Ranking the 25 Greatest Champions in UFC History

Make no mistake about it, boys and girls, we saw a promising young phenom beat a freak athlete when we saw Cain Velasquez dethrone Brock Lesnar at UFC 121.

The vast majority of MMA fans thought Lesnar would be too strong and too much of a beast for Velasquez to handle, and yet Velasquez did in Anaheim what Shane Carwin couldn't do in Las Vegas:

He finished Brock Lesnar in the first round by way of TKO due to Strikes.

Now that UFC 121 is officially in the books, Lesnar is being debated on a range of subjects from whether or not he'll return to the WWE to do some kind of one-time program with The Undertaker, while the questions are already being discussed about whether or not a win over Junior Dos Santos might be Cain's first step towards becoming one of the greatest UFC Champions in the organization's history.

So with that in mind, who ARE the greatest champs in UFC history?

That's my cue to enter, fast forward through a long, drawn-out "follow along with me" end-line and ask that y'all keep on reading.

Hope y'all are ready for this ride, because we are taking a little trip down memory lane for some of these picks.

Dale De Souza is a Man on Fire—or as the regulars of MMA writing call it, an “Analyst”—for Bleacher Report MMA, as well as a contributor to Sprawl-N-Brawl MMA, RealSportsNet, Sports Haze and Hit The Ropes MMA.

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Andrei Arlovski

Andrei Arlovski...well of course we were going to have to kick off this countdown with one of the big guys.

Here's a little bit of a background about the old Pit Bull that everyone remembers.

He beat Tim Sylvia for the then-Interim Heavyweight title.

Frank Mir did beat Tim Sylvia with that infamous arm bar which earned him the title, but when he had his motorcycle accident, he couldn't defend the belt.

Enter The Pit Bull, and the first Belarusian to win a Heavyweight title in the UFC.

One win over Tim Sylvia later, Andrei was on the fast path to going from Interim Champ to Undisputed Champ.

Still, It'd have been cool to see him and Mir...

Vitor Belfort

Ten guys can say that they've beaten Randy Couture, but even fewer than that can say they've beaten him for a belt.

Vitor Belfort is one of those guys.

He had a fairly short reign as champ despite the TKO by Doctor Stoppage that nabbed him the belt, and the win over Couture is still a memory that few think of when they first hear of the Phenom, but for him to say "I beat Randy Couture for a UFC Belt" says something about your career.

To beat The Natural alone makes a fighter great, or at least worth watching, but beating him for a belt?

That is enough to consider him a guy who was a great champion even if he was briefly champion.

Dave Menne

On a night that is still seen as one of the worst UFC events in the promotion's history, history was at least made for the 185 pound division.

One of the fights that went to a decision at UFC 33, Dave Menne dismantled Gil Castillo and became the first-ever UFC Middleweight Champion.

Back then, Frank Shamrock had already won a UFC Middleweight title, but that title would eventually become the UFC Light Heavyweight Belt.

Though Menne had in fact made history, Murillo Bustamante would have plans of his own for Menne, finishing off The Warrior by TKO in round two of their UFC 35 bout.

Though people only go as far back as Evan Tanner when recollecting earlier UFC Middleweight Champions, we must not forget who helped make the belt what it is today.

It's befitting that we recognize one the very first titleholders in UFC history as part of this list of great champions.

Carlos Newton

Arguably the man who defined an entire weight class in the early days of the UFC. There's only one Chuck Liddell.

Had to give credit to The Ronin here.

He wasn't the best Welterweight champ ever, but he did dethrone one of the best Welterweight champs ever in Pat Miletich.

It was a lengthy yet exciting encounter between two standout 170-pounders, and had that headlock not have made Miletich tap, that fight could have been one that Miletich won, thus making him the first Welterweight Champ to have defended the belt five times straight.

Sean Sherk

Sherk had made his bed and had to lay in it when he and Hermes Franca both tested positive for illegal substances after they both faced each other for the UFC Lightweight belt, but if you don't remember Sherk for that one still-awesome performance, remember him for how he won the belt.

Remember the five rounds he went through to beat Kenny Florian for the belt?

