From strawweight all the way to heavyweight, these are 10 of the greatest comebacks in UFC championship fight history.
There have been some remarkable performances in UFC championship bouts, but some fighters had to dig deep to get the job done.
Some of the greatest comebacks have come in title fights, whether from a defending champion or a title challenger who showed the heart of a champion to weather the storm and turn things around for the finish.
From strawweight up to heavyweight, here are 10 of the greatest comebacks in UFC championship fight history.
Without further ado …
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Frank Shamrock vs. Tito Ortiz – UFC 22
Sept. 24, 1999
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After defending his title three times, UFC light heavyweight champion [autotag]Frank Shamrock[/autotag] drew a young [autotag]Tito Ortiz[/autotag] at UFC 22. It proved to be one of the toughest battles of his career, as Ortiz really took it to Shamrock from the opening bell.
Ortiz dropped him with a straight right just seconds in, and the next 15 minutes would be a nightmare for Shamrock. Ortiz landed numerous takedowns, putting heavy pressure in top position, while landing brutal ground-and-pound.
In Round 4, Ortiz started to slow down. Shamrock pushed forward with hard leg kicks, but Ortiz capitalized on Shamrock’s forward pressure, landing another takedown. With less than a minute remaining in the round, Shamrock reversed position, unloading a barrage of punches on Ortiz who ducked under for a desperation takedown.
Shamrock used a mounted guillotine to get back up, dropping big hammer fists on Ortiz, who was holding onto his leg. A couple more shots and an exhausted Ortiz was unresponsive, prompting the referee to call the fight. Shamrock never gave up, throwing everything he had in the small windows he got throughout the fight, showing incredible heart.
The more Frank Trigg learns about coronavirus, the more he’s convinced that there’s no safe way to have fights until the pandemic ends.
A go-getter like [autotag]Frank Trigg[/autotag] has achieved much in his life, from his high-level collegiate wrestling and mixed martial arts career, to his acting and stuntman work, to his budding post-fight career as an MMA official.
But as much as Trigg would like to be back at it as a referee and judge, the more he learns about coronavirus, the more he’s convinced there’s no way to put on a fight card in a safe manner, no matter how much some in the fight game want to think otherwise.
“There’s no way to make something like this safe until we understand what we’re dealing with,” Trigg recently told MMA Junkie Radio. “How can we counter it? Is there going to be a vaccine for this thing? There’s no way to make these things safe until we figure this out. The same thing with polio, same thing with leprosy. Until we figure out what it actually is, how it actually progresses, what is actually happening with it, there is no way to make a sporting event safe.”
The UFC is attempting to get the company’s fight schedule back up and running on May 9. The promotion plans on following guidelines limiting the number of people who can gather in one spot and hold events in a closed location without fans, so as to cut down on the chances people involved will catch the virus.
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However, coronavirus can take up to 14 days for symptoms to manifest. Some who carry it never show symptoms, but the bug can by passed by asymptomatic individuals.
Trigg, who believed he may have caught COVID-19 during a fall trip to China but recently had antibody tests come up negative, used the hypothetical example of an asymptomatic cameraman to demonstrate how easily the virus could spread.
“Say one camera guy, he’s three feet away,” Trigg said. “He’s trying to practice social distancing, but he’s three feet away, but what happens? He goes to a grocery store. A person has COVID. The person who has COVID doesn’t think he has COVID. The camera guy doesn’t think he has COVID because he has a mask on, he’s walking through. They touch with no gloves a thing of ketchup, they put it back, they don’t want to take it, they want something else. That camera guy then picks up that COVID infected thing of ketchup, puts in his bag, goes out and buys it and goes home. Now he’s got COVID in his house.
“But fight’s on Friday, this is Tuesday, he’s not showing any signs. Nothing’s happening. He’s a camera guy not in touch with everybody, but he’s at cageside.He has COVID, but he doesn’t realize it. They don’t know they have it. … All of a sudden he started coughing a little bit, the fighters are below him because he has to get a shot, now they’ve been exposed, that whole group.”
Trigg could have faced an ethical dilemma had he been asked to participate in the plan to hold UFC 249 on April 18 at Tachi Palace Casino near Lemoore, Calif., as Trigg is a California State Athletic Commission-sanctioned official, and the UFC was looking to go around CSAC sanction.
But Trigg, a member of the UFC Hall of Fame’s Fight Wing, considered the issue moot from the get-go, as he was convinced the UFC wouldn’t be able to pull the event off, which proved to be true.
“That fight was never going to happen, so I was never close to coming to be a part of it,” Trigg said. “Two reasons: One, it was never going to happen, not at Tachi Palace. Could have picked any other country, any territory in the entire country and pulled it off, outside California. But in California, all sovereign territory are pretty much for CSAC. So if you’re to come in and go, ‘We’re going to do this event,’ it becomes a real battling back-and-forth between the California athletic commission vs. the UFC’s commission with Marc Ratner, and Ratner is close friends with Andy Foster, so it becomes a big deal. And so that fight, in my mind, was never going to happen.”
Thursday marks the 15th anniversary of the epic welterweight title fight that saw Matt Hughes turn the tables after a strong start from Frank Trigg.
Dana White has seen a lot of fights in his day.
However when asked to choose his all-time favorite, UFC president White has long pointed to [autotag]Matt Hughes[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Frank Trigg[/autotag] 2.
The UFC 52 fight took place in 2005 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Thursday marks the 15th anniversary of the epic welterweight title fight that saw Hughes turn the tables after a strong start from Trigg.
Early in the fight, Hughes was hit in the groin. Despite Hughes’ protest, referee Mario Yamasaki did not call a timeout. Trigg saw a window of opportunity and capitalized on it, knocking Hughes down and pounding on him.
Somehow, someway Hughes survived. The then-UFC welterweight champ, Hughes grabbed double underhook, mustered up the strength, and pulled off one of the most prolific moments in MMA history. The image of Hughes running across the cage, carrying Trigg all the way, was etched in MMA history forever.
One slam later, Trigg was down and Hughes was in mount. Trying to avoid the strikes, Trigg rolled over and exposed his back. Hughes sunk in a rear-naked choke and got the tap to retain his title.
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The win was the second time Hughes had defeated Trigg in as many attempts. At UFC 45 in November 2003, Hughes won by the same method – first-round rear-naked choke.
In 2015, Hughes vs. Trigg 2 was inducted into the Fight Wing of the UFC Hall of Fame.
On the bout’s 15th anniversary, relive Hughes’ epic UFC 52 title defense vs. Trigg in the video above.
