The UFC Heavyweight Title: A visual history
· Yahoo Sports
Ben Duffy/Sherdog.com illustration
It may feel like a wild last few years, but chaos has been the rule rather than the exception in the UFC heavyweight division for nearly three decades now.
At UFC 260 in March of 2021, Francis Ngannou knocked out Stipe Miocic to become the 18th man to wear the undisputed UFC heavyweight belt. That night, well over five years ago, marked the last time the title changed hands in the “normal” way: with a challenger defeating an undisputed champion in the Octagon. Since then, the title picture has been a mess of injuries, contract disputes, defections and retirements, leading up to this weekend’s interim title bout.
This Sunday at the White House, in the co-main event of UFC Freedom 250, former middleweight and light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira will attempt to add an unprecedented third divisional title to his already legendary résumé. Opposing him will be Ciryl Gane, a former interim titleholder and multiple-time title challenger who is making his own case to be included among the greatest heavyweights of all time.
While the winner of Sunday’s co-main event will have a major new feather in his cap, Pereira and Gane will be fighting for the interim belt while regular champ Tom Aspinall continues to convalesce from the eye injury he suffered in his bout with Gane last October at UFC 321. That fight, which ended in a no-contest late in Round 1, was bizarre and frustrating, but par for the course.
From its inception in 1997, the UFC’s heavyweight division was marked in its early years by a dizzying series of twists and turns, including three different champions in its first year, multiple champs abandoning the title to fight elsewhere and two men losing their belts in the lab rather than the Octagon. The UFC’s heavyweight title was also a clear second fiddle to its Pride Fighting Championships counterpart for most of that first decade.
With the 2007 absorption of Pride and, a few years later, the acquisition of Strikeforce and International Fight League, the UFC’s heavyweight division eventually gained the preeminent status it still enjoys. For the next decade, the man wearing UFC heavyweight gold could lay a claim to “baddest man on the planet” status that was hard to dispute—that is, until Ngannou became the first sitting champ to vacate his belt when he decamped for Professional Fighters League.
Here is a graphic representation of the 29-year history of the UFC undisputed heavyweight title and the times it was won, lost or defended. Interim title fights are omitted with the exception of Andrei Arlovski vs. Tim Sylvia 1 and Aspinall vs. Sergei Pavlovich, since the winners of those fights ended up inheriting the undisputed title without a unification bout. From 6-foot-10 giants to 5-foot-9 monsters, from larger-than-life pro wrestlers to humble firefighters, from drug scandals to grisly injuries in and out of the cage, the picture tells a story as strange and amazing as the sport itself.
Ben Duffy/Sherdog.com illustration
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