Well, aside from the Franca fight, that was Sherks only memorable fight for the belt, but the fact is he still proved to be a fighting champion.

He was stripped of the belt after beating Franca, but at UFC 84, people truly recognized BJ Penn as the new UFC Lightweight Champ when BJ beat Sherk by a flying knee and a series of right hands to Sherk's face.

Kevin Randleman

The Monster is a different fighter from what he was when he first won the title, but back in the early UFC, Randleman had no trouble living up to his nickname.

He won the belt at UFC 23 from Pete Williams, who has also faced Yuki Kondo, Ricco Rodriguez and Frank Mir and then went to a Unanimous Decision with Pedro Rizzo.

Both of those fights were unanimous decisions, unlike when Randy Couture won the belt from Randleman, but he proved himself as a dominating force at the time.

Pretty tough to think this guy would be in Strikeforce mixing it up with a Gracie, ain't it?

Quinton Rampage Jackson

It's amazing what a win over Chuck Liddell does for your career.

The first time it happened, Rampage found himself facing Wanderlei Silva in the PRIDE Middleweight Grand Prix Finals.

The second time it happened, Rampage killed two birds with one stone.

Not only did he become the new UFC Light Heavyweight Champion in only his second fight under a UFC contract, but he also became the man that everyone recognized as the force that made the Chuck Liddell foundation crumble, thereby making the UFC Light Heavyweight division a deep pool once again.

Add the win Rampage got at UFC 75 over Dan Henderson—the only UFC event in the UK to date that has been headlined by a title fight—and you've got the makings of a true great in the history of Light Heavyweight Champions.

Rich Franklin

Though "Ace" didn't beat as many people as he wanted to before he lost the belt to Anderson Silva, he can say he aced the test of a legend in Evan Tanner in order to win the belt.

From there, Nate Quarry and David Loiseau would fall against Ace, who was one of the best Middleweights in the world at the time.

That was all before he fought Anderson Silva, lost to him twice, lost a controversial decision to Dan Henderson, won a decision against Wanderlei Silva, became the welcome mat for Vitor Belfort's return and became the "peace-out party" for Chuck Liddell, but in either case, the former Middleweight Champion's shine came by way of his days as an impressive and extremely dangerous all-around threat in the Middleweight division.

BJ Penn (Welterweight)

BJ Penn never got a chance to defend the belt after beating Matt Hughes for his Welterweight belt, what with him opting to go to K-1 and all, but he gets a spot as a great Welterweight champ because, well...

He DID take the belt from the greatest UFC Welterweight Champion ever.

Jens Pulver

He's the first Bantamweight Champ that Zuffa recognizes, and he's the first Lightweight Champ in UFC history.

People say Tito Ortiz's fight at UFC 33, along with his fight at the same event, were two of the most uneventful five-rounders in UFC history, but he has brought excitement to fights before.

He's Li'l Evil himself, Jens Pulver, and if you're a Caol Uno fan, he beat Uno at UFC 33 to win the belt in what was one hell of a lightweight fight.

After Uno and Dennis Hallman, he snapped the then-unbeaten streak of BJ Penn and then made his mark in PRIDE and other organizations before returning to cage action.

While his last few fights leave little to be desired, no question stands that Pulver is without a doubt a pioneer for the Lightweight division and one of the greatest Lightweight champions of all time.

As far as the UFC goes, he is certainly one of the best to step in the cage at 155.

Mark Coleman

Dan Severn may have been the second and last Superfight champ in UFC history, but not even The Beast could have expected what he got when he stepped in the cage with Mark Coleman.

It only took two minutes and 57 seconds to get the fight to the ground and deliver his signature neck crank to The Beast, thus becoming the first UFC Heavyweight Champ and unifying the belt with the UFC Superfight title.

Tim Sylvia

Call his UFC 44 win over Gan McGee whatever you wish but don't diminish the skills that Tim Sylvia showed in 200 at any time.

See, he relinquished the belt after testing positive for anabolic steroids after the McGee fight and lost by technical submission to Frank Mir.

When Andrei Arlovski had been promoted to Undisputed Champ and had finished beating Paul Buentello, however, that's when the Maine-iac was back.

