Best UFC Heavyweight Champions Ever: Top 5

The heavyweight category has always been very popular and has received a lot of attention from mixed martial arts fans. In addition, this is one of the most competitive divisions in which champions are constantly changing. This is not surprising, because sometimes only a couple of seconds and one missed shot decide here. Therefore, the heavyweight knows a lot of champions.  They justified their title and left an indelible mark on the history of the weight class. In this article, we’ll take a look at five of the best UFC heavyweight champions ever. 

Best UFC Heavyweight Champions Ever: Cain Velasquez

World-famous mixed martial arts (MMA) heavyweight fighter, twice UFC champion in his weight category, a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and several honorary awards. The American of Mexican origin became famous for his incredible endurance and original wrestling technique. Thanks to this, he defeated such eminent rivals as Junior dos Santos, Brock Lesnar, António Silva, and others. Cain Velasquez hasn’t had many fights in his career, but he managed to achieve what most fighters can’t achieve. The Mexican is a true all-rounder in the octagon. He won his belt for the first time on October 23, 2010, at UFC 121 against Brock Lesnar, who was visually much larger than the challenger. Online sportsbook sites in the US provide the best sites for UFC events. One of them is 22BET Sportsbook which has one of the best odds.

The Wrestler Showman: Brock Lesnar

Brock is the most controversial figure in the top, and indeed in the UFC. Brock Lesnar stood out from other fighters with his huge size, his height is 190 centimeters, consisting of pure muscles. He comes from wrestling and has never competed in martial arts before. Nevertheless, this did not prevent him from getting into the UFC and  from winning the title in a fight with Randy Couture on November 15, 2008. It would seem that Brock Lesnar already jumped above his head. But he managed to hold two successful belt defenses against the legendary Frank Mir and Shane Carwin, undefeated at that time. 

But on October 23, 2010, Cain Velasquez did stop him, sending him to a technical knockout in the first round. In his next fight, Lesnar suffered another loss to MMA veteran Alistair Overeem. And in the last fight of his fighting career, he defeated Mark Hunt. But the result of the fight was canceled due to the use of illegal drugs by Brock. In total, he managed to hold seven fights in the UFC, 5 of which ended in his victory and three in defeat. Despite the initial absurdity of his transition to MMA and some failures, Brock Lesnar was able to prove to the whole world that with due desire and perseverance, everything is possible.

Best UFC Heavyweight Champions Ever: Randy Couture

Randy Couture is a truly old-school fighter and rightfully takes pride of place in the UFC Hall of Fame. During his career, he became the champion five times, three of them in the heavyweight division. For the first time, Couture got the belt after defeating Maurice Smith on December 21, 1997. It is noteworthy that then there were not even rounds and the fight lasted 21 minutes without interruption. However, he soon left the belt due to disagreements with the leadership of the UFC and left the organization.

His return to the UFC took place on November 17, 2000, at UFC 28 against then-champion Kevin Randleman. Randy won by TKO in the third round. As a champion, he defended his belt twice in two fights with Pedro Hizza. But, having entered the third defense against Josh Barnett, he lost by technical knockout and again left the champion title. The last time he won his title in the heavyweight category at the age of 43 in 2007, he beat Tim Sylvia, who was 13 years his junior.

Thus, Couture became the oldest champion in UFC history, as well as the only five-time champion, given his achievements in the light heavyweight category. In the future, he even managed to defend the belt once. And he had his last fight when he was 47 years old, losing to Lyoto Machida. Despite 11 losses, he had a brilliant career defeating many legendary fighters.

The Maine-iac Tim Sylvia

Tim Sylvia entered the UFC as an undefeated fighter with a record of 13 wins. In 2003 at UFC 41, he faced Ricco Rodriguez. Tim knocked him out in the fourth minute of the first round, winning the heavyweight championship belt for the first time. At UFC 44, Sylvia defended his title by quickly taking down Gan McGee. After this fight, he failed a doping test and voluntarily relinquished the title. But his championship history did not end there. On April 15, 2006, he again got a chance to try on the championship belt in a duel with Andrei Orlovsky, to whom he had previously lost. 

And he realized his chance by knocking out Orlovsky in less than three minutes. In the next fight, he met with him again. And, following the results of five rounds, he won by unanimous decision of the judges, which put an end to their confrontation. He subsequently defended the title once again against Jeff Monson. But the third successful defense was not destined to be and he lost to 43-year-old Randy Couture by unanimous decision. After that, he was no longer able to return to his previous condition and began to alternate victories with a protracted series of defeats. He spent his last fight at the Fight Nights: Battle of Moscow 13 tournament and lost to Ruslan Magomedov by unanimous decision.

Best UFC Heavyweight Champions Ever: Stipe Miocic 

Even before moving to MMA, Croatian-American Stipe Miocic became the owner of the Golden Gloves in boxing and was a fighter of the 1st division of the NCAA. As the online sportsbook news in the US states, he won his belt in a fight with Fabricio Werdum on May 14, 2016, sending him to a deaf knockout in the middle of the first round. For the third defense of the title, he went out against Francis Ngannou, who terrified the entire division.

Many predicted Stipe Miocic would lose by knockout. But contrary to critics’ opinion, he was able to pick up the key to the challenger’s style and tactfully won by unanimous decision. In doing so, he set a heavyweight title defense record that no one has broken to this day.

But in the next fight with Daniel Cormier, failure awaited him. Cormier sent the champion to a hard knockout with an uppercut from the clinch. On August 17, 2019, their revenge took place. During the fight, Cormier took all the first three rounds.

The fourth segment of the fight also began. But Stipe nevertheless found a solution and began to break through Cormier’s body. Miocic delivered several accurate blows to the opponent’s head and after a few seconds the fight was stopped. Miocic became the champion again and showed himself as an extremely resilient fighter, able to get out even from a seemingly hopeless situation. Since then, he has not made a single defense due to injury. At the moment, Stipe Miocic is ranked third in the ranking, regardless of weight categories, and has every chance of breaking his record for title defenses. Check out 22BET Sportsbook if you want to bet not only on heavyweight fighters but on all MMA champions in any weight category. 

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