- Joined
- Aug 21, 2007
- Messages
- 6,913
- Reaction score
- 94
With evolution of a sport comes a certain level of skills anyone at the top needs to master. In the early days of MMA, there weren’t a lot of MMA fighters like nowadays, which resulted in some remarkable champions over time. Not remarkable as in remarkably good, but more like… why?
4 Tim Sylvia
The remarkable thing about Tim Sylvia is that he wasn’t the champ in the early days, but between 2003 and 2007 (and in between that Mir and Arlovski were champ). He wasn't even an undeserving champ, as he fairly won his titles and title shots. The thing about Tim is… he basically jabbed everyone to death, which kinda could be seen as a standup lay and pray fighting style… he did not look like an athlete, especially with all the roided fighters from the period before… later he used steroids mainly to look better, not to fight better (his own words) and if we must believe Matt Hughes he basically was his bitch. Above that Tim Sylvia was not popular at all and seeing him win championship bouts made people believe the UFC HW division was a joke. After Tim lost his title, UFC had no problem AT ALL letting him go to “chase his dreams” or something similar. Not soon after he would be knocked down and choked out by the almighty Fedor within one minute. That fight really tarnished the UFC HW title at that point in time.
3 Dave Menne
Who? Exactly. UFC in 2001 was in such bad shape that the first MW title match ever was between Gil Castillo against Dave Menne, who came fresh from a loss in Rings, just a relative small promotion in Europe. Menne was basically a complete nobody, but it was the best UFC had to put in the cage. Menne would lose his new title to Murilo Bustamante only four months later. After that, only Evan Tanner, Rich Franklin and Anderson Silva had the honor to call themself the UFC Middleweight champion. Blame Anderson.
2 Matt Serra
In 2006, Matt Serra won the Ultimate Fighter 4 tournament. UFC, for some reason, decided that the winner of Ultimate Fighter deserved to get a title shot against GSP. Imagine… that would be completely absurd now… and it kinda was back then. Not only did Serra get a completely undeserved title shot, he also actually won and almost knocked GSP out. He eventually made him tap to strikes. In retrospect it was all just a lucky shot, in the return fight GSP would completely demolish Serra.
1 Steve Jennum
The most undeserving UFC champion ever without any doubt. Back in 1995, MMA did not exist. UFC consisted of all kinds of fighters in different discipline. There were no rules except no eye gouging and biting, everything else was allowed. Yes, also hitting the groin. Ufc still had a tournament system every event, and during UFC 3 both Ken Shamrock and Harold Howard fought two brutal matches to meet each other in the final. Then Ken Shamrock had to withdraw because of injury. Nowadays, replacements have to fight the same amount of fights to enter the tournament in a later round (like K1). Back then, UFC had not thought of that idea, so Jennum actually only fought the final that day, and won via verbal submission. Even worse: this was his FIRST MMA FIGHT EVER. And he became the UFC champion by winning it.
If i missed any fighter let me know.
As always, English is not my native language
4 Tim Sylvia
The remarkable thing about Tim Sylvia is that he wasn’t the champ in the early days, but between 2003 and 2007 (and in between that Mir and Arlovski were champ). He wasn't even an undeserving champ, as he fairly won his titles and title shots. The thing about Tim is… he basically jabbed everyone to death, which kinda could be seen as a standup lay and pray fighting style… he did not look like an athlete, especially with all the roided fighters from the period before… later he used steroids mainly to look better, not to fight better (his own words) and if we must believe Matt Hughes he basically was his bitch. Above that Tim Sylvia was not popular at all and seeing him win championship bouts made people believe the UFC HW division was a joke. After Tim lost his title, UFC had no problem AT ALL letting him go to “chase his dreams” or something similar. Not soon after he would be knocked down and choked out by the almighty Fedor within one minute. That fight really tarnished the UFC HW title at that point in time.
3 Dave Menne
Who? Exactly. UFC in 2001 was in such bad shape that the first MW title match ever was between Gil Castillo against Dave Menne, who came fresh from a loss in Rings, just a relative small promotion in Europe. Menne was basically a complete nobody, but it was the best UFC had to put in the cage. Menne would lose his new title to Murilo Bustamante only four months later. After that, only Evan Tanner, Rich Franklin and Anderson Silva had the honor to call themself the UFC Middleweight champion. Blame Anderson.
2 Matt Serra
In 2006, Matt Serra won the Ultimate Fighter 4 tournament. UFC, for some reason, decided that the winner of Ultimate Fighter deserved to get a title shot against GSP. Imagine… that would be completely absurd now… and it kinda was back then. Not only did Serra get a completely undeserved title shot, he also actually won and almost knocked GSP out. He eventually made him tap to strikes. In retrospect it was all just a lucky shot, in the return fight GSP would completely demolish Serra.
1 Steve Jennum
The most undeserving UFC champion ever without any doubt. Back in 1995, MMA did not exist. UFC consisted of all kinds of fighters in different discipline. There were no rules except no eye gouging and biting, everything else was allowed. Yes, also hitting the groin. Ufc still had a tournament system every event, and during UFC 3 both Ken Shamrock and Harold Howard fought two brutal matches to meet each other in the final. Then Ken Shamrock had to withdraw because of injury. Nowadays, replacements have to fight the same amount of fights to enter the tournament in a later round (like K1). Back then, UFC had not thought of that idea, so Jennum actually only fought the final that day, and won via verbal submission. Even worse: this was his FIRST MMA FIGHT EVER. And he became the UFC champion by winning it.
If i missed any fighter let me know.
As always, English is not my native language
Last edited:
