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To trace the lineage of the UFC lightweight title is to follow a crooked line. In a sport like MMA, in which fans are used to definitive transitions of power, there have been surprisingly few of those at 155lb.
When Ilia Topuria and Charles Oliveira share the ring in June, a new lightweight champion will be crowned. Yet while the title has been won in the Octagon consistently, it has not been lost in the cage for nine years.
The main event of UFC 317, the latest duel over the lightweight gold, pits former featherweight champion Topuria against former 155lb king Oliveira, after Islam Makhachev’s dominant reign came to an end at the hands of... well, himself, or the UFC, depending on how you look at it.
Makhachev, who proved near-untouchable in a two-and-a-half year spell as champion, has machinations of moving up and challenging for the welterweight title. Per UFC president Dana White, the Russian will get his wish, yet with the promotion no longer keen on fighters holding two belts at once, Makhachev “vacated” the lightweight gold first. Or was it stripped from him? Did he jump, or was he pushed?
This might be a case where the answer to an either/or question is “yes”, as it seems the UFC politely forced Makhachev to vacate his belt. Similarly, Topuria “vacated” the featherweight title in February, as he announced his plan to move up and challenge for the lightweight belt.
As such, Alexander Volkanovski and Diego Lopes clashed over the vacant 145lb title in April, with former champion Volk – whom Topuria dethroned last year – reclaiming his throne. Now, it is Makhachev’s vacant title that is up for grabs as Topuria faces Oliveira.
This brings us to a quirky stat, which Indy Sport found via MMA Fighting, when the publication shared a comment from one of its articles: user @Bloody_Hellbow wrote, “Interesting stat: Eddie Alvarez is the last LW [lightweight] champion to lose his title in the Octagon.”
It is an interesting stat. Alvarez was famously knocked out by Conor McGregor in November 2016, as the Irish icon achieved the kind of performance that fans have swooned over for nearly a decade, and which they will swoon over for many decades to come.
Yet then came McGregor’s game-changing venture into boxing, as he faced Floyd Mayweather in 2017, leading “Notorious” to be stripped of the lightweight title due to UFC inactivity (though not until April 2018, remarkably).
That set up Khabib Nurmagomedov to claim the vacant belt with a dominant victory over Al Iaquinta, and after Nurmagomedov recorded three defences, he metaphorically left the title in the Octagon in 2020, as he retired from fighting in the moments after choking Justin Gaethje out cold.
So, the belt was vacant again, until Oliveira knocked out Michael Chandler in 2021, before the Brazilian’s scintillating form continued with a submission of Dustin Poirier at the end of that year. But in an abrupt end to Oliveira’s run, he lost the strap on the scales; after narrowly missing weight one day before a planned defence against Gaethje, he was stripped of the title.
Oliveira’s ensuing submission of Gaethje therefore only made him the No 1 contender to the lightweight title, which was on the line when he squared off with Makhachev in late 2022. There, Makhachev submitted the UFC’s greatest submission artist to kickstart his own record-breaking reign; before vacating the belt this week, Makhachev achieved four successful defences – one more than his childhood friend and now-coach Khabib, and a few of the old guard.
On that note: what has been discussed less than this week’s intriguing stat is that the “curse” hanging over the lightweight title has arguably existed since the belt’s inception in 2001.
Jens Pulver became the inaugural champion by stopping Caol Uno, but he left the title vacant when he exited the UFC in 2002. What followed was a tournament to crown Pulver’s successor, but the final ended as a draw between Uno and BJ Penn in 2003.
There were sporadic lightweight fights in the UFC thereafter until 2006, when the division returned in full. Still, there was to be little consistency as concerned the title. Sean Sherk beat Kenny Florian that October to claim the vacant gold, but he only earned one defence before being stripped thanks to a failed drug test.
Penn won the again vacant title in 2008, stopping Joe Stevenson, before achieving three successful defences.
The next title change was the first in-ring example in the division, as Frankie Edgar overcame Penn in 2010, mercifully marking the start of a run of normal dethronings.
Another clean title change followed after two retentions, when Benson Henderson took the title from Edgar in 2012, before he achieved three successful defences to match Penn’s then-record. Next, Anthony Pettis dethroned Henderson in 2015 and retained it once before a loss to Rafael dos Anjos, who similarly scored one title defence before dropping the strap to Alvarez.
While Alvarez was unable to achieve any title retentions, his championship loss was at least another straightforward one – the most recent in UFC history – as he fell to a transcendent McGregor.
This is all to say nothing of interim champions, but in any case: seven years on, Oliveira and Topuria will aim to be crowned the 13th undisputed UFC lightweight champion. If Oliveira can do what no one else has done and beat the Spanish-Georgian, he will also become the first ever two-time undisputed UFC lightweight champion; in that case, there would be only 12 different historic champions, of course.
The hope is simply that whoever wins at UFC 317 will be dethroned in the cage, not outside of it. However, don’t get those hopes up. The odds favour Topuria, and it wouldn’t be surprising if he mirrored his featherweight run: winning the belt, retaining it once, then giving it up – to sail into the sunset young and healthy, perhaps.
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