Do you agree with Yahoo's breakdown of the real linear champions ?

He says there are two lines of thought on LW, and I personally like to go with the BJ Penn lineage that has Frankie Edgar has champion. He doesn't simply say it's Melendez. He says there are two possible lineal champions. Otherwise the rest of the article is the same as my personal finding when I explored the issue here last year.

Agree with all except Lightweight- Frankie Edgar.

Wolfgangsta wrote:

He says there are two lines of thought on LW, and I personally like to go with the BJ Penn lineage that has Frankie Edgar has champion. He doesn't simply say it's Melendez. He says there are two possible lineal champions. Otherwise the rest of the article is the same as my personal finding when I explored the issue here last year.

I was just about to add that two lines of though on Lightweight.

Quote :

The current UFC lightweight championship can be traced back to February 23, 2001, when Jens Pulver won a majority decision over Caol Uno in Atlantic City, N.J. Since Miletich’s title was still being called “lightweight,” the 155-pound title was originally called the bantamweight title.

A few months later, both titles underwent name changes. Pulver also ended up in a financial dispute with UFC, and left the organization and fought elsewhere without losing the championship.

Pulver’s first loss after winning the title was in Montreal, where he was knocked out in just 1:13 by Duane “Bang” Ludwig. Ludwig went to Japan and lost by submission to Penn on May 22, 2004 in Tokyo. Penn did not fight at lightweight again for three years, but when he returned, he defeated Pulver, Joe Stevenson to claim the vacant UFC title, Sean Sherk, Kenny Florian and Diego Sanchez. He would actually not lose a lightweight match until April 10, 2010 when he dropped the UFC title to Frankie Edgar, who beat Penn again in a rematch last weekend.

But could Penn truly said to remain the linear lightweight champion when he didn’t fight at that weight for three years, and had to be coaxed back into the division?

If you believe the answer to that question to be “no,” the most logical progression after Penn stopped fighting as a lightweight would be to move to the PRIDE World Lightweight Grand Prix tournament held in Japan in 2005. UFC didn’t even have a lightweight champion at the time, so the top lightweights in the world were involved. But the big issue in that tournament is that the weight class was 161 pounds, not 155, and that does make a difference.

Takanori Gomi won the tournament, beating Luiz Azeredo in the finals on September 25, 2005, via decision. Gomi solidified his claim beating Hayato Sakurai, which created PRIDE’s first lightweight championship.

This version of the linear title takes several turns from there. Gomi lost to Marcus Aurelio, who lost to Mitsuhiro Ishida, who then lost to Gomi. Gomi lost to Nick Diaz in Las Vegas, but the loss was overturned because Diaz tested positive for marijuana. Gomi then lost in one of the great upsets in MMA history, to unheralded Sergey Golyaev on November 1, 2008. Golyaev immediately lost to Eiji Mitsuoka, who lost to Kazunori Yokota, who lost to Tatsuya Kawajiri. By this point, in Japan, the lightweight division was 154 pounds, close enough to the 155 that has been the North American standard.

The title line would end with Dream champion Shinya Aoki, who quickly submitted Kawajiri on July 10, 2010, which was less than three months after Aoki was completely dominated in a Strikeforce fight by Gilbert Melendez.

Dana needs to sign Werdum again so he could rightly claim that all the linear champions are in the UFC.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Werdum in the UFC very soon. He would be the perfect bait for Fedor Emelienanko now seeing as Fedor actually wants to fight someone in particular.

linear champions are for people who think they are smart, but really aren't. If you got the belt and are considered the title holder you are the champ. There is no other equation, unless you want to start handling it pro wrestling style. Now in boxing they have "unified" titles of multiple organizations, but that just makes things worse, though it does heat up the debates.

Oh andrew

Oh Wolfy...

Ludwig's loss to BJ was at 170. So the real lineal champ should be Gray Maynard.

Pulver to Ludwig to Griffin to Edgar to Maynard.

looks ight to me

Wow chorky nice sluthing on that. Email this guy about it.

Pulver left and los to Gome though????

chorky777 wrote:

Ludwig's loss to BJ was at 170. So the real lineal champ should be Gray Maynard.

Pulver to Ludwig to Griffin to Edgar to Maynard.

Nice, that's why I made the thread, great thinking Chorky.