I shake my head at the lack of MMA history by some off these comments about the HW division in MMA than throw in the fact that about not Fedor not fighting in the UFC or guys never fighting in the cage, the cage or ring are just were the fighters fight, you cant say guys are better because they win in cages compared to a ring, it is a factor in a fight, not where people stand in rankings, etc...you could use the same arguement that guys who fight in a cage cant win fights in a ring
Also, like I have said in the past, the UFC HW belt is a 2nd class belt, just like Strikeforces belts and the other Orgs belts are 2nd class to the UFC’s LHW, MM and WW belts
Fedor is the HW champ of the world; the UFC has not had the universally recognized HW champ in like 10 years, since Prides GPs having guys like Kerr, Igor, Coleman, etc...and than Big Nog taking over the reigns as the best HW in MMA, Fedor than beat Nog and has had that title every since
While Pride had Fedor, Nog, Cro Cop, Barnett, etc... the UFC was Big Tim, AA and Randy coming up after losing twice at LHW, until Fedor loses he is the best and the HW champ of MMA, who cares if some casual UFC’s don’t watch him, everyone who knows anything knows the deal
The UFC has the strong hold on the LHW, MW and WW belts, when the 2 best promotions were going, the champs were Tito/Randy/Chuck and than Wand had the Pride version of that belt, Franklin and whoever had the MW and than Dan claimed both belts in Pride by the end of Pride
When Pride was bought by the UFC and Dan fought Rampage after beheading Chuck, Rampage had the legit LHW belt of MMA, throw in Shogun losing to Forrest and Forrest beating Rampage and it cemented it because Shogun was recognized by most as the true champ of Pride
Than Dan fought And1 and that made the MW belt a lock also, the WW has always been the UFCs domain and it was proven when Sakurai came over and Hughes worked him since than no other legit 170ers have laid claim to the belt, GSP is the man now
The LW belt is complicated because of the UFC disbanding the belt and than just throwing together Sherk vs Florian, lol, the best LWs have always been in Japan and go back to the Shooto days when Sato was the man, Gomi took over the as the number 1 LW in the world, BJ is the only other fighter outside of Japan who can call himself the true LW champ because he beat Gomi at 160, since than BJ was jumping weight classes and hasn’t beat a true top 10 LW since Gomi
The DREAM belt is more than likely the true LW belt, but BJ can alos lay claim to it because of the Gomi win, but the top ranked LWs in the world are in DREAM right now with Aoki, Alvarez, Hansen, Kawajiri, etc...
More can be added and some stuff was left out, but that’s the gist of it, lol, the true MMA champs look like this
EDIT: just to add on, WEC has actively gone after the top 145 and 135 fighters in the world, so there champs lay claim to the top of there weight class
HW: Fedor
LHW: Machida
MW: Silva
WW: GSP
LW: BJ and Hansen
FW: Brown
BW: Torres