Who will be the next WORLD CHAMPION to break the MAGIC EIGHT?

[thobra]

The heavier weightclasses have a nuch greater chance of KOing their opponents, and staying undefeated is more immpressive, so it should be something like this to be compareable:

HW: 8
LHW: 10
MW: 12
WW: 16
and so on.

 

[Mo8_98]

DJ's win streak is a joke. no offense, but the level of competition he faced is staggeringly weak compared to the other GOATs.

 

[Bacco]

Why 8? Why not 7 and put Ronda in there? Or 9 and take Jones out? Seems arbitrary.

Because i allow it.

 

[SaigeVanZant]

Probably Nicco

 

[Sinedd]

Maybe Nunes. Everyone else is too old and/or has had too many injuries

 

[gunlok]

Ofc it does

I believe you

 

[cade187]

I don't see any current champ making 8 defenses. Cyborg if they could find 8 opponents, but her division is trash, and she is actually a WW.

 

[Rum]

The heavier weightclasses have a nuch greater chance of KOing their opponents, and staying undefeated is more immpressive, so it should be something like this to be compareable:

HW: 8
LHW: 10
MW: 12
WW: 16
and so on.

Nooooooooooooo, FW, LW and WW are faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar deeper talent pools than LHW and HW, so if you're champ at 145, 155 or 170 for any length of time you're generally facing a significantly higher caliber of challenger than at LHW or HW.

So guys like Aldo and GSP were facing primed beast after primed beast after primed beast, most of whom had solid 3+ win-streaks worth of momentum going into their challenges. You just don't get anything like that kind of consistency of challenger quality at the outer ends of the demographic bell curve.

Casuals forget this because they get sucked in by "name value", but hardcore fans will remember that of Jon Jones' first 6 title fights only 1 was against a challenger who had better than an active 2-win streak at LHW when they fought him. Jon is an awesome fighter, obviously, which is why I stretched down to 8 to include him, but his division was so abysmally shallow they had to feed him two consecutive middleweights smack bang in the middle of his reign. I mean, we include Jon in the 8+ club, but considering that neither Chael nor Vitor had fought a LHW opponent for at least half a decade when they were sent into the Octagon with him, maybe there should be half an asterisk next to that 8. Neither GSP nor Aldo ever had such a luxury in building their 9-defense runs.

Also, a "much greater chance to KO their opponents" works both ways. It means if you're champ you may not be better than the challenger, but you can get away with a "lucky" KO. If you're the FW or WW champ you can't rely on a lucky shot to beat a superior opponent, you have to be legit better pretty much every single time.

 

[Kid Killashaw]

Khabib would have done it but he got his title way too late and he'd probably retire in 2 years

No. He doesn't match up well with a number of fighters. Edward, fergie, conor, gayche, basically anyone with good wrestling and average to good standup.

Gillespie beats him too.

 

[ScarfaceJr]

I honestly dont see any current champs doing it like the goats did.

No disrespect to the current crop, it's just to get that many title defenses is difficult.

 

[ScarfaceJr]

Robert Whittaker is still only about 27 years old and with Romero out the way he could go on a good run

Idk Those two fights with Romero have surely taken years off Bobby's career.

 

[Dirge]

I think Tyrun could, but that means him and Dana need to play nice with each other and that's less likely than Honda getting that belt back

Woodley? Ya ok... Rory could come back tomorrow and beat him again. If GSP ever decides tonight again he beats him as well.

Crazy that WW is so weak now

 

[Juan Bombadil]

None of them

 

[LockardTheGOAT]

Woodley only has 2. Draws don't count as successful title defenses.

I really wish GSP had stuck around for two or three more fights before retiring the first time. He was only two victories from surpassing Anderson Silva's record back then.

 

[DoctorNick]

By the way this casual carnival operates I'm surprised the Diaz sisters haven't been mentioned yet.

 

[TouchButtDork]

Wait till Erick Silva enters his prime. He will beat them all!

here is a recent picture of him. He's looking swole these days.

Spoiler

They tuned him up in a laboratory and released the better version

 

[bad seed]

Why 8? Why not 7 and put Ronda in there? Or 9 and take Jones out? Seems arbitrary.

made it 8 specifically so Ronda would be excluded.

 

[Ananth]

No one is beating TJ in the next couple of years atleast. His last fight could have been his 7th title , but life is like that, and three judges can change history.

 

[Necrocrawler]

No one is beating TJ in the next couple of years atleast. His last fight could have been his 7th title , but life is like that, and three judges can change history.

I dont know
If he get wins over Assunção, Rivera, Moraes, Cruz and Sterling, then we will have a snake goat

 

[The Schmoop]

Cyborg would easily shatter any title defense record but I’m pretty sure she’ll be out of the UFC before that can happen. She’s the best female fighter on the planet and competes in the weakest division.