Well, having a loss to Arlovski also motivated Sylvia to get the belt back—I think.

Anyway, after he beat Arlovksi, he only got a win over Jeff Monson before losing the belt to one Randy Couture.

Still, we can say whatever we choose about Sylvia now, but contrary to popular belief, he wasn't a can back in the UFC.

Champions make pretty terrible cans.

Frank Shamrock

What does it say about a fighter when they become the first champion in an organization's weight class, defends his title four times straight and then leaves the organization because he feels that there's no competition?

It means they're pretty damn good...or maybe that the division is shallow.

We'll just say it's both for Frank Shamrock.

Pretty appropriate that he makes this list, seeing as how he's the first man to win the UFC Light Heavyweight title (then known as the Middleweight title).

He won the belt from Kevin Jackson at UFC Japan, then he went through Igor Zinoviev, Jeremy Horn, John Lober and Tito Ortiz before vacating the title himself.

Of the five original fighters to have won a UFC title, Shamrock and Jens Pulver are the only two to have never lost their own titles, although Pulver didn't cite a lack of competition for his reason to leave.

Pretty hard to believe that this same guy is the dude you see on just about every Strikeforce show commentating with Gus Johnson, Mauro Ranallo, and occasionally either Stephen Quadros or Pat Miletich...

Also tough to think this same dude is at a war of words with Dana White.

Whatever. He was still a good champion either way.

Murilo Bustamante

Don't recognize him?

If you remember the old school days of the UFC that had guys like Matt Lindland in it, you should. After all, this guy's only victory after a TKO win over Dave Menne at UFC 35 was a UFC 37 "double tap" win over Lindland.

If you don't know about the double tap, just know beforehand that it has nothing to do with that Zombieland movie that came out last year.

What happened was Murilo had Lindland in an arm bar early on in the fight, but Bustamante let go of it.

Big John McCarthy was reffing the fight and took Bustamante's releasing the hold as something of a tap, which Lindland said didn't happen, so Big John restarted the fight.

The end result of the restart? Bustamante locks in a guillotine choke, and then Lindland submits.

Pat Miletich

Miletich falls under the same category as Shamrock, except Miletich never cited a lack of competition and desired to leave the UFC.

He is, however, one of the few guys who can say he was the first Welterweight Champion of an organization, the first Croatian to win a belt at that weight class, and the first Welterweight champ to hae successfully defended his belt four times.

Mikey Burnett, Jorge Patino, Andre Pederneiras, John Alessio, Kenichi Yamamoto—they all fell to The Croatian Sensation.

He seemed to be a dominant champion at the time because no one had come close to beating him at that time, but then something happened...

Carlos Newton happened, to be exact.

Miletich had things going his way, but then when he and everyone else least expected it, Newton made Miletich tap with, of all things, a schoolboy headlock.

Ken Shamrock

Tough to think that Ken Shamrock of all people would make a "Greatest" list, but hey, if people didn't want him to be on a positive sounding list, he shouldn't have been the first Superfight Champion.

For those who don't know of the now-defunct UFC Superfight Championship, think of the PRIDE Open-weight Grand Prix Tournaments.

It's the same idea, except you actually won and defended a title for fighting in an openweight fight.

Back then, "superfight" referred to any fight between two guys who had previously been in a tournament.

Now, it refers to any kickass fight that takes place between two outstanding fighters.

There were only two Superfight champs—Dan Severn and Ken Shamrock.

Severn lost a bout for the belt in 1995 to Shamrock, who then beat Oleg Taktarov and Kimo Leopoldo before losing a rematch to Severn in 1996.

Mark Coleman unified the belt with the UFC Heavyweight title at UFC 12, ending the Superfight Championship.

Evan Tanner

The late great submission king Evan Tanner is the name to which some trace back the history of the UFC Middleweight title.

Unfortunately, we never got ourselves a chance to enjoy him for as long as we wanted, as a Middleweight bout with Kendall Grove proved to be his last.

As for his Middleweight title reign, he never got himself to enjoy that TKO victory he scored in the near end of his UFC 51 bout with one David Terrell.

