Interesting read on MMA linear champions
article is by Meltzer
With all the different organizations and claims of who is No. 1, there is an old fashioned way of determining who the real world champion is. It?s the linear test.
The phrase, used more commonly in boxing, is the guy who beats the champion becomes the champion.
In MMA, it is interesting at looking back at history because even when you are talking linear champions, you are still going to have aspects of controversy. You have to look no further than the oldest division in the sport, the heavyweights.
With the exception of heavyweight, the current linear champion in the five major weight divisions is the person who today holds the UFC belt. But the line of getting there in all but one weight division is very different than the UFC title history.
And even in heavyweight, because of a dispute on what constitutes a real victory in a match held ten years ago, you can make the case for Brock Lesnar as the linear champion.
The first true heavyweight champion in this sport, before weight classes even existed in UFC, would be Ken Shamrock. The UFC debuted on November 12, 1993, in Denver, with a one-night tournament, won by Royce Gracie. The company?s first actual singles title match was on April 7, 1995, with Gracie vs. Shamrock for what was called the World superfight championship. The match, the longest in UFC history, went 36:06 before it was called off due to pay-per-view time running out, and ruled a draw. At the time, judges didn?t exist. Had their been judges, Shamrock, who weighed between 205 and 210 pounds, would have easily won the decision from the 180-pound Gracie.
Gracie then dropped out of UFC, and on July 14, 1995, in Casper, Wyoming, Shamrock beat Dan Severn with a guillotine in a battle of the two men who were the two logical top fighters in the organization at the time, to become the first World superfight champion.
Severn won a rematch on May 17, 1996, in Detroit, on a split decision in one of the worst fights in company history. When Mark Coleman beat Severn on February 7, 1997, the title was renamed the UFC heavyweight championship.
While Lesnar holds that championship today, being the man who beat the man takes some interesting twists over history. The UFC belt passed from Coleman to Maurice Smith to Randy Couture, all in 1997. Couture then had money issues with the original UFC ownership group and went to Japan.
The linear title would have left UFC with Couture, who lost via armbar to Enson Inoue in Tokyo on October 25, 1998. That linear title would go on to Mark Kerr and the Pride organization. Kerr then lost to Kazuyuki Fujita on May 1, 2000, and that?s where things get interesting.
Fujita battered Kerr to win a decision in what was such a big upset at the time that most fans couldn?t even accept that it really happened. It was the first match for both men in an eight-man one-night event that was billed to crown the best fighter in the sport, the original Pride Grand Prix tournament.
Fujita suffered a knee injury in the fight from ramming his knee into Kerr?s head so many times. He did come to the ring for his second fight, to collect the paycheck, and as soon as the bell rang, his corner threw in the towel in a match with Coleman. If we consider that a title change, and Coleman went on to win the tournament, the title stays with Pride until the closing of the organization in 2007.
Coleman?s next loss was to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, who later became Pride?s first world heavyweight champion. Nogueira held both the linear and Pride titles until losing to Fedor Emelianenko via decision on March 16, 2003.
Nobody beat Emelianenko until June 26, 2010, in San Jose, when Fabricio Werdum submitted him with an armbar in 1:09 in a Strikeforce match.
But UFC can make a claim that Lesnar is the rightful linear champion. If you throw out the Fujita loss to Coleman, since realistically, the match never took place, that title would also be in Japan, but go from Fujita to Mirko Cro Cop, to Nogueira, to Josh Barnett, and back to Nogueira. Somehow, due to timing issues, it avoids Emelianenko completely. Right there is the key argument about a linear title that isn?t promoted within the sport. If a linear title was recognized, the odds were Emelianenko would have fought for it during that period.
Nogueira then left Pride and signed with UFC, and didn?t lose until December 27, 2008, to Frank Mir in Las Vegas. Mir then lost to Lesnar, the current UFC champion, at UFC 100 on July 11, 2009 in Las Vegas.
