5 most dominant UFC championship reigns in the women's divisions

Valentina Shevchenko [Image via @espnmma on Instagram]

Back in 2011, UFC president Dana White revealed that he had no intentions of ever letting women compete in his organization in a now-infamous interview with TMZ Sports. Oh, how times have changed.

With the emergence of Ronda Rousey in 2012, the UFC finally opened the door for women to compete on the world's biggest stage. Since then, we've had numerous female champions and stand-out fighters who've taken the sport by storm.

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The skill level in women's MMA today is leaps and bounds ahead of what it was a decade ago. Moreover, the excitement going into pivotal championship matchups featuring women is arguably almost on par with the attention garnered by their male peers, a trend unlike anything we've seen in other sports.

On that note, here are the five most dominant championship reigns in the women's divisions in the UFC.

#5. Cris Cyborg – former UFC featherweight champion

Cris Cyborg's time in the UFC famously ended unceremoniously. Regardless, before her exit from the organization, she enjoyed a year-long reign atop the women's featherweight division. In fact, the company created a women's 145-pound weight class just to accommodate her in the first place.

The Brazilian is a former Srikeforce and Invicta featherweight champion. Between 2009 and 2016, all but one of her professional fights were championship bouts and she had seemingly cleaned out the 145-pound division in Invicta. Having already defended her belt three times, the masses started clamoring for a move to the UFC.

However, the Dana White-led promotion didn't have a 145-pound division at the time. Cyborg was scheduled to fight in the 135-pound division in her first two appearances in the famed octagon, but grueling weight cuts prompted the promotion to make them catchweight bouts.

After Cyborg emerged victorious in two 140-pound catchweight fights, the UFC brass finally created a featherweight division. With a vacant title on the line, the Brazilian defeated Tonya Evinger to further solidify her claim to being the best female fighter on the planet.

In her first title defense, she cruised to a comfortable unanimous decision win over Holly Holm. Just three months later, she retained her title with a TKO victory against Yana Kunitskaya. With no new contenders on the horizon, Cyborg accepted a fight against then-bantamweight queen Amanda Nunes.

Nunes produced one of the most shocking moments in women's MMA history at UFC 232, coming away with a jaw-dropping 51-second KO victory to become a two-division titleholder. This was Cyborg's first defeat in over 13 years.

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