Least dominant UFC champion? - Raquel Pennington enters the conversation

It's undeniable that Raquel Pennington's title win at UFC 297 is a feel good story. Mostly because it seemed so damned unlikely.

Illustration by Chris Rini

The UFC has been leading the way for mixed martial arts in North America for more than 30 years now. In that time, the promotion has seen a whole slew of title holders. Since the first heavyweight champion was crowned in 1997, 98 different men and women have worn UFC gold.

Some of those have become all time legends. Fighters like Georges St. Pierre, Anderson Silva, Jon Jones, Amanda Nunes, and Valentina Shevchenko set new standards for their divisions—defending their belts for years on end, while the competition struggled to keep up with greatness.

Others have fallen far to the wayside. The Ricco Rodriguezes, the Murilo Bustamantes, the Johny Hendrickses. No shame in it—the chances for anyone to win a title belt in the UFC are incredibly slim. Not everyone can become a legend, sometimes it’s just enough to get your name in the history books at all.

One of the the hallmarks of lesser title reigns are often that they come directly in the shadows of greatness. Part of the price of having truly dominant figures in combat sports is that they can create a power vacuum around them. Suddenly the ‘champ’ is gone and the 4-5 top contenders that seemed a mile away from ever beating them only have one another to deal with.

We’ve had 5 light heavyweight champions since Jon Jones vacated his title in 2020. Yesterday Sean Strickland was middleweight champ, today it’s Dricus Du Plessis. Come 2025 would anyone be that shocked if Israel Adesanya was wearing gold again?