His first defense came against Rich Franklin, who had beaten him by TKO (strikes) in the first round of a Light Heavyweight bout at UFC 42.

When Tanner met Ace in a rematch at UFC 53, the end came by Doctor Stoppage in the fourth round.

Tanner would never find himself back in line for a title shot, but he was able to leave us all with a few good memories in the last few fights he had before he tragically passed away in September 2008.

Tito Ortiz

The Huntington Beach Bad Boy may be the name that MMA fans associate more with trash talk, heated custom-made t-shirts and a feud with Ken Shamrock, but whether you recognize Tito as a legend or as the pioneer who paved the way for every sh*t-talking douche to every come into the sport, there's one thing everyone needs to know about Ortiz:

While Chuck Liddell's name might be the name more associated with the UFC Light Heavyweight title, Tito was the most dominant man to hold the belt.

After a win over one Wanderlei Silva, Ortiz did what few champions in the UFC's history have done, and posted an impressive five successful defenses in a row.

Of course, he also did what only about 18 other guys have done and lost to Randy Couture, losing his belt in the process.

Nonetheless, you can't talk about the greatest champs in the UFC's history unless you mention the man who might have induced the most emotion out of any champion at that time.

Matt Serra

Nothing fills out a suit better than a badass from New York... no, not you, Phil Baroni.

Only two guys have ever stopped Georges St-Pierre.

The nice guy in the suit is the one that knocked him out in Houston, Texas.

They call Matt Serra "The Terror" because he's always something scary-crazy to deal with in the cage, whether he's working some solid Jiu-Jitsu or daring you to test him on the feet.

He caught GSP with a well-timed shot in what would become known as MMA's most devastating upset by some.

Yes, even more than Rashad Evans or Shogun Rua knocking out Chuck Liddell.

More shocking than Anderson SIlva beating Hayato Sakurai.

Even more shocking than Fabricio Werdum, of all people, submitting Fedor Emelianenko.

Well, I guess it helped the shock value of the win Serra got over GSP in the fact that GSP at the time only had a loss to Matt Hughes on his record.

In any event, GSP lost the belt to Serra, but GSP wouldn't let Serra enjoy the reign for long.

As a matter of fact, he said he'd take his title back...in his own house.

I do believe we all know how that played out.

Georges St-Pierre

Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images

LAS VEGAS - JULY 11: (2nd R) Georges St. Pierre celebrates his victory against Thiago Alves during their welterweight title bout during UFC 100 on July 11, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada. St. Pierre defeated Alves by unanimous decision. (Photo by Jon Kopalof

Of course, the pound-for-pound king of the sport was going to make this list.

Matt Hughes scored GSP his first reign, which was then ended by Matt Serra, whose reign was ended to provide us with the reign of GSP by which we all recognize now.

After Serra, Jon Fitch fell to a lopsided Unanimous Decision, BJ Penn got cut open in the fourth round and both Thiago Alves and Dan Hardy were unable to rock Rush into next week.

Josh Koscheck is next for the champ at UFC 124 in St-Pierre's home turf of Montreal, Quebec.

If Koscheck falls, St-Pierre will be one win away from surpassing the number of wins Matt Hughes got in his first Welterweight title reign.

BJ Penn (Lightweight)

The Prodigy has been considered to be one of the greatest Lightweights in the world, even by those who question if he's still got what it takes to be one of the pound for pound best fighters in the world.

Many people questioned BJ's claim to being the champ when he beat Joe Stevenson for the Lightweight Belt at UFC 80, but of all the people who questioned BJ's claims, Sean Sherk questioned them the most.

Sherk never lost the belt; he was stripped of the belt after fighting Hermes Franca.

That all changed at UFC 84, and I think we all know what happened there.

After Sherk, Kenny Florian and Diego Sanchez tried, but they too fell to the wrath of The Prodigy.

Between the time BJ won the belt from Stevenson and lost it to Frankie Edgar, only GSP had beaten BJ Penn, but now that BJ is no longer champ, the landscape at 155 is different.

There's a new king in the Lightweight division, and all that has left fr BJ Penn is a score to settle with Matt Hughes at UFC 123.

