Who are the greatest HW champions?

[scm1]

What do you guys think about ranking the greatest MMA HW champions?
How that ranking should look like and what would you use to create that ranking?

As a staring reference I will show historical time line with all fights for the most prestigious HW belts.

On those graphs full colored line represents reign timeline.
Each box is one month. Orange is used for UFC champion.

Letters that are used on the timeline graph represent championship fights :
v - captured vacant title (first championship for the organization, or previous champion was stripped of the title)
c - captured belt by fighting current champion
d - defended the belt
i - interim belt
"." - dot symbolizes losing championship fight.
"?" - future championship bout

 

[scm1]

In the 1990's UFC had number of Openweight and HW tournaments.
First non-tournament title is an openweight title from 1995. This title was used before the introduction of weight classes in 1997. It was created to have a reigning UFC champion that would be challenged by the UFC tournament winners.

So, we can say that first UFC reigning champion was Ken Shamrock.
He defended ("d") title twice and then the title were captured ("c") by Dan Severn.
In 1990's UFC HW title was vacated twice (Randy Couture departed and Bas Rutten retired).

At that time In parallel with UFC we had Pancrase Openweight/HW champions, but for many reasons people don't value that belt as much as it should be.
We also had some other big HW tournaments like IAFC (Ricardo Morais), and Rings (Volk Han, Kiyoshi Tamura).

In 2000 Rings started organizing big HW tournaments and in 2001 we have first reigning Pride HW champion.

 

[scm1]

Golden period for HW was from 2002 to 2008.

Pride had better HW fighters, but in UFC there were much more HW championship bouts.
In 4 years of Pride HW reign, Fodor defended his title only 3 times.

Surprisingly, fighter with the most championship bouts in this period is Tim Sylvia.
He captured the title twice, defended 3 times and lost the title two times. He was also defeated twice in the fights for the interim belt.

 

[scm1]

In the last 7 years we have the following HW championship picture:

 

[scm1]

Not all championship bouts are at the same level.
That is also something that needs to be taken into account when determining who is bigger champion.

For each championship bout we calculate the Championship bout Level.
The maximum value for this is 8.
To calculate this we use following:
- what was the current ranking of those two fighters (ranking before and after) .
- how strong the Promotion was at that time
- how strong the division was at that time

Here is the Championship Bout Level for the UFC and Pride when they both existed.

 

[scm1]

In general, Pride HW division was stronger than UFC HW, and their belt had higher importance.

But that was not always the case.

For example, in November 2001, in the span of two days we had both UFC (Nov 2) and Pride (Nov 3) title fights.
First fight was Randy Couture vs. Pedro Rizzo rematch.
And second was for the inaugural Pride belt, Nogueira - Heath Herring.
At that time, UFC still had stronger HW division than Pride.
That is why Randy Couture vs. Pedro Rizzo has a higher (6.2) title bout level than Nogueira - Herring (5.5).
You can find those two numbers on the previous graph.

 

[SongExotic2]

Sub. I will check this out in the morning when I have chance. Thanks

 

[Wild]

Sub. I will check this out in the morning when I have chance. Thanks

Same here. Crashing for the night, but this looks good.

 

[Star-Lord]

I think Fedor as of now is the defacto GOAT but Werdum has a strong chance of taking that title. If he can defend his belt a few times then he has my voted based on having wins over both Fedor and Cain, but it would be awesome to see Fedor vs Werdum 2 for the undisputed GOAT title.

 

[Psychotropic Wanderlust]

in no order

Randy
Fedor
Nog
TImmy

 

[scm1]

I think Fedor as of now is the defacto GOAT but Werdum has a strong chance of taking that title. If he can defend his belt a few times then he has my voted based on having wins over both Fedor and Cain, but it would be awesome to see Fedor vs Werdum 2 for the undisputed GOAT title.

I agree that Fedor is on the top of the HW champions list.
Not just because of Pride title fights, he also won one strong HW tournament (Rings 2001) and WAMMA belt at Affliction 1 (Tim Sylvia).

