Talk:List of UFC champions

Page Name

I like the creation of this page but I think it should be called List of UFC champions. This is the naming format used for the boxing titles. MLA 15:31, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, you sound correct.Could you give me time to think about it because if the name of this article was changed I also would have to change the names of lists which I had made in Japanese wikipedia.I have already made the lists of title holders of some MMA and boxing organizations. Oh my buddah!

• eg.
  • Transition of IBF world title in Japanese
  • Transition of Shooto world title in Japanese
  • Transition of Pancrase title in Japanese

Yappakoredesho 02:30, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Instead of changing names in the Japanese version, could you not just use redirects? MLA 21:09, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Redirects?Which one?Yappakoredesho 11:30, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

The page still has the same title. Could you make the move that we discussed. MLA 15:55, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

It was changed. Thanks.--Yappakoredesho 22:51, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Reorganziation

In the coming days, I'll be changing the page so there is a distinction between the weight classes pre-UFC 31 and post UFC 31. Smoltz 22:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Official

• Ken Shamrock was the first UFC World Heavyweight Champion, why are we not listing him? Dan Severn followed Ken thereafter.
  • I think there was something lost in translation when the Superfight championship became the heavyweight title. Or did it? I would guess so, Shamrock claimed he was the first hw champ. I wouldn't object to putting Shamrock in there, although ideally there should be a source for the superfight title becoming the hw title... --hateless 06:28, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
  • While I don't know how popular the idea might be, it might be interesting to have the super fight list over the heavyweight to illustrate the trasition. Johnkinze 05:17, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Title defenses?

Does "title defense" mean the number of times a champion has successfully defended his title? Or does it mean the number of times a champion has fought, and defeated, an opponent? There is a difference - especially in the case of Matt Hughes. Hughes won his first championship at UFC 34, and defended his belt five times after (Sakurai, Newton, Castillo, Sherk, Trigg). He lost his belt at UFC 46, and regained his belt at UFC 50. Since that time, Hughes has only defended his title one time - against Frank Trigg at UFC 52. Hughes' other fights - Joe Riggs at UFC 56 and Royce Gracie at UFC 60 - were not title defenses. They were not championship matches.

I have changed Hughes' record to fit with my interpretation. A "title defense," in my opinion, should only be reserved for champions that defend their title in a championship bout, and I don't believe the term can be used for non-title bouts. A non-title fight doesn't add championship title defenses to a fighter's record. --Wyldephang 05:43, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Gee how long did it take for you to figure that out? Obviously if a fight isn't advertised as a "Championship Fight" then it's not going to be considered a title defence.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.177.46 (talk) 13:49, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Missing Tournaments?

For some reason the Ultimate Ultimates and The Ultimate Fighter winners have been left off. I've added them to what seems the most logical spots to me. Johnkinze 20:47, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Why does UFC 9 List tournament winners? I thought it was a nontournament event.Johnkinze 17:48, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Like the new layout?

I for one like it but I had to add a little centering to it, it looks and flows much better now. Johnkinze 05:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I prefer the non-centered layout. The centering weakens the grid for me, and my eye jumps around too much going from entry to entry, it looks chaotic with especially with the flags not aligned on a common edge. I think it helps scanning by keeping things justified to a single edge on the left side, especially the name column. The dates and locations are secondary info, they are probably fine being centered however. hateless 05:45, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Glad someone likes what I did (I made it that way). I'm also not a fan of the centered stuff, that's why I made it the way I did.-- FPAtl (holla) 02:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The page has definitely been improved, nice work to all, but I agree that everything in the grids being centered is not good. SubSeven 03:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I hate the new layout. It looks messy because of too much information. The section of "Location" and "defenses" should be rejected because they can be added to other articles instead here. See this model:List of WBA world champions Yappakoredesho 09:07, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

style

the fighters' style shoulld be added inthe list 61.95.13.82 —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 14:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

i really agree -anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.166.235.13 (talk) 03:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't. Reason being that most fighters now days do not have one style, most of them are good at different styles. Especially the champions. 67.175.145.113 (talk) 01:17, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely a bad idea, considering it will cause clutter and edit warring when people start debating what style a fighter really has. hateless 09:58, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

