UFC and vacated the title, holding a record as light heavyweight champion. Ortiz was given another shot at the title, pitted against Wanderlei Silva for the vacant belt.

Ortiz won via unanimous decision, beginning a three-year reign as champion from This was a record for consecutive defences at the time.

Returning to defend his title after nearly a year off, Ortiz was defeated by Randy Couture. A re-match was quickly arranged, and Couture retained his title via doctor stoppage in the third round.

Liddell successfully defended his title four times between and , including in rematches against Couture and Ortiz.

He finally lost his title to Quinton Jackson in , who held onto the title for one year. In the next 2 years, the light heavyweight title changed owner no fewer than 5 times, with a competitive division which no one athlete could truly dominate.

Jones became a sensation, the biggest American star of the UFC and earned an international sponsorship deal with Nike.

A big favorite with fans, Jones utilizes devastating and physically impressive offensive moves, like spinning kicks. Despite his at times unorthodox striking, Jones is also an extremely competent wrestler and a versatile fighter.

However, soon after the fight Jones tested positive for cocaine before being arrested for an alleged hit and run incident in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Cormier submitted Johnson in the third round to become the new light heavyweight champion — the first new champion in four years.

Cormier successfully defended his belt twice, first against Alexander Gustafsson and then in a rematch against Johnson.

Meanwhile, Jones returned from suspension and defeated Ovince Saint Preux in for an interim title, before receiving a second suspension for doping violations.

Finally, he returned again to face Cormier in a grudge match for the title in at UFC After a close fight, Jones connected with a high kick to the head in the third round, leading to a TKO victory.

However, Jones again failed a doping test, testing positive for an anabolic steroid, and once again his title was stripped. Jones was faced with yet another suspension.

Meanwhile, Cormier was declared the light heavyweight champion, but opted not to defend his belt and instead moving back to the heavyweight division.

Finally, after another year of suspension, Jones returned to regain his vacant light heavyweight title again, defeating Gustafsson in a TKO.

Jones has since defended his title four times once against Gustafsson earning for himself a record for the most wins in UFC title fight history.

Heavy strikers are the order of the day in the light heavyweight class. However, when we analyze the most dominant athlete in the history of the class, Jon Jones, it is clear that a varied skill-set is still necessary to thrive in the division.

Jones has devastating power, but is also an extremely awkward fighter and capable of winning fights both via submission and points. There is also, perhaps surprisingly, room for different body shapes in the division.

Nevertheless, the fights between the two were by no means walk-overs, as Cormier found ways to affect Jones, even if he could not emerge victorious.

While bad for competitiveness, there are still prop bets available to make money from dominant athletes. For example, many sportsbooks will allow you to bet on the number of successful titles defenses over time or how a specific fight will be decided.

The middleweight division is home to Anderson Silva, holder of the longest run as a champion in any class and widely regarded as one of the best strikers of all time.

Although heavy striking is common, wrestling skills remain extremely important in the middleweight class. The middleweight title had a somewhat stilted beginning due to a high turnover of middleweight fighters in the UFC.

The first title was won by Dave Menne in , but he lost the title almost immediately to Murilo Bustamante. The Brazilian Bustamante successfully defended his title against Matt Lindland, before leaving the UFC in to sign for a competitor.

This left the middleweight title vacant for a couple of years, before wrestling specialist Evan Tanner won the vacant title at UFC 51 in Tanner defended his title against Rich Franklin in the same year.

In a back and forth fight the challenger gradually inflicted so much damage to the face of Tanner that the fight was stopped by the ringside doctor.

Silva was an up-and-coming star in UFC who was developing a reputation as a fearsome and accurate striker. That was the start of the longest reign of a champion in UFC history.

In total Silva successfully defended his belt ten times between and , leading many to consider him the greatest fighter the UFC has ever seen.

However, Silva was also a talented wrestler, successfully defending himself when opponents forced the fight to the mat and winning a number of fights via submission, as well as TKO.

In a title defense at UFC , Chris Sonnen was widely considered to be leading the fight with two minutes to go of the final round, when Silva managed to lock up an armbar and force Sonnen to submit.

In his eleventh title defense, Silva faced Chris Weidman as a big favorite. Silva again began the fight with some showboating, dropping his hands and goading Weidman.

As he attempted his customary dodging, however, Weidman connected with a left hook just as Silva was weaving his head. Silva was knocked out in possibly the most shocking moment in UFC history, and Weidman was the new middleweight champion.

Silva was given the chance to immediately regain his title at UFC In the second round, Anderson looked to connect with a low kick, which had been an effective weapon throughout both fights.

The referee immediately stopped the fight, and with two of the most dramatic victories UFC has ever seen, Weidman remained the middleweight champion.

Cody Stamann. Song Yadong. Marlon Vera. Featherweight Alexander Volkanovski. Brian Ortega. Zabit Magomedsharipov. Yair Rodriguez.

Chan Sung Jung. Calvin Kattar. Josh Emmett. Jeremy Stephens. Arnold Allen. Sodiq Yusuff. Dan Ige. Shane Burgos. Ryan Hall.

Bryce Mitchell. Edson Barboza. Lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov. Dan Hooker. Rafael Dos Anjos. Charles Oliveira.

Paul Felder. Diego Ferreira. Al Iaquinta. Kevin Lee. Beneil Dariush. Islam Makhachev. Gregor Gillespie. Drew Dober.

Welterweight Kamaru Usman. Colby Covington. Gilbert Burns. Leon Edwards. Jorge Masvidal. Stephen Thompson.

Tyron Woodley. Demian Maia. Michael Chiesa. Neil Magny. Vicente Luque. Geoff Neal. Anthony Pettis. Belal Muhammad. Robbie Lawler. Khamzat Chimaev.

Middleweight Israel Adesanya. Paulo Costa. Jared Cannonier. Darren Till. Marvin Vettori. Jack Hermansson. Derek Brunson. Kelvin Gastelum.

Uriah Hall. Chris Weidman.