5 intriguing UFC title fights that the fans never got to see

#4. Georges St-Pierre vs. Diego Sanchez – UFC welterweight title

In late 2006, Diego Sanchez looked like the biggest threat to the welterweight title

In late 2006, it looked like a new era was beginning in the UFC’s welterweight division. 25-year old Georges St-Pierre ended the year as the promotion’s new champion at 170lbs after destroying longtime champ Matt Hughes with a head kick. He looked set to spearhead the division for the foreseeable future.

At the same time, inaugural TUF champion Diego Sanchez – seven months younger than GSP – was surging through the division. He defeated highly ranked contenders like Nick Diaz, Karo Parisyan and Joe Riggs en route to what seemed like an inevitable title challenge.

It felt like the two young stars were on a collision course. Had the promotion simply matched them against each other in early 2007, the fight would’ve been an easy sell to the fans, who were clearly buying into both men hugely. After all, at the time, there would’ve been huge questions over quite how GSP would’ve dealt with Sanchez’s wild, aggressive grappling style.

However, a major spanner was already in the works in the form of TUF 4. The winners of the season’s two tournaments – which were taking place at welterweight and middleweight – had been promised instant title shots.

Therefore, the season’s eventual champion, Matt Serra, was allowed to leapfrog Sanchez to take the first shot at GSP, despite lacking the major wins held by ‘The Nightmare’.

Any hopes of a potential GSP-Sanchez showdown in the future then went up in smoke at UFC 69. Serra knocked out the Canadian in one of the greatest upsets of all time, while Sanchez suffered his first career defeat at the hands of Josh Koscheck.

While St-Pierre did eventually regain the title, Sanchez moved down to lightweight at the end of 2008. This meant that the two men never came close to fighting, making this one an all-time great lost title bout.

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#3. Josh Barnett vs. Ricco Rodriguez – UFC heavyweight title

A positive drug test meant that fans never got to see Josh Barnett fight Ricco Rodriguez in 2002

The UFC themselves could easily be blamed for the majority of these missed title bouts. In the case of a heavyweight title clash between Josh Barnett and Ricco Rodriguez, however, they can be forgiven entirely.

This fight had the potential to be an instant classic. At the time that they probably should’ve fought – 2002 – both men were on fantastic winning streaks in the octagon. Given their respective styles, too, it would’ve been near impossible to pick a winner.

Barnett had captured the title from Randy Couture early that year with a come-from-behind win via ground-and-pound. Rodriguez, meanwhile, had put together a run of four straight wins in the octagon, all via TKO.

With both men possessing phenomenal skills on the ground and being crude but willing strikers, this had the potential to be an all-time classic title bout. Any hopes of it actually happening quickly fell apart when Barnett tested positive for banned substances.

‘The War Master’ was quickly stripped of his title, and Rodriguez’s eventual shot at the gold came against former champ Couture instead.

‘Ricco Suave’ duly defeated ‘The Natural’ in a tremendous fight to become the new champion. Unfortunately, Barnett would not return to the UFC following his suspension for well over a decade – meaning that the fight never happened.