UFC 39/41 tournament

Please discuss the issue before the page is protected for edit warring. Thanks. hateless 01:59, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

If he wants to make a lil note between the events. Feel free, but it does not belong directly in the winner/loser categories. Swampfire (talk) 00:42, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

How about you get rid of that messy looking text that reads "finals" and "semi-finals", it is not needed. UFC 41 is obviously the finals where as UFC 39 would be the semi-finals, others have agreed with me on this issue (please view the edit made by East718 on August 15 at 01:01 and compare it to the previous edit made by Swampfire on August 15 at 00:38). Also the description was placed there to inform the users of wikipedia, and to give more explanation as to what happened in the tournament finals. The description belongs there. Descriptions can be found all over the list of champions, this is no different. And I will not make a "lil note" between the events, because it is ONE event... one cannot place a description between one event.67.175.145.113 (talk) 17:36, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

The bottom line is In the Winner and runner-up category, a disription of it being a 4 man tounrey does NOT belong there, Hateless even removed iot before I did. Also East718 did not agree with you that it belonged, what he was talking about was <'small'> he even stated such. So you aare wrong. But infact when pointing out such things EAST718 in affect pointed out WP:MOS which again backs up the removal of such nonsense with in the winner runnerup category. Finals and semifinals can be removed, However the only thing that is going to be in the winner runerup category is the names. as shown in every other event. Swampfire (talk) 18:55, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

If East718 did not agree with me then why did he undo your edit to look like mine by erasing the small text (finals and semi-finals) in the event section and placed the description back where it was. The actual bottom line is that this tournament is different than every other event because there was NO WINNER AND NO RUNNERUP, therefore it cannot be shown like in every other event and therefore an explanation is needed. So the description is in no way nonsense. 67.175.145.113 (talk) 19:33, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

If you actually read his edit note you will she what he was actually doing. Swampfire (talk) 16:49, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, ok at least we can agree to disagree. But what if we just make the row look something like this.....

Event	Weight class	Winner	Runner-up	Date
UFC 39 UFC 41	Lightweight	B.J. Penn drew with Caol Uno.**		February 28, 2003

B.J. Penn drew with Caol Uno in the final match of the 4-man lightweight tournament. (<--- this will go at the bottom of the list, as like a little note) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.175.145.113 (talk) 18:16, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Bottomline NO descriptions with in the winner runner up category explaining how it was a tournament, That is just pure nonsense, as the reason it is within the section at all is becuase it is a tournament. The categories are for winners and runner ups, I personally do not think either 41 or 39 should be listed, as neither was a TRUE tournament style event. Swampfire (talk) 16:46, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Swampfire, do not drag me into your pointless squabble. The main reason for my edit was to simplify the "UFC 41 (started at UFC 39)" phrase, which was unnecessarily wordy. I thought "in the final match..." phrase was a bit unnecessary but respect that someone may have a difference in opinion here. Otherwise, it seems we're even further from consensus now since the protect, 67 has offered to compromise and you refuse. That's something we do not tolerate on Wikipedia. hateless 00:11, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with 67's idea. i don't think that the words "finals" and "semi-finals" should be placed in the events section, it looks to messy that way. to tell you the truth, i actually like the original version (the one that 67 was fighting to keep) the one with the description, i understand what he was trying to do. it did inform me when i first saw it and i actually believe that it looks better 67's way. "NO descriptions" is not the bottom line, like swapfire said, i believe it looked better with the description 207.246.181.26 (talk) 18:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Protection

For the last several days there has been a slow moving edit war on this page between Swamp and 67, and this talk page has not been used as a forum to end or prevent this edit war, so I have full protected the article for 2 weeks to encourage the parties to use the talk page to collaborate on a stable version of the article. MBisanz ^talk 02:08, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I personally think UFC 39 and UFC 41 should be deleted altogether from the list as they were NOT TRUE tournament style events.Swampfire (talk) 16:53, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Heavyweight Situation

