These days, it’s not enough to hold a title in a major MMA organization.  Why not two? Hell, Anatoly Malykhin is currently simultaneously holding the middleweight, light-heavyweight, and heavyweight titles at ONE Championship. And so every new major title holder seems to ignore the realities of defending their freshly won divisional title, preferring to immediately chase the ‘champ-champ’ status.

This craze began with Conor McGregor becoming the first UFC champion to hold title belts in two divisions at the same time.  There have been others before him, though none simultaneous. In this article, we will look back at every fighter who has held more than one divisional title (whether simultaneous or one at at time) in the UFC history, in chronological order. Interim titles count; tournament titles do not.

* indicates titles held simultaneously

 Randy Couture

Randy ‘The Natural’ Couture was a pioneer of MMA in many ways.  One of the first well-rounded fighters who sucessfully utilized more than one discipline, Couture was also the first fighter in the UFC to win multiple titles. The Natural made his UFC debut in 1997, winning the UFC 13 Heavyweight Tournament. He then defeated young ‘Phenom’ Vitor Belfort in a title eliminator, before capturing the UFC heavyweight title with a decision win over Maurice Smith. Couture never did defend that belt, vacating it amidst a contract dispute with UFC, which saw Randy going to fight over in Japan for a period of his career. Upon returning to UFC in 2000, Couture immediately won back the heavyweight title and defended it twice.

After dropping two fights at heavyweight, the aging Couture decided to try his luck at 205 lbs. Making his light-heavyweight debut at UFC 43, Couture stopped Chuck Liddell in the third round for the Interim title (the real title having been held by Tito Ortiz at the time), becoming the first man in UFC history to win title belts in two different divisions. Couture unified the belts in a routing of Ortiz, but then dropped it in a rematch with Vitor Belfort, due to a cut on the eyelid of Couture caused by the very first strike thrown by Belfort. After winning the title back from Belfort, Couture lost his next two battles to Chuck Liddell and retired from the sport.

Couture’s retirement didn’t last long: a year later, he returned to the heavyweight division, shocking the world with a dominant decision win over a much larger man in Tim Sylvia. Randy defended the heavyweight title once, before losing it to Brock Lesnar.  He didn’t fight for another title after.

Part 1 – Who’s the GOAT?

Part 2 – Heavy Hitters

Part 3 – Middle of the Pack

We’ve now gotten through the top two thirds of the men’s weight divisions, and established that the UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev stands the best chance of dethroning the all-time divisional #1, who just happens to be his mentor Khabib Nurmagomedov.  Let us now take a look at the lightest men’s weight classes, and see if my assertion holds true.

Men’s Bantamweight

[#1]: Dominick Cruz (8198)

Next active fighter:  [#7] Henry Cejudo (3693)

Point differential: 2.21x

Other contenders: [#10] Petr Yan, [#11] Cody Garbrandt, [#12] Sean OMalley

Similar to men’s lightweight, there is not as much separation between #1 and the rest at bantamweight.  Dominic Cruz’s reign at the top was brief, and though he is not officially retired, these days he fights very infrequently and isn’t likely to rise any further. Fortunately for Cruz, there just currently isn’t a serious contender to knock him out of the top spot. Aljamain Sterling was oh-so-close but moved up in weight. [#4] Renan Barao, who once so long ago looked like an unstoppable champion, recently made his return to MMA action, to atrocious results and is presently on a six-fight skid. Former champion Henry Cejudo would have likely been ranked much higher on these lists, had he not taken a three year layoff in the prime of his career.  Now, he stands with back-to-back losses and not a very clear path forward.

Another former champion, Petr Yan, was once lauded as the future of the division, but faltered badly in his last few outings and is now fighting for his UFC career. Yet another brief title holder Cody Garbrandt is a glass cannon who is not likely to catch lightning in a bottle like he did on the night he took the belt from Cruz. Finally, amongst all these past champs, we have the current top dog Sean O’Malley. In a less competitive division we could imagine Sean with a long reign at the top; however he is already talking about moving up to featherweight for a chance at the ‘champ champ’ status. He also has contenders like Merab Dvalishvili and Umar Nurmagomedov breathing down his neck.

Part 1 – Who’s the GOAT?

Part 2 – Heavy Hitters

In the third installment of this series, I am going to take a look at the men’s welterweight, lightweight, and featherweight all-time rankings. Similar to the heavier weight divisions, these three lists are topped by true all-time greats in Georges St. Pierre, Khabib Nurmagomedov, and Jose Aldo. Are any of these three likely to be replaced at the top soon?  Let’s check it out.

