UFC Heavyweight Champions: A Legacy of Dominance

Stipe Miocic is commonly known as the greatest UFC heavyweight champion in history, even despite his recent defeat to the consensus greatest MMA fighter of all time, Jon Jones.

Miocic holds the record for the most title defences in UFC heavyweight history with four, those came against Daniel Cormier (twice), Francis Ngannou and Junior Dos Santos. 

As well as being an elite fighter across his 14-year career, the Cleveland native was a firefighter, which made his achievements even more impressive as he juggled an extremely difficult job whilst fighting.

After his recent defeat to Jon Jones at UFC 309, Miocic has officially hung his gloves up.

Jon Jones kicks Stipe Miocic//Getty Images

For all of his controversies outside of the cage, it's safe to say Jon Jones continues to cement his legacy in MMA. After completely dominating the light-heavyweight division for many years, Jones has begun to do the same at heavyweight. 

“Bones” is 2-0 at heavyweight, firstly submitting Ciryl Gane in his first fight in the weight class to win the vacant heavyweight title, and then most recently delivering an epic spinning back kick to the body to completely fold Stipe Miocic in half for his first title defence. 

Now, 2025 looks to be the year when Jon Jones bows out of the sport. With rumours of retirement, Jones is also in negotiations with the UFC to get a record-breaking paycheck to defend his title against England's Tom Aspinall.

Cain Velasquez celebrates after defeating Brock Lesnar//Getty Images

Cain Velasquez is one of a few fighters that made people fall in love with MMA in the 2000s. The Mexican American went 9-0 between 2006 and 2010, steamrolling through the likes of Ben Rothwell, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, and Brock Lesnar, to claim the UFC heavyweight title.

After losing to Junior Dos Santos in 2011, Velasquez would seek and get revenge a year later to reclaim the title.

Velasquez had relentless cardio which allowed him to put heavy pressure on his opponents, and this would eventually see him wipe out his opponent with brutal punches. 

Francis Ngannou's journey through life has been remarkable. Growing up working in sand mines in Cameroon, Ngannou eventually fled to Europe where he would end up in France. And this is where his combat sports dream was created.

Ngannou entered the UFC in 2015 where he would win 6 fights in a row, all by either KO or submission. He was the fighter everybody was talking about, and he was rewarded with a title shot against Stipe Miocic at UFC 220. Unfortunately, he was on the losing side.

“The Predator” did not give up hope though and three years later he got his revenge after landing a viral KO on Miocic to win the belt. Ngannou then successfully defended his title against Ciryl Gane before leaving the UFC to join the PFL.

Randy Couture is one of the best UFC fighters of all time having won the heavyweight title twice, as well as the light-heavyweight title. 

Couture dominated the 2000s with his superb Greco-Roman wrestling and his dirty boxing style. He first won the heavyweight title in 1997 at UFC Japan versus Maurice Smith. Then, he won it once more in 2000 against Kevin Randleman. After a couple of defences, he lost his title to Josh Barnett in 2002 before Barnett was stripped due to a failed drug test. This prompted a vacant title bout a few months later, but Couture lost to Ricco Rodriguez.

Daniel Cormier had an outstanding MMA career, finishing with a record of 22-3, and if it wasn't for Jon Jones at light-heavyweight and Stipe Miocic at heavyweight, DC not only would have gone unbeaten in his career, he probably would've dominated both divisions. Yet, the American still managed to win both the light-heavyweight and heavyweight titles. 

Despite only having two wins at heavyweight, Cormier still has a heavyweight title to his name as well as a successful defence.

Fabricio Werdum is one of the best grapplers in heavyweight MMA history, scoring 12 submission wins out of his 24 pro MMA victories, including his most notable win over the consensus best heavyweight of all time Fedor Emelianenko.

He won the UFC heavyweight title back at UFC 188 over Cain Velasquez via guillotine choke. However, he was unable to record a successful title defence as Stipe Miocic knocked him out in front of his own fans in Brazil.

Moving on to another Brazilian that won the UFC heavyweight title by defeating Cain Velasquez, we turn our attention to Junior Dos Santos. In the 2000s, JDS was quite simply unstoppable, defeating legend after legend such as Fabricio Werdum, Stefan Struve and Mirko Cro Cop. 

After going 13-1, Dos Santos was given a title shot against Velasquez and he destroyed him inside 90 seconds. Following this win, the Brazilian defended his title against Frank Mir before losing his belt to Velasquez at UFC 155.

Brock Lesnar was quite simply a beast in his early days in MMA. In just his fourth pro fight, Lesnar won the UFC heavyweight title by obliterating Randy Couture in the second round at UFC 91. He then defended his belt against Frank Mir and Shane Carwin. 

But, in 2010, Lesnar ran into a prime Cain Velasquez who completely annihilated him to win the title from him, and this defeat was the beginning of the end for his MMA career.