Can someone tell me what we are going to do about this Couture/Lesnar/Mir/Nog situation? Can we discuss this.... Dana White discribed the situation as a heavyweight tournament, do we count it as a tournament?? And what if brock wins, is he the new champ? What is Mir wins, is he the new interim champ? How is this going to look in the "list of champions" format? 207.246.181.26 (talk) 14:23, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Explanation of HW title situation

Heres whats going on. Randy is the ufc champ and Nogueira is the ufc interim champ like it has been all along. Randy will fight Brock in a 5 round title fight, and Nogueira will do the same with Mir. Then the winners of those fights will meet to determine the undisputed heavyweight champion. Everybody is saying it should be Nog vs Randy. Well Nog is filming a reality show that ends in him vs Frank Mir for the title in december. So the earliest Randy vs Nog could happen is march. The ufc is not going to let their 45 year old champ sit out another 6 months, he only has so much time left and he's getting older. Also everyone is talking about Werdum getting screwed. Well Werdum is fighting next month at 90 so he cant fight at 91. Dana has said all along that Werdum is guaranteed a title shot, if he beats Dos Santos next month as he should than he will fight the winner of the "tourney". The issue with Brock getting a title shot is a another one. Nog Mir and Werdum are all fighting already. Brock just beat Heath, who just beat Kongo. Gonzaga lost to Randy in Randys last title defense. The only other option to fight Randy in november would be Cain Velasquez, who hasnt fought the level of competition Brock has. When they were in negotiations to get Randy back, they probably had to agree to keep him as heavyweight champ and give him the fight he wanted to come to an agreement. In the end were gonna see 3 title fights in this "tourney" followed by another one with Werdum. Sounds great to me.

NOW the only problem is, how can we make all this not look confusing on the List of ufc champions???207.246.181.26 (talk) 18:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

is wikipedia going to put it in the tournament section? 143.43.210.80 (talk) 19:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

K, well why don't we do some side by side thing. Since the titles have been defended individually we can't have them one after another like it is now. I say we create two columns then merge them once Mir and Lesnar fight each other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.165.11.197 (talk) 20:24, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

No, thats a stupid idea. But im all for putting this in the tournament section. 67.163.17.113 (talk) 23:15, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Section titles and WP:OVERLINK

To the editors who are attempting to add the weights into the section headers: you are breaking hundreds of links that link to those subsections directly, which are written without those weights in the subsection titles. Please stop ruining all of these links.

Also, please go read WP:OVERLINK. It pretty clearly states that there should only be one link per article to any given article. That means that Tokyo, for example, only gets linked the first time it is used in an article.--2008Olympian^chitchat 06:57, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the WP:OVERLINK but do you understand that you are making irresponsible changes to this list, for example you claim that Tokyo should only get linked once however in your "cleaned up" version of this list Tokyo is not linked once in the entire page. Also if this rule states that there should be only one link per article on any given article then why are there still multiple links to fighters that have been champions on several different occasions (for example, Randy Couture). Another issue is that you change the section titles, i understand what you are trying to do but i propose that you do this a different why due to the fact that your weight description is looking very messy compared to what it looked like before, also people are becoming upset because you deleted the description under the light heavyweight section that described the title unification bout claiming that it was not relevant, when this is clearly a huge deal in the championship history. Also when you removed this description you left an almost identical desciption under the middleweight section, they are both relevant and belong there. I believe that these problems and possibly more, along with your extremely irresponsible edits, are causing alot of people to become upset and undo your edits. 207.246.181.26 (talk) 17:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Then the correct response would be to link Tokyo one time, not to link all them all over again. And edit the weight descriptions instead of adding them back into the section titles. As for the belts, the change in the Middleweight belt was a UFC issue. The PRIDE unification has nothing to do with the UFC. If someone added that info back in I wouldn't revert it, however. But when it is reverted with everything else I am going to put the article back where it belongs.--2008Olympian^chitchat 19:25, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

What are you talking about? i do not care about the link to tokyo, what i care about is how perfect this page used to be. What i am saying is that if you are going to attempt to "clean up" this list using your rules, then do it the right way. Take away ALL the links that are used a second time, this INCLUDES the fighters name, if they win a title a second time. Also what is possibly wrong with puting the weight in lbs and kgs in the section titles?? It was like that for years and it has never been a problem until you started crying about it. 207.246.181.26 (talk) 01:09, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree almost 100% with this user 207 guy above me, if you are going to do this WP:OVERLINK thing then do it, but do it the right way and stop changing the other features of this list like the section titles. the titles of the sections looked fine before you had to F with them. Also stop removing the descriptions, that was needed above the lightheavyweight list. I have been watching this list develope over the past weeks and in my opinion this olympian guy has done more harm than good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.43.210.98 (talk) 01:58, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

P.S. now that this olympian guy is making all these changes the list look messy as hell- all black and blue, blue and black, black and black, other than before when the list was all matching and color coordinating.

