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In the world of the UFC, like in any sport, it’s largely impossible for even the greatest champion to stay at the top forever. In the 20-year history of the promotion, just two champions – Frank Shamrock and Georges St-Pierre – have managed to vacate their titles rather than losing them or being stripped by the company.
On a lot of occasions, it’s a close-fought battle that sees the champion finally lose their title – think Rampage Jackson’s Light-Heavyweight title loss to Forrest Griffin, or more recently, Demetrious Johnson’s Flyweight title loss to Henry Cejudo.
Other times though, the defending champion takes such a bad beating that it’s almost enough to question whether they were actually any good in the first place. Here are 5 examples of times that great UFC champions lost badly.
#1 Brock Lesnar vs. Cain Velasquez – UFC 121
Some analysts would argue with the idea of calling Brock Lesnar a “great UFC champion”, as there’s a fair argument to suggest he never truly earned a title shot in the first place due to fighting Randy Couture with just a 1-1 Octagon record.
Lesnar knocked Couture out to win the title, though, and the statistics definitely suggest he could be considered a great champion. Until the reign of Stipe Miocic from 2016 to 2018, Lesnar jointly held the record for most successful Heavyweight title defences with 2, defeating formidable opponents in Frank Mir and Shane Carwin.
Regardless of what you feel about ‘The Beast Incarnate’ though, one thing is undeniable – that the beating Cain Velasquez put on him to take his title away was one of the nastiest in the history of the Heavyweight division.
Coming into the fight, the fanbase appeared to be split as to who would win – some siding with the challenger’s superior striking and cardio, others favouring Lesnar’s size, power and supposedly better wrestling game.
Lesnar did indeed take Velasquez down early, but it was the only success he saw in the fight. The challenger quickly made it back to his feet, and from there he hit his own takedown on Lesnar and began to unleash some huge punches that had the champion literally stumbling and spinning around the cage.
Lesnar eventually crumbled under Velasquez’s punching power, and was TKO’d towards the end of the first round – being left with a gash under his left eye that looked like it’d been made with a machete. For the fans who disliked Brock, this was instant karma – a devastating beatdown to knock him off his perch at the top of the Heavyweight mountain.
#2 Matt Hughes vs. Georges St-Pierre – UFC 65
In late 2004 at UFC 50, former Welterweight champion Matt Hughes fought hot prospect Georges St-Pierre for the title he’d lost to BJ Penn – who was subsequently stripped – a few months prior. It was a surprisingly tricky fight for Hughes, who, Penn fight aside had looked largely untouchable for years before. He still came out on top though – catching St-Pierre with an armbar in the very last second of the opening round.
Just over two years later, the two men would face off again; Hughes had regained his dominant aura, defeating Frank Trigg, Joe Riggs, Royce Gracie and finally Penn in a rematch, but it was St-Pierre who’d been on the more interesting journey.
The young Canadian bounced back from his first career loss by beating journeyman Dave Strasser and prospect Jason Miller, and then embarked on a run of fights against former Hughes victims – Trigg, Sean Sherk and Penn – and beat them all, arguably in more impressive fashion than Hughes had managed to do.
Many fans were still favouring the vastly more experienced Hughes in the rematch, but it turned out that they were badly mistaken. St-Pierre came in like a man on a mission; clearly, he’d underestimated his own skills in the first fight with Hughes and wasn’t about to make the same mistake again.
What followed was one of the most one-sided title wins in UFC history. St-Pierre systematically broke Hughes down in the first round – hitting him with leg kicks, spinning kicks, stuffing the champion’s only takedown attempt, and finally dropping him with a superman punch and a short left hook in the final seconds of the round.
If Hughes’s corner had figured he’d do better in the second round, they were quickly proven wrong when St-Pierre dropped him with a low kick before hitting him with a left high kick to the side of the neck and head. Hughes went down, and a series of elbows later, the UFC had a new Welterweight champion.
It was an absolutely savage beating that largely ended the career of Hughes as a top-level Welterweight, as despite picking up another handful of wins, he never came close to regaining his title. His status as ‘the greatest Welterweight of all time’ would also be usurped by St-Pierre – who never suffered a defeat quite like this throughout his career.
#3 Chuck Liddell vs. Rampage Jackson – UFC 71
By 2007, Chuck Liddell was widely recognised as not just the most popular fighter in MMA, but also one of the most dominant UFC champions of all time. Not only was he the reigning UFC Light-Heavyweight champion, but he also held the rare distinction of having avenged most of his career losses – beating Randy Couture and Jeremy Horn.
