History of UFC's champion vs. champion superfights

#3 Stipe Miocic vs. Daniel Cormier – UFC 226 – 07/07/2018

Daniel Cormier knocked out Stipe Miocic to win the Heavyweight title last July

What led to the fight?

For once the booking of a champion vs. champion fight wasn’t purely based around selling pay-per-views. Sure, the UFC expected the fight between Heavyweight champ Stipe Miocic and Light-Heavyweight champ Daniel Cormier to sell well, but it largely stemmed from both men having beaten all available challengers in their divisions.

Both men fought at UFC 220 in January 2018; Miocic defeating Francis Ngannou and Cormier beating Volkan Oezdemir. With no clear-cut top contender in sight for either man, the fight was hastily signed for July’s UFC 226 show and the two fighters were pitted as rival coaches on the 27th season of The Ultimate Fighter.

Fascinatingly, the fight also represented a unification match of sorts as well as pitting one UFC champion against another. Cormier had been the de facto StrikeForce Heavyweight champion after winning the promotion’s Heavyweight Grand Prix before it was absorbed by the UFC in 2013, and had never lost at the heavier weight – meaning the fight with Miocic was essentially the UFC champion against the StrikeForce champion.

What happened?

Despite Cormier’s unbeaten record at Heavyweight, many fans were favouring Miocic in this one as he seemed to have a large size advantage over his opponent and despite Cormier’s Olympic wrestling background, Miocic was also bringing an excellent wrestling game of his own to go with his powerful striking.

As it turned out, those fans were dead wrong. Both men landed some heavy blows in a hard-hitting opening round, but in the end, it was Cormier’s slightly superior speed that allowed him to pull off a huge victory.

He was able to land shots on Miocic every time the fighters broke out of clinches, and late in the round a short right hand landed flush to the jaw of the Heavyweight champ. Miocic went crashing down and Cormier swiftly followed with some punches over the top that turned his lights out instantly.

With the victory, Cormier joined Conor McGregor on the list of fighters to hold UFC titles in two different weight classes simultaneously, and became the second man after the legendary Randy Couture to hold the Heavyweight and Light-Heavyweight titles.

What went down in the aftermath?

The immediate aftermath of the fight saw former UFC Heavyweight champion – and current WWE superstar – Brock Lesnar crash the Octagon to challenge Cormier to a fight in 2019, in one of the most talked about moments of the entire year.

Six months down the line, however, that fight still hasn’t been confirmed officially, and Cormier instead ended up successfully defending the Heavyweight title against Derrick Lewis at UFC 230.

As for the Light-Heavyweight title, he recently relinquished it prior to the UFC 232 fight between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson – which saw Jones win to reclaim the title he lost after testing positive for PEDs following his win over Cormier in 2017.

UFC 226 as a whole didn’t draw as well on pay-per-view as the UFC were hoping – around 380,000 buys – and was probably considered the biggest disappointment of 2018, although nobody really expected a massive buyrate going in, given Miocic’s relatively low profile and laid-back character.

Miocic for his part hasn’t fought since; he’s mentioned an immediate rematch but given his lack of star power, even if Lesnar doesn’t return to fight Cormier it doesn’t appear to be likely. Most fans now consider Cormier to have usurped his position as the best Heavyweight in UFC history, as he’s still never been beaten in the division.