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I hate to paraphrase a classic Joe Rogan talking point, but the man has said a whole hell of a lot over the years, every now and then he has to hit the mark. In this case, that mark is all about how tough it is to be the longtime champ; for a fighter to ‘carry a target on their back’ year after year after year.
Eventually, any fighter that finds themselves at that level, usually four-plus title defenses into their reign starts to encounter a very particular phenomenon.
The path to UFC greatness
Early on in their time with the UFC, they’re the one making the charge, the one nobody is prepared for. Remember Anderson Silva coming to the Octagon and his fights against Chris Leben and Rich Franklin? They had no idea at all what was about to hit them. Most talents may not have that kind of shock value these days, where the promotion is much bigger and the path to the belt longer—but then again we’re not too far removed from Alex Pereira blitzing MW and LHW on his way to two different belts.
After that, the new champ has to claim their space. Most likely they’ve been merely one of several contenders, usually a group consisting of other former belt holders and talents who have been rising right up along side them. Their first few defenses, then, are going to be bouts of mutual interest. They’ll know just as much about their opponent as their opponent knows about them. Maybe these fighters have been side-eyeing one another for a bit, but for the bulk of their careers they’ve been focused on the stars of a previous era…
We’ve seen a whole truckload of UFC champions that have cut their way through those challenges. Guys like Israel Adesanya, Kamaru Usman, Dominick Cruz, and Max Holloway had no trouble taking out their share of former and current top talent around them. Where things have gotten tricky however, has been in the new blood.
Topuria as Volkanovski’s final boss
When Alexander Volkanovski first won featherweight gold, Ilia Topuria hadn’t even set foot inside the Octagon. ‘The Matador’ has spent literally his entire career inside the UFC focused at least in part on defeating one Australian man. Contenders like Yair Rodriguez and Brian Ortega couldn’t say that, having both joined the UFC when Conor McGregor and/or Jose Aldo still held claim to the crown. They passed through the whole Max Holloway era before facing Volkanovski.
This was new territory for ‘The Great’. He’d beaten the old guard, beaten his peers, now he had to stamp out this young lion. As we saw in Anaheim, he couldn’t make it happen.
There’s no shame in that. As I said before, even many of the best fighters in MMA history never achieved that goal. And those that have achieved it have often done so only barely hanging on by a thread.
The short list
At one time the MMA world was neck deep in arguments that Jon Jones actually lost to both Dominick Reyes and Thiago Santos at the end of his light heavyweight run. Younger fans may not remember, but Georges St-Pierre’s final welterweight title fight against Johny Hendricks was anything other than a clean cut victory for the Canadian legend.
It’s a huge credit to Demetrious Johnson that he beat both Kyoji Horiguchi and Henry Cejudo decisively before losing that narrow decision in the ‘Triple C’ rematch and getting sent packing off to Singapore. It’s just too bad that ‘Mighty Mouse’ didn’t have more flyweight forerunners to test himself against early on (although victories over Miguel Torres and Ian McCall certainly should count for something).
As it stands, that sort of makes up the entire list—at least as far as men go. Aldo went on to have remarkable success at 135 after Holloway ran him out of featherweight but he could never gain gold again. For the women, Amanda Nunes is the one fighter to really and truly grasp this claim to fame, having beat Tate, Rousey, Cyborg, and Holm, alongside Pennington, GDR, and Shevchenko. Adding later era defenses against Pena and Aldana. For Shevchenko, her victory over Taila Santos is probably her most clear pushback of what would have been considered the ‘new generation’, and that came with its own controversy.
Long story short, there’s a very small (and only lightly sketched out by yours truly) subcategory of all time pinnacle champions. It’s a list that includes Jon Jones, Georges St-Pierre, Demetrious Johnson, Amanda Nunes and Valentina Shevchenko. This was Volk’s chance to join that illustrious club and he couldn’t make it happen.
A truly great fighter and a dominant force in his own time, but not one of the true multi-generational championship gods of the UFC.
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