Daniel Cormier, Conor McGregor, Amanda Nunes and Henry Cejudo. Those are the only fighters to hold the title of Champ Champ in two divisions. They say winning a belt is hard, but two? Forget about it.
Belts change hands all the time and as the king of your division someone is always coming for your title, there have only been a select few champions that have been successful enough to hold their belt while chasing another, now the fighters I first listed have been successful, but not every move ends in celebration. We have seen several fighters attempt double champ status only to taste defeat, two names that come to mind are Israel Adesanya and Bj Penn.
Now, of all the current champions there are a couple that either recently won their belt or are in a position where they need a couple of defences before even contemplating such a move, I would put in this category Carla Esparza (19-6), Juliana Pena (11-4), Glover Teixeira (33-7), Aljamain Sterling (21-3), Deivison Figueiredo (21-2-1).
This next category is a bit more difficult since these three fighters have had so much success and are so dominant as champions that they have run the table on the division, but in the case of Israel Adesanya (22-1) and Charles Oliveira (33-8), Francis Nganou (17-3) I can’t help but feel as if they need to stay put for a bit.
Now Izzy did attempt to move up to 205 and lost a decision to Jan Blachowicz, but he has eradicated any legitimate challenger at MW so we could see him moving up sooner than later. As for Charles, I believe that if he had made weight he would be much higher on this list, but now he has to “officially” regain his title as well as face-off against Islam Makhachev before making the move up or down (he’s fought at 145 and 170 before).
As for Francis, well he did just defend his belt for the first time and is looking like a world-beater, but he is injured, in a contract dispute and contemplating switching sports, not to mention there is no way he would ever make 205. EVER.
Finally, we have the final group that I believe deserves to chase another belt, first, we have Valentina who is on an 8 fight win streak and 6 title defences, Volkanovski is on a 21 win streak and 3 defences, Usman is on a 19 win streak and 5 defences.
Usman has been linked to Canelo for some absurd reason and is close friends with fellow 185 champion Izzy. Now that is the fight to make as it not only makes sense financially, but it would pit two of the greatest champions of their era, I would personally like to see that fight over Canelo any day of the week.
Volkanovski and Shevchenko. Have been dominant for so long that it is difficult to see a reason why they shouldn’t move up. As of now Volk is said to be defending his belt vs former champ Max Holloway who he has already beaten twice, should he move past “Blessed” we could soon see him challenging for the 155 belt. As for Valentina, her only losses have come at the hands of Amanda Nunes, but seeing as that belt has a new owner we could see her challenging at 135 once the Nunes vs Pena rivalry is settled.
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