But who is at #2 and why?
We are talking about HW Titles, so Werdum (just 2 fights for a belt) is still not in the consideration for this list.

Tim Sylvia, Big Nog, Randy Couture or Cain Velasquez?

 

[Zeph]

I agree that Fedor is on the top of the HW champions list.
Not just because of Pride title fights, he also won one strong HW tournament (Rings 2001) and WAMMA belt at Affliction 1 (Tim Sylvia).

But who is at #2 and why?
We are talking about HW Titles, so Werdum (just 2 fights for a belt) is still not in the consideration for this list.

Tim Sylvia, Big Nog, Randy Couture or Cain Velasquez?

As far as greatest heavyweight champions, there is only 1 currently, Fedor. None of the others have had enough belt defences to be in consideration. The UFC belt has never been defended more than twice, which to me means that there has never been a great UFC heavyweight champion. A great champion has to show dominance over their division, beating a significant amount of the top fighters inside the division, and reign for a significant amount of time. Noone has done this in the UFC.

 

[Pitbull9]

Great thread

 

[regular john]

(...) it would be awesome to see Fedor vs Werdum 2 for the undisputed GOAT title.

I don't think so IMO it's not fair to Fedor and I always wish to move on rather than trying to re-live the past. Fedor only got worse and Werdum only got beter since Werdum finished him in a minute. I wish Fedor was let go of to live the good life at home or the jungle or whatever;

(...) But who is at #2 and why?
We are talking about HW Titles, so Werdum (just 2 fights for a belt) is still not in the consideration for this list.

nice input I always feel weird towards Werdum as HW GOAT and now I know that's why. IMO #2 is Minotauro Nogueira because of his whole body of work and early dominant streak. but Werdum/Cain/JDS all can rack up enough big wins/become multiple times champion and surpass Big Nog maybe.


overall great job that was a good insight into the HW division. one thing to learn with these things is that Tim Sylvia is a HW great.

 

[scm1]

Not all championship bouts are at the same level.
That is also something that needs to be taken into account when determining who is bigger champion.

For each championship bout we calculate the Championship bout Level.
The maximum value for this is 8.
To calculate this we use following:
- what was the current ranking of those two fighters (ranking before and after) .
- how strong the Promotion was at that time
- how strong the division was at that time

Here is the Championship Bout Level for the UFC and Pride when they both existed.

To continue with the championship bouts level.
As mentioned before, this is calculated number with maximum value being 8.
It basically describes how valuable and important was some title bout (in terms of fighters involved and strength of promotion).


Following graph shows Championship Bout Level for the UFC title fights in the last 7 years:

Triangle at the top denotes interim belt, + is title defended and X is title capture.
That might help you in finding out what line represents what fight.

In general, previous graph describes how UFC HW title were becoming more significant in time.
Last 4 years, UFC HW title fights was almost always between top fighter and somebody ranked in the top 5.

 

[dacofty]

I think Fedor as of now is the defacto GOAT but Werdum has a strong chance of taking that title. If he can defend his belt a few times then he has my voted based on having wins over both Fedor and Cain, but it would be awesome to see Fedor vs Werdum 2 for the undisputed GOAT title.

Werdum will have to remain champ for a long time and in the UFC hw division that doesnt happen.

 

[Wild]

I can't even put Cain in the discussion. His accomplishments just aren't there.

I would rate them:

1) Fedor
2) Big Nog
3) Werdum
4) Couture
5A) Sylvia
5B) Mir

 

[scm1]

We established that Fedor is #1 HW champion.

My claim is that Randy Couture should be at #2.

And here is why:
- in 1997, he first won UFC HW tournament and then took the belt from Maurice Smith
- then he left and signed with Rings. When he returned in 2000 he regained the UFC HW belt (Kevin Randleman).
- after that he defended title twice (both times Pedro Rizzo)
- Josh Barnett defeated him in 2002, but Josh was on steroids
- after Josh was stripped, Randy was defeated by Ricco Rodriguez (for vacant title)
- then he went to LHW and took some titles there - we can disregard that since this is HW discussion
- in 2007, he returned from the retirement and took HW title for the third time (Tim Sylvia)
- then he defended his title by defeating CroCop killer.
- finally he was defeated by somebody who looked twice his size (Brock Lesnar)

Here is Randy's HW Title Bout timeline:

So, do you agree that he should be #2 HW Champion?

