5 UFC champions who were written off prior to their title wins
In every UFC title fight, there’s obviously going to be a favorite and an underdog, whether the favorite is a dominant champion or a red-hot challenger who looks unstoppable. Of course, in turn, that means that in many title bouts, one fighter is largely written off.
Over the years, we’ve seen numerous examples of fighters who were written off going into their UFC title bouts, only to end up stunning everyone by capturing the gold at the end of the night.
Five years ago today, @bisping knocked out Luke Rockhold to win the middleweight title at UFC 199.
The new champ brought the belt and his signature swagger to a memorable post-fight press conference 😅 https://t.co/VXKduDH7Db
Sometimes these fighters were written off because they were facing a dominant champion, while other times they were overlooked due to their own apparent deficiencies.
With that in mind, here are five UFC champions who were written off prior to their title wins.
#5. Glover Teixeira – UFC light heavyweight champion
In hindsight, it’s probably fair to say that nobody should really have written off current UFC light heavyweight champion Glover Teixeira when he fought then-titleholder Jan Blachowicz for the gold last October.
After all, it was always clear that the Brazilian held a large advantage over his Polish opponent on the ground. More importantly, he’d always shown the ability to weather a storm en route to pulling off a big victory, too.
However, coming into the bout, it was painfully easy to see why Blachowicz was largely favored to win. Not only was he on the best run of his MMA career, his last fight had seen him become the first man to ever defeat Israel Adesanya inside the octagon.
More to the point, despite his five-fight win streak, Teixeira had turned 42 years old just a couple of days prior to the event. Outside of Randy Couture, no fighter had ever claimed gold inside the octagon after their 40th birthday.
When all this was considered, it seemed highly likely that Blachowicz would run right through Teixeira, probably using his vaunted "Polish power" to score a big knockout.
When it came down to it, though, that wasn’t the case at all. Blachowicz was completely unable to stop the challenger’s takedowns, and once he put the fight on the ground, Teixeira was able to dominate proceedings en route to a second-round submission win.
UNDISPUTED CHAMP AT 42 YEARS OLD!!!! 🏆
[ #UFC267 | @VisitAbuDhabi | @InAbuDhabi | #InAbuDhabi ] https://t.co/yyxWjAqexp
Naturally, while Teixeira’s advanced age means that he’ll continue to have his doubters - many fans are picking Jiri Prochazka to beat him this weekend, for instance - it seems unlikely that he’ll ever be completely written off again.