Men’s Welterweight

[#1]: Georges St. Pierre (33894)

Next active fighter:  [#5] Leon Edwards (6873)

Point differential: 4.93x

Other contenders: [#8] Colby Covington

Currently the top rank on our men’s all-time absolute list (with Jon Jones very close behind), St. Pierre spent better part of a decade thoroughly dominating his contemporaries, with his losses to Matt Hughes and Matt Serra both avenged in an impressive fashion. With the next three on the list retired (or in Kamaru Usman’s case, moved up in weight), the current champion Leon Edwards is the sole threat to Georges’ position. It isn’t much of a threat, considering GSP has nearly 5x the amount of points compared to Edwards.

Leon Edwards is currently on a 12-fight undefeated streak (with 1 No Contest). Now that he is the champion, he will have have the opportunity to stack some title defenses and improve his standing.  Edwards has been moderately active, fighting twice a year in the recent years. At this pace he would have to stay at the top for several years to begin approaching #1. My prediction is that Shavkat Rakhmonov will soon dethrone the champion and halt his ascent up the rankings.  The only other name worth mentioning here is [#8] Colby Covington; everyone ranked above him here is a current or former champion, and I don’t see Colby breaking into that elite championship tier at this point in his career. At best, he might pass Johnny Hendricks and Robbie Lawler if Covington sticks around and wins some fights.

In this part of the series, we will examine the all-time rankings of middleweight and above men’s divisions.  As I mentioned in the first part, while the top spots on the Absolute All-Time lists are somewhat likely to change in the near future, the individual divisional rankings are far less volatile.  We probably won’t see a new #1 in most of men’s divisions any time soon: As the sport has evolved and every top competitor became more well rounded, long title runs such as Fedor Emelianenko’s, Jon Jones’, and Anderson Silva’s are becoming a thing of the past. Are we past the golden age of the sport, where the best champions held on to the top of the division for a decade? Or are we just entering a new, more competitive, and therefore more enterntaining era?

The numbers in parentheses represent the all-time rating points.

Men’s Heavyweight

[#1]: Fedor Emelianenko (21848)

Next active fighter:  [#2] Stipe Miocic (11520)

Point differential: 1.89x

Other contenders: [#5] Fabricio Werdum, [#6] Junior dos Santos, [#8] Francis Ngannou

Fedor Emelianenko is almost universally considered the heavyweight GOAT of MMA.  [#2] Stipe Miocic is considered the greatest heavyweight to ever step into the UFC Octagon, holding four title defenses – a record for the UFC’s HW division. Unfortunately for Miocic, Fedor has nearly twice the amount of rating points, and Stipe’s career is winding down. Originally the scheduled for some-time-this-year match-up between Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic was supposed to be the retirement bout for both fighters.  However, more recently both Jones and Miocic have expressed willingness to unify the titles with the Interim HW champion Tom Aspinall. Beating both Jones and Aspinall will be a tall task for the 41-year old firefighter from Cleveland. And even if he should succeed, it frankly won’t be enough to overtake Fedor.

Beyond Miocic, we have a couple of retired fighters, followed by another couple of old guys.  The only reason I am mentioning Werdum and Junior Dos Santos as ‘contenders’ is that they are fairly high ranked and both still technically active fighters, even if they’re living out the remainders of their careers in the graveyard of bareknuckle MMA. Don’t expect much, if any, ascent on the all-time list for these two.

As for Francis Ngannou, he may have had potential had he stayed in the UFC and remained active.  Instead Francis fought out his UFC contract and left the promotion to join the Professional Fight League (PFL) and to try his hand at boxing.  On top of that, Ngannou started his MMA career fairly late, and the competition he will face in PFL won’t be very highly ranked. With all these factors combined, Francis’ potential for growth is limited, though I hope he does end up in the Top 5 when all is said and done.

As I was browsing our recently updated All-Time MMA rankings, I couldn’t help but wonder: what are the odds that the current top ranked fighters of all time in each division will be replaced in the next decade? Let’s take a deeper look, in an attempt to answer one of the eternal sports questions: who is the greatest of all time?

The numbers in parentheses represent the all-time rating points.

Men’s Absolute

[#1]: Georges St. Pierre (36945)

Next active fighter: [#2] Jon Jones (34157)

Point differential: 1.08x

Other contenders: [#7] Alexander Volkanovski, [#8] Max Holloway, [#9] Demetrious Johnson

The all-time absolute ranking takes into account the sum of fighters’ accomplishments across all divisions. And this list is the one with the least amount of separation between the top two.  If Jon Jones sticks around for another year or two and defeats Stipe Miocic and Tom Aspinall, as he promised to do, he will certainly overtake GSP for the #1 spot. In the eyes of many, Jones is already the GOAT, and he would rightfully sit atop of our absolute ranking – for a very long time, if the rest of the list is any indication.

