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While there are many UFC stars and champions whom the UFC significantly rewarded for their contributions to MMA, there are also many who have not received the same treatment.
In light of a recent questionable call made by the UFC about their heavyweight division, we will now go over three times the UFC did not treat their champions with the respect they deserved.
#3 Demetrious Johnson - UFC flyweight champion
Demetrious 'Mighty Mouse' Johnson was one of the UFC's most dominant champions of all time during his run as king of the flyweights. Despite his untouchable run of title defenses, the UFC did not consider Johnson a 'draw,' leading to some incredibly unequal treatment.
In June 2017, Johnson released a lengthy statement detailing the unfair treatment he had received at the hands of the UFC, despite his status as one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time.
While the whole statement is too long to be transcribed into this list, Johnson essentially said that the UFC refused to give him PPV points, any say in who his next opponent would be, and refused to invest time or resources into marketing him. The entire statement can be found transcribed by MMA Junkie here.
#2 Tony Ferguson - Interim UFC lightweight champion
Tony Ferguson's UFC career is essentially a series of what-ifs. In his prime, 'El Cucuy' was one of the best lightweights on the planet, and at one point held a 12-fight win streak inside the UFC.
During this impressive run, he picked up the interim UFC lightweight title after submitting Kevin Lee at UFC 216. He was then scheduled to face off against Khabib Nurmagomedov in a title unification bout.
However, just six days before the fight, he tore his fibular collateral ligament while walking on set for a pre-fight media obligation and was forced to withdraw from the event. The UFC then stripped him of his belt, leaving him in limbo.
Speaking about the media day via MMA Fighting’s Marc Raimondi, Ferguson later stated that the UFC had significantly cut his wages.
“It’s been five months since my injury,” said Ferguson. “It took a long f*cking time for me to be here. They took my belt, they took a bunch of zeroes from my pay check. How do you think I f*cking feel? It’s all fun and games, right?”
Ferguson lost his belt and a significant amount of his paycheck because he was injured on the set of a compulsory UFC media day.
#1 Francis Ngannou - UFC heavyweight champion
The current situation surrounding Francis Ngannou is the most recent example of the UFC treating one of the champions with blatant disrespect that does not appear to be warranted. It is worth noting that the whole scenario is still unfolding, and thus there may be facets of the situation yet to come to light.
However, as it stands, it would appear that the UFC have announced an interim heavyweight title fight just three months after Francis Ngannou was crowned the UFC heavyweight champion. The fight is between Derrick Lewis, who Ngannou was initially meant to make his first title defense against, and Ciryl Gane, who is coming off a win over Alexander Volkov at UFC Vegas 30.
UFC president Dana White and Ngannou's manager, Marquel Martin, have since begun a back and forth on social media. As Martin revealed, Ngannou was willing to compete in September, only a month after the Lewis vs. Gane fight. However, the UFC have instead decided to strong-arm Ngannou, matching up Lewis with Gane and leaving the heavyweight champion with no opponent.
