The History of MMA’s Champion vs. Champion Fights

In less than two weeks, UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier will move up in weight to challenge heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic. Provided the days wind down without a hitch, it will be a historical fight no matter the result, if only for the simple fact that it represents the first ever meeting of the world’s top-ranked light heavyweight (with Jon Jones’s failed drug test last year pushing him out of the picture) and the world’s top-ranked heavyweight.

The bout will be an enormous feather in the cap of the victor, and the defeat will hold a prominent place in a description of the loser’s career. These are high stakes, as we have come to learn from past experience.

It’s a rare event for a champion to switch weight classes to challenge another titleholder. The meeting between Miocic and Cormier represents just the fourth major clash of reigning champions from different weight classes.

Pride presented the first of these bouts in 2007, when middleweight champion Wanderelei Silva defended his title against welterweight champion Dan Henderson (Pride’s middleweight division corresponds to the modern light heavyweight division, while their welterweight division corresponds with the modern middleweight division). Remembered as the exciting capper to one of MMA’s all-time great shows (Pride 33), Silva vs. Henderson is unique among this group for the lack of momentum both fighters carried into the bout.

Silva had been on the receiving end of a stunning head kick knockout loss to Mirko Cro Cop in his previous fight. The heavyweight bout didn’t cost Silva his title, but it may have helped diminish his chin. In 2006, Henderson narrowly defeated Murilo Bustamante to win the Pride 2005 Welterweight Grand Prix, and along with it the welterweight championship. In the 2006 version of the tournament, he fell in the first round to Kazuo Misaki. Although Henderson rebounded with a win over Vitor Belfort prior to challenging Silva, it was not an exciting victory.

In classic Pride fashion, the February 24, 2007, champion vs. champion bout was announced just six weeks before the bout. While Silva had reigned as champion for five years, the bout with Henderson marked only his fifth title defense. Being a champion in Pride did not carry the same responsibility to defend the championship that is expected in other promotions. Champions mostly competed in non-title bouts. Title bouts typically only occurred after a long building period (it was a two-year journey for Mirko Cro Cop to challenge Fedor Emelianenko), when the champion was looking to avenge a non-title loss (Wanderlei Silva vs. Ricardo Arona; Takanori Gomi vs. Marcus Aurelio), or a popular challenger was looking to avenge a loss to the champion (Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira; Wanderlei Silva vs. Quinton Jackson). Dan Henderson never managed to defend his welterweight title before Pride closed its doors.

The bout may have been thrown together hastily, but that didn’t damper the excitement close followers of the sport had for Silva vs. Henderson. (This was their second meeting, with Silva battering Henderson in their first encounter in 2000.) The fight lived up to the expectations, and the finish was a shocker. Henderson had scored several knockouts by this point, but he was still referred to as “Decision Dan” by some. If a knockout occurred, most expected Henderson would be the one lying on the mat.

Instead, it was Henderson stunning Silva in the third round with a spinning back fist. A reportedly under the weather Silva attempted to stand his ground, but a left hook from Henderson flattened him. Henderson became MMA’s first major double titleholder and scored one of the signature wins of his storied career.

Two years later, the UFC promoted its first champion vs. champion bout.

In 2006, Georges St-Pierre defeated BJ Penn in a competitive bout to determine the next welterweight title contender. By the end of 2006, St-Pierre was the welterweight champion, and Penn needed to rededicate himself after two consecutive losses.

Penn’s rededication came at lightweight, his best weight class, which he had abandoned a few years before to face larger challenges. After dropping some pudgy pounds, Penn had a new fire lit under him. In January 2008, he captured the lightweight title, and established his place as the best lightweight in the world with a victory over Sean Sherk that May. Immediately, Penn set his sights back to St-Pierre, who after one stumble had righted himself to dominate the welterweight division. The confident Penn felt he could become the greatest of all-time by avenging his loss to St-Pierre and capturing the welterweight title in one swoop.

He swooped on January 31, 2009, five years to the day he had upset Matt Hughes for the same welterweight title in 2004. Unfortunately for Penn’s plans, St-Pierre was too tall of an order. The welterweight champion dominated the smaller lightweight champion on the mat, causing Penn’s corner to it quits after the fourth round.

St-Pierre turned in a performance worthy of being ranked the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter, a (meaningful yet entirely unprovable) distinction that would alternate between he and Anderson Silva for the next few years.

It took the UFC a long time to book another bout between two reigning division champions. The talk of such matchups never ceases, and for years the UFC looked at booking Georges St-Pierre vs. middleweight champion Anderson Silva. For a variety of reasons, that never came together. The UFC’s standard stance was to keep champions active within their divisions.

That stance weakened as owners Lorenzo Fertitta, Frank Fertitta, and Dana White geared up to sell the company in 2016. The idea of keeping champions active within their division was swept aside in favor of chasing quick cash to make their bottom line look more desirable to potential buyers. They booked featherweight champion Conor McGregor to face lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos in March 2016. The fight was scrapped due to injury and then the promotion was sold, but the UFC continues to chase the money fights with obvious eagerness. (It’s unlikely this has nothing to do with paying back the mountain of debt on the loans that WME-IMG—now Endeavor—took out to purchase the company.)

In September 2016, the UFC announced that McGregor would step up to challenge newly-crowned lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez. McGregor had been the brash young upstart that became the UFC’s biggest star, smashing pay-per-view and gate records. Coming off the biggest pay-per-view in MMA history in which he defeated Nate Diaz, McGregor took calculated aim at a second championship.

Alvarez was the tough veteran there to defend his ground. He’d fought all over the world for more than ten years, defeating several of the world’s best lightweights. Despite an impressive resume, he was still an underdog champion. He took home tight victories over Gilbert Melendez and Anthony Pettis for a shot at Rafael dos Anjos, the heavy favorite. Midway through the first round he staggered dos Anjos with a right hand, and sensing the biggest win of his life, threw absolutely everything he had at the champion until the referee had seen enough.

McGregor represented the biggest fight of Alvarez’s life. As a top fighter, Alvarez had made good money for several years, but wealth awaited him on the other side of his Irish challenger. Beating McGregor, especially in a close fight that warranted a rematch, would have brought a loot train to his front door.

There was no size disadvantage for McGregor, who was a huge featherweight. In fact, he was rangier than Alvarez, who had trouble finding his way inside McGregor’s reach.

McGregor dominated from the onset, and never let up. He knocked Alvarez down three times in the opening round. No stranger to danger, Alvarez usually did his best work after getting rattled by a good shot, but an iron will couldn’t save him. Alvarez went down for a fourth and final time in round two, and McGregor became MMA’s second double champion.

It doesn’t appear that double champions are built to last, however. Before Dan Henderson could defend either of his titles, the UFC purchased Pride, and scooped Henderson up to face their light heavyweight and middleweight champions. Henderson lost both bouts.

Less than a month after he toppled Alvarez, McGregor surrendered his featherweight championship. He had never defended it. In April 2018, the UFC stripped him of the lightweight championship, which he also never defended.

Daniel Cormier will look to make history on July 7 by capturing the heavyweight championship while he reigns as light heavyweight champion. After that, he would make more history in the act of attempting to defend one of those titles.

Stipe Miocic, in the biggest fight of his career, will try to follow Georges St-Pierre’s lead and swat the challenger back to where he came from.

Dan Plunkett has covered MMA for 411Mania since 2008. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @Dan_Plunkett.