 

[Wild]

This is a great thread @scm1. Where the hell you been hiding bro??

 

[scm1]

This is a great thread @scm1. Where the hell you been hiding bro??

Thank you.
I am doing this for almost 8 years, but not publicizing much.
My goal is to put numbers on anything related to MMA.
You can check my website ScoreCardMMA.com . It is all graphs and numbers.
Let me know if there is any kind of analysis you would like to see.

 

[Wild]

Thank you.
I am doing this for almost 8 years, but not publicizing much.
My goal is to put numbers on anything related to MMA.
You can check my website ScoreCardMMA.com . It is all graphs and numbers.
Let me know if there is any kind of analysis you would like to see.

Can you analyze how awesome BJ Penn was? That's really my only request.

 

[scm1]

Can you analyze how awesome BJ Penn was? That's really my only request.

I will create a separate thread to give similar analysis for LW champions.
Right now we have BJ ranked as best all time LW (followed by Gomi), but I am not sure that he will end up being the biggest LW champion.

 

[kneeblock]

I feel like I had this exact discussion either here or at the old place. I'm completely with you @scm1 until you get to ranking Randy at #2.

You cannot discount Barnett's win over Randy due to PEDs because the official result was not overturned to an NC by any commision. As such, PEDS or not, the win stands.

Randy was very good and was responsible for some great moments in the HW division, but he was also a .500 fighter at several points during his career and never at any point defeated a consensus #1 or #2 ranked HW to defend his title with the only exception being Pedro Rizzo in their rematch.

Nogueira is the clear #2 in terms of both strength of schedule and achievements. His own runner up performance in the Rings King of Kings Tournament followed by his winning of it the following year then defeating Herring, Coleman, Schilt, Cro Cop and Barnett in Pride puts him just behind Fedor whom he could not defeat. His move to the UFC to capture the interim title against the same Sylvia Randy last captured the title from and subsequent defeat of Randy himself cements him as the better HW.

Only now is there a legitimate claimant to challenge him at #2 and that's Werdum. Finishing Nog, Velasquez and Fedor is a singular achievement in this sport. His losses have pretty much only been to top guys, much like Nog's. I feel like a solid title defense from Werdum against an interesting contender will possibly either make him 2A to Nog's 2 or a clear 2. Randy I'd probably put at #3.

 

[scm1]

I feel like I had this exact discussion either here or at the old place. I'm completely with you @scm1 until you get to ranking Randy at #2.
. . .
I feel like a solid title defense from Werdum against an interesting contender will possibly either make him 2A to Nog's 2 or a clear 2. Randy I'd probably put at #3.

Just to remind you that this is not discussion on HW All Time Ranking.
This is about ranking HW Champions based on their accomplishments in fighting for HW belts.

On our All Time Ranking list, Big nog is #2 HW and nobody is even close to remove him from that spot.
I can present our All Time Ranking approach and results in some other thread.

Going back to ranking HW Champions (based on their championship bouts).
We have partial agreement on who is at the top two spots of this list:
1. Fedor Emelianenko
2. Randy Couture

Who should be #3 HW Champion?
Big Nog, Cain, Sylvia, Ken Shamrock?

 

[Wild]

Just to remind you that this is not discussion on HW All Time Ranking.
This is about ranking HW Champions based on their accomplishments in fighting for HW belts.

On our All Time Ranking list, Big nog is #2 HW and nobody is even close to remove him from that spot.
I can present our All Time Ranking approach and results in some other thread.

Going back to ranking HW Champions (based on their championship bouts).
We have partial agreement on who is at the top two spots of this list:
1. Fedor Emelianenko
2. Randy Couture

Who should be #3 HW Champion?
Big Nog, Cain, Sylvia, Ken Shamrock?

Based on that criteria, I would vote @Tim Sylvia