MMA: The Lineal World Heavyweight Title Runs Through the Strikeforce Grand Prix

Due to the influx of alphabet soup sanctioning bodies in the 1980’s, lineal champions have been a staple of the boxing world for decades. Frustrated by a bevy of “champions” in an ever growing number of weight classes, boxing aficionados concocted a method of determining the “real” singular champion of each weight class by using the simplified method of “the man who beat the man”. Ignoring the politically crowned champions of the promotional bodies, when the current recognized “man” would lose, despite whether a tangible title belt was on the line or not, the man who beat him would assume the lineal championship of that weight class. This practice of lineal champions was taken a step further when Ring magazine, who arguably had been tracking lineal champions longer than anyone, actually created title belts and crowned their own champions based on the lineal premise.

In the relatively young sport of mixed martial arts, there hasn’t been much of a need for lineal champions. In the early days, you had one major promotional body in the Unites States, the UFC. Japan had groups like Pancrase and Shooto, and later PRIDE Fighting Championships. There wasn’t much dispute over the “real” world champions in each weight class, as a majority of the world’s best fighters were fighting for a small handful of promotional entities.

But as the sport has grown, so has the number of promotional bodies recognizing world champions. Which begs the question — which of these champions has a rightful claim as the “real” world champion in each weight class?

The process for determining this is the same as what was done in boxing in the 80’s. Who beat the man, who beat the man? And when you trace this line for the heavyweight division, the answer might be a surprising one – Fabricio Werdum.

The path to Werdum as the lineal world champion of the heavyweight division begins at UFC 12 in 1997, when Mark Coleman defeated Dan Severn to become the first recognized UFC heavyweight champion. Coleman was universally regarded as the best heavyweight in the world at this time, so this is the widely accepted starting point for the heavyweight lineage.

Coleman lost the title to Maurice Smith at UFC 14 a few months later. Smith lost the title to Randy Couture in December of the same year at UFC Japan. Couture then quit the UFC due to a contract dispute, vacating the UFC title in the process. As a result, the lineal world championship left the UFC with him.

Couture lost his next fight to Enson Inoue in October 1998. Inoue then lost to Mark Kerr in the first round of the PRIDE 2000 Grand Prix. Kerr lost to Kazuyuki Fujita four months later in the semi finals, and Fujita lost later that same night to Mark Coleman. Coleman would go on to win the Grand Prix, becoming not only the World Grand Prix champion, but also the first two time lineal world champion.

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EXCELLENT article. And captures how truly significant the SF GP is. The reality is Cain's claim to being the best heavy on the planet is an extremely loose definition of what a world champion is. And is not dissimilar at all to the alphabet mess in boxing.

 

Coleman won the GP. He beat Fujita as he retired via injury after wrecking his knee on Mark Kerr.

 

Exactly. Laughable isn't it. Amazing though what the UFC can sell its "fans".

 

Academic. He won via forefeit. Those were the rules of the PRIDE tourney. If a fighter cant fight because of injury the opponent wins. Simple in my eyes.

 

Fedor beat a prime Herring who was a BEAST in PRIDE. Fedor absolutely destroyed him in one of the most clinical displays of pure carnage iv ever seen.
As for Lesnar's merits its not even worthy of discussion.The UFC/Dana does what it does best. Market hype and sell it to their fans.