If the stretch of time since Jon Jones first vacated the UFC light heavyweight championship in 2020 has taught us anything, it's to expect the unexpected.
Most of the time, that has been a good thing as the division has produced no shortage of excitement and volatility at the highest level, including four belt changes and a pair of savage title bouts that won't soon be forgotten.
Yet here we are closing in on the three-year anniversary of Jones taking his talents to the heavyweight division and we not only don't have a permanent champion post-Jones, we don't have a champion at all.
Last week's unfortunate announcement that reigning 205-pound king Jamahal Hill was forced to vacate his crown after suffering a ruptured ACL in a basketball game only muddied the waters of dissolution as to the division's hierarchy.
Ever since Frank Shamrock's 16-second submission win over Kevin Jackson in the inaugural UFC light heavyweight title bout in 1997, the division has undergone four distinct eras before the chaos that defines the current one.
The first era was all Shamrock, who made four successful title defenses over a two-year span before vacating the title and retiring from UFC citing lack of competition. Shamrock's exit gave way to a memorable six-year run in which 205 pounds became the glamour division of the sport.
Household names like Tito Ortiz, Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, Ken Shamrock and Vitor Belfort took part in an unofficial round robin of matchups against one another which, alongside 2005's "The Ultimate Fighter" finale between Forrest Griffin and Stefan Bonnar, went a long way in building marketable stars while saving the overall health of the sport.
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The third era featured a hot potato of title changes between 2007 and 2010 as a fresh group of future Hall of Famer fighters took turns with the belt while defending it no more than once. This began with Quinton "Rampage" Jackson's knockout of Liddell at UFC 71 and continued through a lineage that featured Griffin, Rashad Evans, Lyoto Machida and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua all holding the title.
Then there was Jones.
At 23, MMA's future G.O.A.T. dismantled Rua to claim the belt in 2011 and went on to reign for a total of seven years despite being stripped a UFC-record three times of his hardware in between for failed drug tests and brushes with the law. Still, Jones was able to dominate a particularly difficult stretch for the division, including four combined wins over his biggest rivals in Daniel Cormier and Alexander Gustafsson (although the second Cormier win was changed to a no contest).
Light heavyweights to successfully defend title
| Champion | Title defenses | End of title reign |
|---|---|---|
| Jon Jones | 11 | 2020 |
| Tito Ortiz | 5 | 2002 |
| Chuck Liddell | 4 | 2007 |
| Frank Shamrock | 4 | 1999 |
| Daniel Cormier | 3 | 2018 |
| Jan Blachowicz | 1 | 2021 |
| Quinton Jackson | 1 | 2007 |
| Lyoto Machida | 1 | 2009 |
Besting the excitement and pageantry of the previous three light heavyweight eras was never going to be easy for this current group of contenders who faced a daunting task in trying to immediately follow Jones. But few could've predicted just how bizarre the aftermath would truly be, even if it has been mixed with equal amounts of highs and lows.
Among the highs, of course, was the breakthroughs in perseverance by a pair of aging fighters in Jan Blachowicz and Glover Teixeira, who each enjoyed career-defining title wins (while Blachowicz added a high-profile title defense against middleweight king Israel Adesanya). Hill, at 32, was a revelation all unto himself as he took advantage of the parity and disruption atop the division to escalate quickly from also ran to breakthrough champion before his injury.
The past three years also produced a series of wars in the blood-and-guts variety with the 43-year-old Teixeira in the middle of both following back-to-back defeats against Jiri Prochazka and Hill. And for a short time, the overnight emergence of Prochazka, who went from RIZIN veteran to UFC champion in the span of three fights, all the while doing so in as recklessly entertaining a style as possible for the elite level.
If there was a moment when things turned for the worse, it was the aftermath of Prochazka's insane UFC 275 victory over Teixeira when it was revealed that Prochazka had suffered a shoulder injury so severe, he was forced to instantly vacate the title last November. The division then saw a worst-case scenario play out when Blachowicz and Magomed Anakalev fought to a majority draw last December in their vacant title bout, which opened the door for Hill to jump the rankings and win the title one month later.
Hill, who underwent surgery this week, has no updated timeline for his return, which is expected to be lengthy. And even though the division was recently upgraded by the arrival of former middleweight champion Alex Pereira, who fights Blachowicz at UFC 291 next week, no announcement has been formally made by UFC as to whether that fight will have any title implications.
What doesn't help the matter, especially for any promotion looking to one-up or compete with UFC in the global MMA landscape is that, for the first time in many years, it's fair to say the best light heavyweight in the world isn't currently fighting in the Octagon. That distinction at 205 pounds belongs to Bellator MMA champion Vadim Nemkov, who coincidentally lost to Prochazka under the RIZIN banner in his seventh pro fight back in 2015.
So, will the best UFC light heavyweight please stand up? And when, exactly, should we expect to find out who that fighter will be?
Just like with the women's bantamweight and featherweight divisions, where titles in both remain vacant following the surprise retirement of two-belt champion Amanda Nunes in June, the UFC has some overdue decisions to make internally.
The Octagon's most prestigious and historic division is currently undergoing some seriously rough times and is badly in need of renovation. Although, it's hard to imagine things at 205 pounds getting any worse than they currently are following a string of unprecedented bad luck.
