Israel Adesanya and 3 other UFC fighters who tried but failed to achieve double champ status
Over the years, we’ve seen numerous fighters capture gold in the UFC, but only a small handful, four to be exact, have been able to claim two titles in different weight classes at the same time.
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Becoming a double champion in the UFC is a near-impossible feat to achieve, meaning that there have been a few great fighters attempting to do it, only to fall at the final hurdle.
So, who will be next to attempt to become a champ-champ in the octagon? It’s hard to say, but it’s likely they’ll want to join Conor McGregor and Daniel Cormier as fighters who achieved this feat, rather than the names on this list.
Here are the UFC fighters who tried and failed to achieve double champ status.
#4. Israel Adesanya – UFC middleweight champion
Israel Adesanya is undoubtedly the UFC’s best middleweight right now. In the future, there could well be an argument for him being the best 185lber of all time. After all, ‘The Last Stylebender’ has never been beaten in that weight class.
However, when Adesanya attempted to do something that his great predecessor Anderson Silva never did – become a double champion in the octagon – he came up short, proving that even his greatness couldn’t make up for a lack of size.
March 2021 saw Adesanya step up to 205 pounds for the first time in his career to take on then-UFC light heavyweight kingpin Jan Blachowicz in a champion vs. champion battle. Prior to the bout, it looked like a stylistic match that could favor ‘The Last Stylebender’.
Blachowicz had made his name as a hard-hitting fighter, but he also seemed slow and plodding on the feet compared to Adesanya. He had also been knocked out by more explosive fighters in the past.
Given that everyone expected this fight to take place standing, then, it seemed like Adesanya would have the edge.
Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t the case. The middleweight champ did have some success, but he also ate a lot of heavy shots from Blachowicz, who was also able to take him to the ground and keep him there for lengthy periods of time, too.
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Jan Blachowicz beats Israel Adesanya to remain the light heavyweight champ 🔥 #UFC259 https://t.co/JlJ2lSt55f
In the end, Blachowicz took a clear-cut unanimous decision. While Adesanya has recovered with two more title defenses at 185 pounds, he learned an important lesson on his limits, for now at least.
#3. B.J. Penn – former UFC lightweight champion
The first fighter to attempt to become a UFC double champion was BJ Penn. While he came up short in the end, it was easy to understand why he felt the need to try.
After all, ‘The Prodigy’, who held the lightweight title and made an attempt to claim Georges St-Pierre’s welterweight title at the same time, had already held the 170-pound belt previously, defeating former champ Matt Hughes in 2004.
More to the point, when he first faced GSP in 2006, he came remarkably close to defeating him, only to be edged out after a razor-close split decision.
However, despite an epic build that saw the UFC dedicate an entire ‘Prime Time’ series to the fight, the Hawaiian simply couldn’t deal with an improved version of St-Pierre inside the octagon.
Their first meeting had seen GSP struggle to take Penn down, but in the second bout, he had no problems in doing so. On the ground, he sliced through the famed guard of ‘The Prodigy’ like butter and ruthlessly beat him down across four rounds.
In the end, Penn’s corner were forced to stop the bout before the fifth round. While becoming a champ-champ would’ve been an enormous feat, the loss felt almost humiliating given how antagonizing he’d been before the fight.
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#OnThisDay in 2009 - GSP and BJ Penn squared off for the welterweight strap!
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Surprisingly, though, the loss didn’t take too much out of him as he returned to the lightweight division shortly after and produced two of his best performances in dominant title defenses over Kenny Florian and Diego Sanchez.
#2. Max Holloway – former UFC featherweight champion
Technically speaking, Max Holloway’s attempt to become a UFC double champion would only have seen him claim interim gold in the lightweight division to go along with his undisputed featherweight title. Whether that would’ve seen him added to the list of champ-champs, then, is somewhat debatable.
However, it’s a moot point as when it came to it, ‘Blessed’ came up just a little short in his quest, losing a tight decision to Dustin Poirier at UFC 236 in April 2019.
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#OnThisDay in 2019, @DustinPoirier and @BlessedMMA agreed to meet in the middle and hash it out in the final round of an epic fight at UFC 236! https://t.co/rgLdzyvK6M
Interestingly enough, had things gone slightly differently, Holloway could’ve attempted to become a double champion in 2018, a year before his fight with Poirier.
‘Blessed’ agreed to take a lightweight title bout with Khabib Nurmagomedov after Tony Ferguson went down with a knee injury, only to be pulled from the card by the New York State Athletic Commission due to the severity of the weight cut he’d have had to attempt.
At any rate, by the time his shot at interim lightweight gold came around, the Hawaiian was clearly the best featherweight on the planet after his dominant win over Brian Ortega in late 2018.
His fight with Poirier was largely seen as a pick-em, with both fighters in top form. The fact that ‘The Diamond’ had submitted Holloway back in 2012 seeming largely irrelevant.
However, despite Holloway landing plenty of heavy blows on his opponent, Poirier was able to just about get the better of most of the exchanges and edged out a decision, giving him the opportunity to fight Nurmagomedov for the undisputed title later that year.
As for ‘Blessed’, he moved back down to featherweight. Sfter making one more successful title defense, he lost his title to Alexander Volkanovski. As of the time of writing, he has not ventured up to 155 pounds since.
#1. T.J. Dillashaw – former UFC bantamweight champion
Perhaps the most humiliating failure to become a UFC double champion belongs to former bantamweight kingpin T.J. Dillashaw. Unlike the other fighters on this list, Dillashaw moved down in weight rather than up in his attempt to claim a second title, only to fall badly at the hands of flyweight champ Henry Cejudo.
At the time, Dillashaw looked to be at the top of his game at 135 pounds, coming off two impressive victories over his bitter rival Cody Garbrandt. He seemed to be on the path to becoming a truly dominant champion.
However, despite a long list of potential contenders waiting for him, he decided to drop to 125 pounds in an attempt to not only become a double champion, but, in his own words, to “kill” the flyweight division in the process.
The move was always risky, particularly as Dillashaw was already known for cutting a substantial amount of weight to make the 135-pound bantamweight limit. When he made 125 pounds, then, but looked skeletal in doing so, alarm bells began to ring.
Sure enough, Dillashaw wasn’t nearly as healthy as Cejudo when it came to fight time. ‘Triple C’ simply ran through him, shoving him to the ground at one point before finishing him with a barrage of strikes that followed a head kick.
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The fight ended up being stopped after just 32 seconds, and the humiliation got worse for Dillashaw when he tested positive for the banned substance EPO after the fight. He ended up being slapped with a lengthy two-year ban, forcing him to relinquish his bantamweight title in the process.
To add salt into the wounds, it was Cejudo who claimed the vacant title, becoming a champ-champ and achieving what Dillashaw had failed to do in the process.