With all the different organizations in mixed martial arts boasting competing claims of who is No. 1, there is an old-fashioned way of determining who the real world champion is at each weight class.
It’s the linear test.
The linear champion, a term used more commonly in boxing, is the guy who beats the champion to become the champion, regardless of specific belts recognized by sanctioning bodies.
Heavyweight: Not Brock Lesnar
The first true heavyweight MMA champion, before weight classes even existed in UFC, was Ken Shamrock. The UFC debuted on November 12, 1993, in Denver, with a one-night tournament, won by Royce Gracie.
The company’s first actual singles title match was on April 7, 1995, with Gracie vs. Shamrock for what was called the “World Superfight championship.”
The match, the longest in UFC history, went 36:06 before it was called off due to pay-per-view time running out, and ruled a draw. At the time, MMA fights had no judges. If there had been judging, Shamrock, who weighed between 205 and 210 pounds, would have easily won the decision from the 180-pound Gracie.
Gracie dropped out of UFC, and on July 14, 1995, in Casper, Wyoming, Shamrock beat Dan Severn with a guillotine in a battle of the two top fighters in the organization at the time, to become the first Superfight champ.
Severn won a rematch on May 17, 1996, in Detroit, on a split decision in one of the worst fights in company history. When Mark Coleman beat Severn on February 7, 1997, the title was renamed the UFC heavyweight championship.
While Brock Lesnar holds that championship today, the linear title scenario isn’t as cut-and-dried. The UFC belt passed from Coleman to Maurice Smith to Randy Couture, all in 1997. Couture then had money issues with the original UFC ownership group, left the company without being defeated, and went to Japan.
The linear title left UFC with Couture, who lost via armbar to Enson Inoue in a Vale Tudo fight in Tokyo on October 25, 1998. Inoue then lost to Mark Kerr in the PRIDE organization. Kerr then lost to Kazuyuki Fujita on May 1, 2000, and that’s where things get really interesting.
Fujita battered Kerr to win a decision in a major upset. It was the first match for both men in an eight-man, one-night event that was billed to crown the best fighter in the sport, the original PRIDE Grand Prix tournament.
Fujita suffered a knee injury in the Kerr fight from ramming his knee into Kerr’s head so many times. He came to the ring for his second fight, in order to collect his paycheck, and as soon as the bell rang, his corner threw in the towel in a match with Coleman, so technically, he competed and lost. Coleman went on to win the tournament, and the linear title stayed with PRIDE until the closing of the organization in 2007.
Coleman’s next loss was to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, who later became PRIDE’s first world heavyweight champion. Nogueira held both the linear and PRIDE titles until losing to Fedor Emelianenko via decision on March 16, 2003.
Nobody beat Emelianenko until June 26, 2010, in San Jose, when Fabricio Werdum submitted him with an armbar in 1:09 in a Strikeforce match. So while Lesnar holds the most publicized version of a world title, Werdum actually holds the linear claim that traces back to Shamrock.
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