The Worst UFC Champions in the History of Every Weight Class

I'd like to start off by stating that this article is not meant to disrespect any of the fighters featured within it.

You need to be a hell of a fighter just to compete at any level in the UFC, and to become a champion, you have to truly be among the fighting world's elite.

That said, it's an extremely difficult thing to compete consistently with the best in the world, and a lot of guys don't have what it takes to be dominant champions.

Not everyone can be Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre.

Let's take a look at the UFC's worst champion in each weight class...

*featherweight and bantamweight divisions will be excluded because there has only been one official UFC champion in each weight class.

Lightweight Division: Sean Sherk

Sean Sherk won the vacant lightweight championship at UFC 64 when he defeated Kenny Florian by unanimous decision.

He defended the belt once against Hermes Franca at UFC 73 and was later stripped of the belt after testing positive for banned substances.

Sherk has the fewest title defenses of any lightweight champion and also embarrassed the sport taking preformance enhancing substances.

Welterweight Division: Matt Serra

This was a close call between Matt Serra and Carlos Newton.

Both fighters failed to defend their championship belt after winning it.

I went with Serra because Newton's first title defense was a competitive fight, but Matt was dominated in his first defense.

Serra earned his welterweight title shot by winning season four of the Ultimate Fighter and went on to shock the world by defeating Georges St-Pierre by first round knockout.

Matt was unable to defend his belt for over a year due to coaching a season of the Ultimate Fighter and then getting injured.

His first defense was against the man he took the belt from, GSP. Georges proved that the first fight was a fluke by absolutely outclassing Serra in all aspects of the fight and finishing him in the second round.

Middleweight Division: Dave Menne

Dave Menne is the shortest reigning middleweight champion in UFC history.

He won the belt at UFC 33 by defeating Gill Castillo and amounted no title defenses, losing the belt to Murilo Bustamante UFC 35, via second round TKO.

Evan Tanner is another champion with no defenses who won the belt from questionable competition. However, Tanner held the belt slightly longer and also did a bit better in his first title defense.

Light Heavyweight Division: Vitor Belfort

Vitor Belfort is not the only man who was one-and-done as a UFC light heavyweight champion. The names Forrest Griffin and Rashad Evans also come to mind.

The difference between Vitor and those two is that Rashad and Forrest won their title fights decisively, and Vitor won his because of an unusual cut on his opponents eyelid.

Many people wondered if Belfort actually had what it took to beat Randy Couture and if he could have won that fight if the cut hadn't happened.

Vitor and Randy fought again later that year, and Couture won the fight decisively.

Heavyweight Division: Josh Barnett

This one was a tough call.

I almost had to go with Bas Rutten because he never defended his belt, and his win over Kevin Randleman to initially earn the belt was extremely controversial.

I've got to go with Josh Barnett, though.

Barnett defeated Randy Couture at UFC 36 to win the belt, but was later stripped of the title when he tested positive for steroids.

As far as I'm concerned, winning by cheating is worse than winning by controversial decision.