In the light heavyweight division, the UFC title, at the time called the middleweight title, dates back to December 27, 1997, when Frank Shamrock beat Olympic gold medal winning wrestler Kevin Jackson with an armbar in 14 seconds in a match in Yokohama, Japan. Shamrock actually never lost another match until 2007. But it?s ridiculous to trace any legitimate claim to Shamrock past 2003, since that was the last time he fought as a light heavyweight. Shamrock, who mostly fought people cutting from 220 as a light heavyweight, would now be considered by today?s standards a medium sized welterweight. At the time, there was no middleweight division. He fought sparingly after vacating the UFC title at the end of 1999 due to more money being offered elsewhere, and was a middleweight when he lost to Renzo Gracie via disqualification in 2007.
The most legitimate title claim would have remained with UFC, which filled the void after Shamrock left the company, with a April 14, 2000, match in Tokyo where Tito Ortiz beat Wanderlei Silva via decision. For the last decade, that title can be perfectly traced in the UFC cage to the championship held today when Mauricio ?Shogun? Rua beat Lyoto Machida on May 8, 2010 in Montreal.
The current UFC middleweight championship came from Murilo Bustamante beating Dave Menne via knockout in the second round on January 11, 2002, at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn. That linear title would today be held by Anderson Silva. But instead of winning it nearly four years ago, he would have won it four weeks ago.
Bustamante left UFC in a contract dispute. While he lost to Quinton Jackson as a light heavyweight, his first loss in the weight class would have been to Dan Henderson, which ended up creating the Pride title, which was actually at 183 pounds. The linear title would take an interesting twist in Japan, to Kazuo Misaki (who beat Henderson in a non-title match), who then lost to Paulo Filho. After Pride went down in 2007, Filho was signed by WEC and won its middleweight championship. Filho?s only career loss was November 5, 2008, to Chael Sonnen, in what was supposed to be a WEC middleweight title match. Filho didn?t make weight but Sonnen beat him via decision in the match. If we go with Sonnen as the rightful champion, the linear belt would move to UFC when WEC dropped its middleweight division. Sonnen then lost to Demian Maia, who lost to Nate Marquardt. Marquardt lost to Sonnen, and the title does finally wind up with Silva on August 8, in Oakland, via fifth round triangle submission.
The welterweight title was created on October 16, 1998, when Pat Miletich won a decision over Mikey Burnett at the UFC?s only event ever held in South America, in Sao Paolo, Brazil. It was first called the lightweight championship, but quickly was changed to the welterweight division.
In those days, before Zuffa had purchased UFC, fighters didn?t have exclusive contracts, and Miletich as champion, fought on a February 2, 1999, SuperBrawl show in Honolulu, where he lost via triangle choke to Jutaro Nakao. Miletich was still UFC champion, and eventually lost to Carlos Newton in 2001. During his UFC title reign, he lost three times outside the UFC.
The linear title still ends up with current UFC champion Georges St. Pierre, but there is a winding road there. Nakao lost in Japan to Tetsuji Kato, who lost to Hayato Sakurai, who lost to of all people, a 167-pound Anderson Silva on August 26, 2001. Silva lost in Japan to Daijyu Takase, who lost to Rodrigo Gracie, also in Japan. Gracie lost to B.J. Penn in Honolulu. Penn returned to UFC and lost to St. Pierre on March 4, 2006. This was prior to St. Pierre?s first title win over Matt Hughes on November 18, 2006, in Sacramento, Calif.
In the past four-and-a-half years, St. Pierre only lost once, to Matt Serra, and immediately regained the title in the rematch.
The current UFC lightweight championship can be traced back to February 23, 2001, when Jens Pulver won a majority decision over Caol Uno in Atlantic City, N.J. Since Miletich?s title was still being called lightweight, the 155-pound title was originally called the bantamweight title.
A few months later, both titles had their name changes. Pulver also ended up in a financial dispute with UFC, and left the organization to fight elsewhere without losing the championship.
Pulver?s first loss after winning the title was in Montreal, being knocked out in just 1:13 by Duane ?Bang? Ludwig. Ludwig would go to Japan and lost by submission to Penn on May 22, 2004 in Tokyo. Penn would actually not lose a lightweight match until April 10, 2010 when he dropped the UFC title to Frankie Edgar. But Penn also never fought at lightweight between his win over Ludwig and a June 23, 2007, UFC win over Pulver in Las Vegas.
