Ranking the 5 best UFC interim champions of all time
Last weekend saw the UFC crown its latest interim champion, as Petr Yan overcame Cory Sandhagen to reclaim some gold in the bantamweight division.
Over its near-three decade history, the UFC has crowned a number of interim champions, with those fighters going onto very different degrees of success.
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We’ve seen some interim titleholders eventually unify their titles to become undisputed champions, while others have fallen in their attempts at this quest despite giving it a good go.
So with that in mind, here are the five greatest interim champions in UFC history, ranked in order.
#5. Max Holloway – interim UFC featherweight champion (2016)
To be frank, by the end of 2016, the UFC featherweight division was an extremely messy place, largely due to Conor McGregor. ‘The Notorious’ had famously knocked out longtime champion Jose Aldo to claim the UFC featherweight title at the end of 2015. He then moved up in weight, choosing to largely ignore his newly-won crown.
The promotion, clearly hoping McGregor would return to 145 pounds at some point, allowed him to keep the title. However, they also crowned an interim champion in the form of Aldo, who beat Frankie Edgar for the title at UFC 200.
At the same time, Max Holloway was putting together one of the most impressive winning streaks in UFC history, defeating nine opponents in a row and finishing the majority of them.
It was clear that ‘Blessed’ deserved a shot at the title, but with Aldo on the shelf, the promotion made a curious decision. They stripped McGregor, upgraded the Brazilian to undisputed champion and put together an interim title fight between Holloway and Anthony Pettis.
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‘Blessed’ duly shellacked Pettis to win the title and then managed to dethrone Aldo to become undisputed champion six months later. He would go onto defend his title on three occasions before losing it in 2019.
The fact that Holloway wasn’t required to defend his interim title keeps him low on this list. However, the fact that he cleaned up a foggy division makes him one of the best-ever interim champions.