In this thread I will present historical timeline with biggest LW championship bouts.
This is my attempt to define who are the greatest MMA LW champions?
And, this is based just on the championship bouts, not overall career (for that we have All Time rankings).
First LW champion was Yuichi Watanabe. That was Shooto promotion in 1991.
But right now, we will skip that early period and start with 8 man, 1 day LW Lumax tournament in 1997.
That was all Japanese tournament, but at that time they were best in lightweight categories.
Naoya Uematsu won the tournament by submitting (Achilles Lock) Caol Uno in the finals
First big championship bout was in 1999 for Shooto vacant belt. Caol Uno defeated Rumina Sato.
In Dec 2000, Uno defended that belt in a rematch with Sato.
Then he vacated that Shooto belt and fought Jens Pulver for inagural UFC LW belt.
After Pulver defended UFC belt two times, he had a contract dispute with UFC.
In 2003, B.J. Penn and Caol Uno fought to a draw for the vacant title.
This is my attempt to define who are the greatest MMA LW champions?
And, this is based just on the championship bouts, not overall career (for that we have All Time rankings).
First LW champion was Yuichi Watanabe. That was Shooto promotion in 1991.
But right now, we will skip that early period and start with 8 man, 1 day LW Lumax tournament in 1997.
That was all Japanese tournament, but at that time they were best in lightweight categories.
Naoya Uematsu won the tournament by submitting (Achilles Lock) Caol Uno in the finals
First big championship bout was in 1999 for Shooto vacant belt. Caol Uno defeated Rumina Sato.
In Dec 2000, Uno defended that belt in a rematch with Sato.
Then he vacated that Shooto belt and fought Jens Pulver for inagural UFC LW belt.
After Pulver defended UFC belt two times, he had a contract dispute with UFC.
In 2003, B.J. Penn and Caol Uno fought to a draw for the vacant title.