The only man left on his list of vengeance? Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, who’d beaten ‘The Iceman’ during his brief crossover to Japan’s PRIDE FC in 2003. Rampage had fallen on some harder times since then – being violently stopped by Wanderlei Silva and Shogun Rua – but he still came into the UFC with some considerable fanfare in early 2007.
After defeating Marvin Eastman in what was essentially a fight to introduce him to the UFC audience, Rampage was finally matched with Liddell in their long-awaited rematch at UFC 71. Despite his victory over Eastman, many fans felt Liddell would almost certainly get his revenge.
For starters, he’d apparently been injured in the first meeting between the two. And more to the point, he’d improved since then – honing his already-excellent takedown defense and striking into a seemingly unstoppable blend of violence.
Rampage had other ideas, though. After a brief feeling-out period, Liddell lunged in with a sweeping left hook to the body – and the challenger countered with a quick right hook to the jaw. Liddell – who had always been able to absorb heavy blows from his opponents, even accurate ones like this – went crashing down, and some follow-up shots left him unconscious.
Rampage had not only taken the Light-Heavyweight title from Liddell, but he’d also seemingly taken his once-iron chin. Prior to this fight, Liddell had only ever been stopped by ground-and-pound – but after Rampage’s right hook, he was knocked out cleanly a further 3 times before his retirement in 2010.
#4 Shogun Rua vs. Jon Jones – UFC 128
When legendary Light-Heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell was dethroned in 2007, the title seemed to become a hot potato of sorts. Rampage Jackson, Forrest Griffin and Rashad Evans all failed to make a single successful defence, and Lyoto Machida was gifted a win over ‘Shogun’ Rua in his first defence.
Shogun put things right in a rematch however, knocking Machida unconscious, and it seemed like the UFC had found their new dominant champ. Due to his prior success in PRIDE – and his UFC knockouts of Liddell and Machida – Shogun had a claim to being the greatest 205lber in the sport’s history.
Unfortunately, he was sidelined for almost a year after winning the title. Upon his return, he was supposed to defend against Rashad Evans, but when Evans blew his knee out, the division’s hot new thing – Jon Jones – was granted the fight instead.
Jones had won 6 straight UFC fights – with his only loss being a weird DQ to Matt Hamill in a fight that saw him destroy the wrestler – but there was still a feeling that a title shot could be too much, too soon for the youngster.
Instead, Jones dismantled Shogun over 15 minutes, finally finishing him off with a vicious combination at the end of the third round. It was a beating so vicious that Shogun actually appeared to tap out as he went down from the strikes.
Jones had destroyed Shogun standing, on the ground, and in the clinch – the legendary Brazilian barely had any offense at all; it was as if Jones was fighting a rank amateur, such was the difference inside the cage.
This was a beating on another level – perhaps the most vicious ever suffered by a reigning champion in UFC history.
#5 Ronda Rousey vs. Holly Holm – UFC 193
In 2015, there was no denying who the biggest star in MMA was – UFC Women’s Bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey. She’d come over to the UFC from StrikeForce in 2013 as their reigning champion, and immediately reeled off an incredible 6 title defences, with 5 of those fights ending in the first round and 3 of them ending in the first minute.
Her vicious finishing skills coupled with her good looks and electric personality made her the UFC’s biggest drawing card, but few people could’ve predicted how sudden – and hard – her downfall would be.
Having beaten the majority of her division, Rousey was matched with former professional boxer Holly Holm in the main event of the UFC’s first trip to Melbourne, Australia. Holm was 2-0 in the UFC, but hadn’t really convinced in her wins, and the feeling was that she was simply another warm body for ‘Rowdy Ronda’ to submit.
Shockingly though, that wasn’t the case at all. The fight turned out to be the worst possible style match for Rousey, as Holm played the matador to the champion’s bull to perfection. Rousey’s cruder strikes couldn’t get close to Holm’s pinpoint shots, and even when the champ secured a takedown, Holm was able to escape.
Despite losing the first round, it still came as a total shocker when Rousey still continued to charge like a bull in the second, swinging wild punches that simply weren’t close to catching Holm. Seconds later, the fight was over. Holm connected with a vicious left head kick that would go on to be replayed millions of times across the world – and the dominant champion was left unconscious.
Rousey’s astonishing reign as Bantamweight champion had been ended in the most violent way possible, and she never recovered from the crushing defeat – taking a year off before losing to new champion Amanda Nunes in equally brutal fashion. This was a defeat both jaw-dropping and nasty in equal measure.