Sure, I'll remove all the extra links. These aren't "my" rules, it is policy at WP:OVERLINK. You say that you have no problem with the policy, so why not help me get this article into compliance instead of just reverting and complaining?

As for the weights in the section titles, there are too many other links in other articles that link to these subsections the way they are written. See UFC 97: it links to the Middleweight Championship at List of UFC Champions#Middleweight Championship, without the use of the weight. To ask everyone to remember the exact weights when they are typing the wikilink is too much. No one has those weights memorized. So that breaks the link so that it only links to the whole article instead of to the specific section that they were targeting. Also, look at all of the succession boxes at the bottom of every UFC title holder. They link to the section without using the weights. Do you understand now?--2008Olympian^chitchat 08:02, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, just edit the list using the rule, but stop messing with everything else like the descriptions you keep deleteing. And stop saying you'll undo my edits because they are wrong, if you keep editing irresponsibly then i will undo your edits 207.246.181.26 (talk) 20:57, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:OVERLINK is NOT meant to be applied to tables. See Wikipedia:OVERLINK#Link_density. In particular:

In general, link only the first occurrence of an item. This is a rule of thumb that has many exceptions, including the  following:
   * where a later occurrence of an item is a long way from the first.
   * where the first link was in an infobox or a navbox, or some similar meta-content.
   * tables, in which each row should be able to stand on its own.

The tables should be fully linked. -- Intractable (talk) 02:08, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

To be fair, the discussion above took place in January, and it was easy for people to miss that point since it was first inserted around the same time. That said, it does appear you are right and this is the way the article should be formatted. hateless 07:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Section titles

Please don't rename or adjust section titles. There are dozens of links directly to those sections that will be broken if you do. Thanks.--2008Olympian^chitchat 13:19, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Also, please read WP:MOSHEAD: "Section names should not normally contain links, especially ones that link only part of the heading; they will cause accessibility problems."--2008Olympian^chitchat 05:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

• There is no need in an article titled List of UFC champions, to then have titles that read UFC Heavyweight champion, UFC lightweight champion, etc. First, it is redundant: of course they are the UFC champion, it says so right in the title. Second, and more importantly, it breaks all the incoming links to those sections. I'm talking every title event and every title holder in the history of the UFC. Why should we change all of those links that are perfectly fine just so that you can have the word UFC in them? It doesn't make any sense ans all you are doing is creating tons of work for no reason just so you can fiddle with the article. --2008Olympian^chitchat 22:43, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Jens Pulver

It does not show who Jens defeated when he won the lightweight championship (Caol Uno). Also my IP's been on a continuous ban. I don't know if this has been properly fixed since I'm editing this page but if someone could check, thanks. - Guest Feb 02 2009 4:26pm

 Done --aktsu ^(t / c) 02:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Question on the Heavyweight Division

Who is the real champion at that weight class? Is it Lesnar or Mir? It's confusing to an MMA neophyte like me to see both men's pages listing them as champion of that weight class. Mir's says "interim", but why is there a need for an "interim", when Lesnar's says "Heavyweight Champion"? Unitanode 22:20, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

