Weakest paths to a title or reign?

[Fedora Millionankles]

In light of the bald goofs recent comment,
“You become a f—king world champion in the UFC, you went through death f—king row of the baddest motherf—kers in the sport in your division that you can possibly fight,” he continued.

I was thinking:

Who had the easiest runs to a title and title reigns? We all know guys like Merab, Belal, and Tony could go on double digit win streaks and still get passed over for guys like Chito and Colby, so who are the guys that were seemingly gifted title shots, never having gone through “death f—ing row” to get or remain there?

I think Usman is a prime example, fighting Colby x2, Masvidal x2, and Giblert Burns in his reign.
Jon Jones is another, having only one fight at HW against Gane to become Champ.

What are some others?

 

[IndyCovaHart]

Real estate Ragin Al

 

[BFoe]

Real estate Ragin Al

He wasn’t eligible to win the belt that night though.
Conor at LHW, Poatan at LHW and MW both, actually. Brock’s road to the HW title.

 

[Luthien]

Obviously Nicco Montaño

 

[filthybliss]

techinically speaking and people are not going to like this but anderson silva. he got a title shot after one fight, not saying he didn't deserve it but literally nobody gets sling shotted that quickly to the belt.

 

[markg171]

John Lober got one on a 0-0-5-1 streak because his last win was reigning champ Shramrock.

Shamrock KO'd him in the 1st.

 

[RonDante]

Usman only had an easy reign becuase welterweight was kind of shit when he became champion, atleast in terms of who was right there for a title shot (no one really), so they just gave it to whoever was making noise despite not deserving it. He didn’t really duck anyone

McGregor at lightweight obviously, didn’t earn the shot

Chito, like you said. O malley also (one ranked robbery win)

Islam, jamahal hill, poatan, stipe when he fights jones, colby and masvidal as previously mentioned, although the colby one is more esoteric to me cause I don’t think he beat rda

Woodley beat a guy who wasn’t champion for the belt (Robbie), draw against wonderboy so fair enough they run it back, wonderboy shits the bed and loses a close fight even though he probably could have won if he tried a bit more , maia shooting takedowns with no setup for 25 minutes, till who arguably didn’t win his title eliminator, making his best win a rapidly declining cerrone. He got off pretty easy

All these early 2000s guys who came in with no ufc wins and got a title shot

 

[Portland8242]

Colby got 2 title shots off beating washed up Woodley and Masvidal. Unreal the gifts he's got from the UFC.

 

[americanwolves]

Bethe Correia

 

[orca]

In light of the bald goofs recent comment,
“You become a f—king world champion in the UFC, you went through death f—king row of the baddest motherf—kers in the sport in your division that you can possibly fight,” he continued.

I was thinking:

Who had the easiest runs to a title and title reigns? We all know guys like Merab, Belal, and Tony could go on double digit win streaks and still get passed over for guys like Chito and Colby, so who are the guys that were seemingly gifted title shots, never having gone through “death f—ing row” to get or remain there?

I think Usman is a prime example, fighting Colby x2, Masvidal x2, and Giblert Burns in his reign.
Jon Jones is another, having only one fight at HW against Gane to become Champ.

What are some others?

poatan
no one mentions his name here
because people like him
/thread
also gps
fought an ancient bisping with 1 eye

yeah i know people will hate my comment
because these two are fan favorites and good guys
hard pill to swallow

 

[Siver!]

I'm gonna hurt a bunch of feelings here, but the answer is TJ Dillashaw.

None of these wins even slightly matter, and the guys he lost to are only okay.

 

[EndlessCritic]

Obviously Nicco Montaño

Not sure if trolling. Montano literally won the tournament by beating the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd seed.

That's about as legitimate as a tournament win gets.

 

[RonDante]

Usman only had an easy reign becuase welterweight was kind of shit when he became champion, atleast in terms of who was right there for a title shot (no one really), so they just gave it to whoever was making noise despite not deserving it. He didn’t really duck anyone

McGregor at lightweight obviously, didn’t earn the shot

Chito, like you said. O malley also (one ranked robbery win)

Islam, jamahal hill, poatan, stipe when he fights jones, colby and masvidal as previously mentioned, although the colby one is more esoteric to me cause I don’t think he beat rda

Woodley beat a guy who wasn’t champion for the belt (Robbie), draw against wonderboy so fair enough they run it back, wonderboy shits the bed and loses a close fight even though he probably could have won if he tried a bit more , maia shooting takedowns with no setup for 25 minutes, till who arguably didn’t win his title eliminator, making his best win a rapidly declining cerrone. He got off pretty easy