Matt Hughes

Carlos Newton?

Double Check.

Hayato "Mach" Sakurai?

Check.

Gil Castillo?

Check.

Frank Trigg?

Double Check.

Georges St. Pierre?

Check.

Sean Sherk and BJ Penn?

Check, Check, Mate, and Kinged.

Though the above checklist came with two separate title reigns, Matt Hughes still managed to beat all of the above and made it look like an easy feat.

After the slam on Newton, he fought past Mach, Castillo, Newtonagain, Sherk and Trigg (the first time) before BJ Penn beat him.

When the title got vacated, Hughes snapped GSP's then untouched streak to start reign two, beat Trigg again, and avenged his loss to Penn before GSP finally beat him.

To this day, you don't hear many sentences about Matt Hughes that end with anything other than "the greatest Welterweight Champ ever."

Chuck Liddell

Arguably the man who defined an entire weight class in the early days of the UFC. There's only one Chuck Liddell

The Iceman comes in next on this list—and for good reason.

Beating the likes of Babalu Sobral, Randy Couture, Tito Ortiz and an MMA Iron Man like Jeremy Horn who has had well over 100 pro fights?

Hell, before Rampage Jackson came to the UFC, Chuck made his wins over these four dudes look easy.

It may seem easier to knock him out nowadays, but dealing with The Iceman is like facing off against Stone Cold Steve Austin:

You can say all that you want about the man's age, but at the end of the day, he's still a tough S.O.B.

Anderson Silva

Without question, the man who is arguably the greatest Middleweight Champ in MMA history had to make this list.

Say what you want about the four-and-a-half rounds he went with Chael Sonnen, but at the end of the day, an unprecedented and successful seventh-straight title defense is an unprecedented and successful seventh-straight title defense.

I would find a solid reason to debate it if Silva had never gotten that Triangle Choke on in the fifth round and yet had walked out with a third-straight successful defense by Unanimous Decision.

The truth is, whether you admit it or not, Anderson Silva is a scary all-around threat whose only exposed flaw was a solid Wrestling game and the only person who could duplicate Sonnen's solid five-round dominance of The Spider is Georges St-Pierre.

Otherwise, Silva is the type of guy who can finish anyone off at any time—regardless of whether or not someone is handing him his own ass on a platinum platter.

Seriously, we've seen guys ride 10-fight winning streaks, five-fight win streaks and some guys have rode from seven win to even a streak of wins that ranges into the 20s when they've fought.

Name me one fighter in Mixed Martial Arts that can easily say he's successfully defended his belt SEVEN times in one title reign.

Randy Couture can't do it.

Fedor Emelianenko can't do it.

Mike Goldberg can say Matt Hughes did it, but not even the greatest Welterweight Champ in UFC history can say he did it in either of his two reigns.

Neither can Tito Ortiz.

Neither can Chuck Liddell.

GSP is as close as a current champion will get to matching the greatest title reign in MMA history.

Whether Vitor Belfort can end it at UFC 126 or not, this man has to go down as the greatest Middleweight in the UFC's history

Randy Couture

The UFC's own Steve Rogers.

The first fighter to have won the belt in two different weight classes.

The former two-time UFC Light Heavyweight Champ and former three-time UFC Heavyweight Champ.

If I have to go any further,  this caption  will be long enough to be its own article.

If you look at Couture's record and you check out his early days, you'll see that he's fought tough fighters from all across the board.

From Tony Halme to Vitor Belfort, from Kevin Randleman to Chuck Liddell, from Brock Lesnar to Josh Barnett, everyone that has fought Couture is familiar with how dangerous this guy has been.

Of course, you can also ask James Toney if Couture's a tough son-of-a-bitch too.

Any Questions/Comments/Concerns/Angry Messages?

Leave them in the comments section!

Oh, and Honrable Mentions...

... Well, they go to anyone you don't see on this list.

So Bas Rutten, Frank Mir, Maurice Smith, Shogun Rua, Rashad Evans, etc.

Like I said, they get an honorable mention if they aren't on the list.

Thanks for viewing, y'all!