While Couture was unable to fight, the interim championship was created to keep things moving/interesting. Mir defeated Nogueira who had that championship. When Couture came back, the logical thing would be for him to immediately fight the interim champ to unify the two titles, but that didn't happen so we still both of them. So to finally unify them Mir will fight Lesnar to determine the "real" champion, discontinuing the interim title. If you really want to name one of them the "most real" champ I'd say it has to be Lesnar since the interim title was created between the #1 and #2 contenders while he fought the actual champ, but it's all just technical BS so none of it really matters. What's important is Mir—Lesnar to determine the real champ. Hope that helps :) --aktsu ^(t / c) 22:58, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, to be sure. I'd think that they would just dissolve the "interim" championship, and have Lesnar defend the "real" title against the top contender. But as that would be Mir anyways, it seems, I guess this "unification" bout serves the same purpose. Thanks for the info. Unitanode 23:40, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Chronological vs Reverse-chronological

The tables should be reordered so that the more recent events show up on top, as they are more relevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.90.115.59 (talk) 12:42, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

UFC Title

I'm not a UFC fan, so forgive me, How does UFC have a Heavyweight Champion, and a Interim Heavyweight Champion? I've looked at the Lesnar and Mir articles, I am still confused. Can anyone explain this? Sephiroth storm (talk) 02:54, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Like you, I am not a fan, just someone interested in MMA. But from what I've gathered, the former UFC Heavyweight Champion Randy Couture left UFC while he was still champion over a disagreement. So now without a championship, UFC created the Interim Championship which Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira won. Then Mir defeated him to become champion. After Couture returned, Lesnar defeated him to become champion. Now they are going to unify the belts.--WillC 04:38, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Wow. with respect to UFC fans, that is the gayest idea... Thanks for the explanation. Sephiroth storm (talk) 13:42, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Randy Couture never lost the UFC Heavyweight Championship but then it's not Nogueira's fault that he came back and Nogueira never lost the championship either so how could you strip either one. Admittedly they could have faced each other but a tourney sees a better box office return. That being said the way the table runs at the moment looks odd, it looks as if Brock's a two time champion. Also are the defences listed somewhere officially by UFC because unless they state otherwise I would call his match against Mir a defence. But then I'm no more than a fairweather fan of MMA. Tony2Times (talk) 20:53, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Fixing The Weight Classes

Would Someone make a link form Georges St-Pierre name to his profile page. Like it was done for all the other fighter. GSP is a legend and possible the best mma fighter in the world. I think he deserves at least that. Thank you. GSP-Rush (talk) 2:09, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

It was linked under the defeat by Matt Hughes. I removed that link (since it was tiny) and added it to the next instance of his name. In the future, you are welcome to do this yourself. Wperdue (talk) 06:18, 24 July 2009 (UTC)wperdue

Ok Thank for fixing it and for the part about me doing it. I would of if i knew how to do it, that why i ask or else i would of just fix it myself. GSP-Rush (talk) 2:24, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

You are welcome. If you would like to make something an internal wikilink just put double brackets on each side of it, such as [[Georges St. Pierre]]. Wperdue (talk) 06:28, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok thank, well i had somme spare time so i fix the whole welterweight divison added link to all the fighter and added on every fighter who they beat to get the title. If you guys have any free time please do the same whit the other weight classes it make it look cleaner and more professional. GSP-Rush (talk) 2:58, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

The other weight classes appear to have been set up with the notion that it is assumed a new title holder defeated the previous title holder unless there is a note indicating who they did beat and why the previous title holder was not involved. I actually think that way is simpler and cleaner, myself. Senor Vergara (talk) 04:12, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Interim Titles

76.16.43.108 - Please don't remove the information regarding these titles. It has been restored by undoing your changes (not by me). While it looks like you may have contributed some useful link and other misc cleanup, the interim info removal was not a good idea. Normally, removing correct information requires more prudence than adding information or grammar/syntax issues, and will often require discussion first. In this case, reading above sections, you can see that Interim titles have previously been discussed here and a number of people had expressed confusion over the Interim Title lineage. I had the same problems after reading this article, which is why I decided to research the history and try to clarify the situation. If you have a reason for objecting, discuss it here and see what people say. I think the new information is helpful in reducing the confusion expressed earlier and is formatted consistantly with other explanatory notes within the tables. Senor Vergara (talk) 04:27, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I do not think this is a good idea, the list is pretty self explainitory and you are contantly added info that is already present that is ruining the flow of the chart. your way looks extremely messy and no one had a problem with it before you came along. 76.16.43.108 (talk) 16:41, 29 July 2009 (UTC)