The nadir of UFC divisions OR is heavyweight cursed?

List what you think were the absolute low points of UFC divisions, and whether any of them had worse nadirs than heavyweight (barring W-FW). Heavyweight has been in a rough spot for like six years now. 2010-2018 was actually a pretty good era with PRIDE and Strikeforce's acquisitions making sure the UFC had the bulk of the heavyweight talent and fighters like Cain, Werdum, JDS, Mir, and Ngannou going on their runs, cluminating in Stipe Miocic's record four collective and three consecutive title defenses. Everything started to go to shit past the start of 2018 though. Cormier moved back up to heavyweight and took the title off of a 1-2 eye poke combo, seriously one of the most egregious fouls in the history of MMA. Miocic took the title back in a pretty good back and forth fight, then had to cap it with a completely unnecessary third match (that even Cormier admits in hindsight he shouldn't have taken), and then had a fight against Ngannou. So from 2018 to 2021, you had 5 title fights, basically one per year, in which the champion only fought 2 guys, Ngannou and Cormier. In the middle of this period you had a guy in his late 30s and a guy in his early 40s fighting for the belt after having already fought twice. Ngannou takes the belt by knocking out 38 year old and underweight Miocic in 2021 and then fucks up both his knees during training. Despite this he still agrees to fight nearly another year after his last fight against Ciryl Gane - so the fight for the "Baddest Man on the Planet" is now between a guy who can barely walk and a 10-0 striker with two ranked wins and no ground game. Ngannou wins by lay-and-pray and then walks away due to a contract dispute. The heavyweight title is vacant for a bit before a match is set up for it between Jon Jones, a champion from a lower weight class who hasn't fought in three years (after losing his last fight by robbery to a guy who proceeded to get knocked out thrice in a row) and has never had a single bout at heavyweight, and... Gane again, the guy who just lost to a crippled Ngannou. Basically everyone at this point knows the fight is meaningless because the only guy with a valid claim to that belt is gone, but it goes ahead anyway, Jones wins by sub in the first round with Gane putting up one of the most underwhelming performances ever (the only strike landed was a cup shot in the first five seconds), aaaaaaaaand we have a new champion. Well okay, this is embarrassing, but at least we'll finally see some action, especially since there are some good new contenders tearing through the ranks like Aspinall - actually nope. Jones flat-out brags to us that he's not going to fight actual contenders. Instead he wants Miocic. The promotion goes along with this. So that brings us to the present. Two guys, with one fight each in ~5 years, fighting for the belt, in the sixth year of the division's ruination. At least over in PFL/Bellator we still had... Ryan Bader? Despite all that I think the nadir of the UFC heavyweight division is obviously c. 1997 to 2007, when all the best heavyweights were in PRIDE. Not the nadir for the sport though as the PRIDE heavyweight scene was great. If I had to pick any specific section of that though, just for optics, it'd be 2007-2008. Tim Sylvia is the reigning champion who just the set record for most title defenses with 3, and he's a fat (but big and strong) one-dimensional kickboxer who is at best regarded as the fifth best heavyweight in the world. He proceeds to fuck up his back to an extent that it requires surgery. Before he can get it, he has to fight Randy Couture, a 44 year old LHW coming off of a KO loss and a long layoff, who knows about the injury. These two are the ones fighting for the UFC's "Baddest Man on the Planet" award in 2007. Couture wins and is then set up for his first title defense against Brock Lesnar, a 2-1 pro wrestler who earned a title shot off of grinding out a decision against Heath Herring (a PRIDE fringe contender who had been knocked around by everyone with a name there). Meanwhile Sylvia, who still is the most successful champion in UFC history at this point and finally got that surgery, beats another UFC top 10 heavyweight in Brandon Vera and heads over to Affliction... then boom, knocked out in 36 seconds by Fedor. Also submitted by Big Nog, back-to-back with the Fedor fight. Big Nog, who should've been fighting Couture instead of Lesnar by virtue of being the interim champion, also then dominates Couture in the fight immediately *after* Couture loses the belt to Lesnar. All this just made the 2007 title look extra meaningless. submitted by /u/Nihlus11 [link] [comments]