All these early 2000s guys who came in with no ufc wins and got a title shot

Thought of some more

Colby on every title shot, not just the first like I said

Benson Henderson maybe, I never watched but everyone says frankie beat him the second time, I thought he lost to Melendez which I did watch, he defended against diaz also. Arguably only had one defense lol

Bisping kind of a fluke ko but he did set it up, defends against 13 ranked henderson and wins 3-2

I though adesanya lost to yoel and rob in the rematch, I don’t think costa beat yoel making that win worse also

Khabib got Iaquinta, and mcgregor from a 2 year layoff

I think fedor is the most overrated goat of all time but most of his wins aren’t title fights

Dj gets a lot of praise but oh my god he has so many title wins against can-like opponents. Baugatinov only needed 2 wins to get a title shot. 4 of the people kyoji horiguchi beat out of 7 while in the ufc had losing ufc records. Wilson Reis went 1-3 in the next 2 years getting finished multiple times. Tim Elliott got his chance after getting cut and winning TUF. Hasn’t beaten anyone great in his career. Dodson was undefeated at flyweight other than DJ, but when he goes up he goes 50/50 win loss for the rest of his career


Basically everyone sucks

 

[DecisionSplit]

Romero was coming off of two losses and got a shot at Adesanya and put on one of the worst challenger performances in history and was promptly thrown out of the UFC. Everyone at the time argued that the optics were fine as Romero was losing razor close fights and would rise to the occasion. Instead and Adesanya followed the greatest WMMA fight in history with an all time boring game of chicken.

Henderson was 4-6 in his last 10 and 2-3 in last 5 and on a one fight win streak when he took on Bisping. He nearly beat Bisping in the first round then age got the better of him and he coasted to a decision loss. End of the fight Bisping looked like he was run over by a truck and Henderson looked like he rolled out of bed though.

You could add literally any double champ who got a free shot to this list whether they won it or not. My personal favorite is Adesanya moving up against Blachowicz and getting essentially shut out despite UFC all but crowning him before the fight had even started. "He's biting on those feints...Adesanya's going to win".

 

[Gio]

techinically speaking and people are not going to like this but anderson silva. he got a title shot after one fight, not saying he didn't deserve it but literally nobody gets sling shotted that quickly to the belt.

Brock. Got the title shot after his 1st UFC win and won the belt. His MMA record was 2-1.

And Anderson Silva has a reputation already and is well known in other orgs. like Pride, with names like Sakurai and Newton on his resume. Everyone who's into MMA that time knows he isn't a nobody or some kind of prospect when he came, except for Chris Leben, apparently.

 

[TadDunbar]

Dan Hardy

 

[Gio]

He wasn’t eligible to win the belt that night though.
Conor at LW, Poatan at LHW and MW both, actually. Brock’s road to the HW title.

Dana actually mentioned that Iaquinta is also eligible to win the belt hours before fight night. My memory also serves me right.

You nailed it with Conor's 155 title shot though. I think Alex in a way deserves it coz Jan is a former champ and credit that he stayed ready/injury free.

My pick would have been Masvidal's 2nd shot at Usman. He sat out a whole year and got a free title shot after a long break, and Nick Diaz getting his shot and a huge payday vs GSP after being inactive for a year and coming of a loss to Condit. (Love the Diaz brothers though)

 

[checktheknuckles]

techinically speaking and people are not going to like this but anderson silva. he got a title shot after one fight, not saying he didn't deserve it but literally nobody gets sling shotted that quickly to the belt.

Except for brock. at least silva had proven to be a legit MMA'er prior to the UFC. Only thing Brock was proven at was using 'roids.

 

[ryun253]

Obviously Nicco Montaño

Most forgotten "champ" I remember she made a documentary about weight cutting in MMA, but was never able to make weight lol

 

[Dr. Rose]

In light of the bald goofs recent comment,
“You become a f—king world champion in the UFC, you went through death f—king row of the baddest motherf—kers in the sport in your division that you can possibly fight,” he continued.

I was thinking:

Who had the easiest runs to a title and title reigns? We all know guys like Merab, Belal, and Tony could go on double digit win streaks and still get passed over for guys like Chito and Colby, so who are the guys that were seemingly gifted title shots, never having gone through “death f—ing row” to get or remain there?

I think Usman is a prime example, fighting Colby x2, Masvidal x2, and Giblert Burns in his reign.
Jon Jones is another, having only one fight at HW against Gane to become Champ.

What are some others?

In recent years, Usman does stand out. You will find a lot of title fights from about 2005 back with some sketchy or dubious reasons.