The next highest ranked active fighters on the all-time absolute list sit at #7-9. Alexander Volkanovski is on a clear decline, losing three of his last four fights, and having been on a receiving end of a KO in his two most recent outings. Holloway is still hanging in there and with a move to lightweight division he might soon pass his long-time rival Volk. However it’s fairly obvious that this 32-year old with a whole lot of fight mileage is nearing his ceiling, and will not break into the truly elite Top 5. Demetrious ‘Mighty Mouse’ Johnson should be ranked higher in my opinion – but the relative weakness of the flyweight division has held him back here. At 37, the Mouse is at the tail end of a illustrious career and is unlikely to move much higher on the list.

We’re on a roll this week with new features.  This is a minor one: you can now browse our Generated Historical Ranking sets using the alternative ranking systems (ELO K-170, ELO Modified, Glicko-1).  Try it out here: https://www.fightmatrix.com/historical-mma-rankings/generated-historical-rankings/?Issue=137&Division=1&RF=R_GLICKO1

We’re bringing you another new feature here at FightMatrix: the ability to view the cards for past MMA events, including the fighters’ rankings at the time of the event.

As an example, here’s the historic UFC 200 fight card:

https://www.fightmatrix.com/event/UFC+200+-+Tate+vs.+Nunes/142856/

You can search past events here: https://www.fightmatrix.com/event-search/

Or browse all events by the year they took place or the promotion putting on the event:

https://www.fightmatrix.com/past-events-by-year/

https://www.fightmatrix.com/past-events-by-promotion/

Keep on browsing!

Recently, the following statistic has been popping up across MMA forums and message boards: “In all history of UFC, only twice has a fighter 35 or older won a title match at welterweight or below”.  The two title wins by the 35+ year old at lighter weight classes both belong to Tyron Woodley, who defended his title against Damien Maia and Darren Till at 35 & 36 years old, respectively.

Many fans have been using this statistic to predict doom for featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski, in his UFC 298 title defense against Ilia Topuria. The 35-year-old Volkanovski is coming off a head kick knockout at the hands of lightweight champion Islam Makhachev, adding fuel to the fire behind his detractors.  Will father time once again remain undefeated, or will Volkanovski defy the MMA-Math and successfully defend his title, joining Woodley in the over-35 champion club? We will find out this coming weekend.  In the meanwhile, here’s a compilation of the youngest and oldest UFC champions through history of the organization:

UFC 300 will take place in Las Vegas on April 13th, 2024.  The date of this historic show is coming up fast, however the order of bouts on the card is also still unknown, so instead of strictly looking at the main card as I usually do in event previews, I will talk about the five fights announced so far that interest me the most:

[#3 LW] Justin Gaethje vs [#2 FW] Max Holloway

This is the highest-ranked men’s fight on the card so far.  Even though it’s not for a title (and don’t tell me anything about ‘BMF’), this fight could very well be the headliner – and it actually might be, but more on this later. Here we have a former featherweight champion making his second attempt at moving up a division to take on a perennial lightweight contender. The odds favorite, Justin ‘The Highlight’ Gaethje, has rebounded from his most recent title loss to Charles Oliveira with victories over Rafael Fiziev and a spectacular second round head kick knockout over Dusting Porrier. Though he has already fought for the title twice, Justin is still very close to title contention; however he instead chose to take a superfight with Max Holloway.

Holloway has once had a long reign as the king of the featherweight division, before the ascent of Alexander Volkanovski – to whom Holloway lost thrice. He still continues to take out all the top contenders in the 145-lbs division, but as long as Volkanovski remains champion, the probability of Max getting another title shot are very low. Why not try his luck in a different weight class? This won’t be Holloway’s first foray at 155 lbs; in fact he has started his career as a lightweight, and as recently as 2019 has faced Dustin Porrier for the interim lightweight title. MMA math and the odds say that Justin should walk away victorious from this bout; indeed this will be a tough hill to climb for the outsized and outpowered Holloway, whose best chance is to out-cardio Gaethje. I’m curious to see whether Justin’s considerable power will be enough to crack Holloway’s legendary chin and it appears there is no real trend for those placing a bet online as the odds are tight.

In light of recent acquisition of Bellator MMA by the PFL, Fight Matrix has been in the news when the PFL founder Don Davis was quoted as saying: “The combined PFL Bellator roster now has 30 percent of its fighters who are ranked top 25 in the world by Fight Matrix. That’s the same as UFC has in their roster.”

While we’re not exactly sure of the accuracy of Davis’ math, by popular demand we decided to put together a page where you can compare the top MMA promotions by the best average ranking of their fighters, the highest sum or average of the fighters’ rating points, or the most ranked fighters on the roster.  You can also break it down by weight division, as well as filter only promotions with a minimum number of ranked fighters, or only consider the Top 10/25/100.

Check it out here: MMA Promotions Ranking