Ranking UFC champions: Who is the most dominant today?

There has been amazing fights cards as of recent and UFC seems to be in a great place with their current champions.
With great champions come promising challengers to face them, in attempt to dethrone and capture undisputed gold. Some of the best fighters in the world currently hold belts in the UFC. The discussion needs to be made for who is the most dominant champion currently.
This is my ranking of the current champions in the UFC.

Ranking the most dominant current UFC champions
There have been many great champions in UFC and 2019 marks the most divisions in UFC history. With the addition of women's featherweight and strawweight divisions, we wanted to rank the current title holders by how dominant they have been in their respective weight classes. Take a look at our list which features the 11 titles holders who we have ranked by dominance, recent fights, and title defense.

#11: Rose Namajunas
Namajunas is a great talent and has the ability and skills to be a great champion, but like Cejudo, Namajunas has big shoes to fill. All the girls she will be defending her belt against have all fallen to former champ, Joanna Jedrzejcyk. As we know, Namajunas has beaten Joanna twice. Her next title defense will be against the strongest and most powerful woman in that division, Jessica Andrade. Andrade is coming off a huge knockout against top contender and former title challenger, Karolina Kowalkiewicz. If Namajunas can beat these women the way Joanna did, it would definitely put her as one of the more dominant champions.

#10: Valentina Shevchenko
Shevchenko is considered to be the next dominant champion as far as title defenders. She is working on cleaning out a new division, and Shevchenko truly has the skills to go on a long run, defending her belt multiple times. She recently won the belt in a great performance against Joanna, who is a former title holder at strawweight. This is a great time for her division, its growing and filling up with contenders looking for a fresh start that did not fit in at 135 or 115-pounds. There are rumors circling that Jessica Eye is next in line, and I like that matchup. It is a great fight for her to start her reign over this new promising division.

#9: TJ Dillashaw
Although it hurts me to put him this low, Dillashaw needs to get back his first-round loss to Henry Cejudo in order to be higher on this list. The fight truly did hurt him, he put his body through lot and it didn't take much for Cejudo to hurt Dillashaw. This tells me his body did not handle the weight cut well. Dillashaw defended against Cody Garbrandt x2, but with a win over Cejudo, or Marlon Moraes, it will bump Dillashaw right back up as one of the most dominant champions in UFC.

#8: Robert Whittaker
Whittaker is coming off two big wins against Yoel Romero. He is truly starting to solidify himself as one of the great middleweights, although he had to pull out against Kelvin Gastelum due to a serious injury that required immediate surgery. Whitaker is the man at middleweight, I feel he is one of those champions that needs to do more as far as ranking him with the best. No doubt he will look to prove himself against the winner of Israel Adesanya and Gastelum, who will scrap for the interim title as the champ heals.

#7: Henry Cejudo
Cejudo is the first man to win an Olympic gold medal and a UFC championship. He is definitely in a very good place in his career, coming off huge wins of Demetrious Johnson and TJ Dillashaw. Cejudo ended the reign of terror Might Mouse had over the flyweight division and may have saved the division from being dissolved from  UFC in 2019. Cejudo is looking to keep defending his flyweight title but if the division is dissolved, Cejudo will be the first to get a shot at Dillashaw's bantamweight championship. A rematch with Dillashaw would be a huge seller as Cejudo would look to make even more history by becoming a double champion shortly after preventing Dillashaw from reaching the same goal. But as far as dominant champions, Cejudo has big shoes to fill as the bar was set high by Johnson who had 12 title defenses.

#6: Amanda Nunes
Nunes is considered one of, if not the greatest women's mixed martial artist of all-time. Nunes has solidified herself in the last few years with signature wins over Cris Cyborg, Ronda Rousey, Miesha Tate, and the current women's flyweight champion, Valentina Shevchenko x2. Being a champ champ, and the first woman to do so, comes with a lot of responsibility. There appears to be rumors circling around that she will be defending one of her belts against Holly Holm next, however, it seems the champ is a few fights away from retirement.

#5: Max Holloway
The young Hawaiian has been on a roll since his loss to Conor McGregor. Since then, Holloway has been flying though the featherweight division where he was able to capture the belt with a TKO win over Jose Aldo. Holloway then followed that up with a title defense against Aldo again, and Brian Ortega to solidify his place as a dominant champion. Max is now 3-0 in title fights and they have all been won via TKO. As long as "Blessed" can keep making 145-pounds, I do not see that belt going anywhere anytime soon. He will look to keep his fight streak alive whether he stays at featherweight or moves up to 155-pounds. The weight cut appears to be difficult for his body and hazardous to his health in recent fights, so the move up is inevitable.

#4: Tyron Woodley
Woodley is considered to be one of the most underrated champions in history and is truly one of the most dominant title holders in UFC. Since Woodley claimed his title with an incredible knockout of Robbie Lawler that few saw coming, he has been on a tear with wins over Stephen Thompson x2, Demian Maia, and Darren Till, who are three of the most difficult fighters at welterweight and perhaps some of the best competition in MMA regardless of weight class. With his continuing title defenses, Woodley is looking to extend his reign and prove that he is the greatest welterweight in UFC history when he meets Kamaru Usman at UFC 235.

#3: Daniel Cormier
When you talk about winning and making history and the best pound-for-pound fighters, you have to mention Daniel Cormier’s name. DC is only the second man, after Conor, to hold two titles simultaneously and the first two have defended both titles. DC is another champion who has been dominant, as he won both the light heavyweight and the heavyweight title, but there has been one man who has been able to beat DC and that is his rival, Jon Jones. Other than Jones, no one at light heavyweight or heavyweight has been able to beat Cormier. With DC giving up his light heavyweight belt and choosing to stay as the heavyweight champ, Jones was able to step in his place and is now holding the thrown at 205-pounds.

#2: Khabib Nurmagomedov
Nurmagomedov is easily the second most dominant champion in the UFC today. The lightweight Russian holds the belt, and is one of the very few undefeated fighters in the UFC with a record of 26-0. Winning is hard enough in MMA, but to be winning and dominating the way Khabib does is truly something special. Although his reign has been short, he has significant wins over Conor McGregor, Edson Barboza, and Al Iaquinta.

#1: Jon Jones
This is a no-brainer. Although there has been much controversy that surrounds Jones, the one thing you cannot deny is how dominant Jones has been since winning the light heavyweight title back in 2011. Jones made history by becoming the youngest champion in UFC history while dominating and finishing Mauricio Shogun Rua. Jones would then begin his dismantling of the 205-pound division one fight at a time. With 8 defenses, Jones has beaten fighters and legends such as Lyoto Machida, Quinton Rampage Jackson, Chael Sonnen, Daniel Cormier x2, and Alexander Gustafsson x2. As of December 2018, Jon Jones once again has reclaimed the thrown to the 205-pound division and looks to defend his championship against Anthony Smith.
____
Make sure to follow The Scrap News (@thescrapnews) on Twitter.
Follow our writer Hiram Alvarado (@hiramwritesmma).
About Post Author
The Scrap
The Scrap is a combat sports news hub dedicated to bringing you creative MMA, Pro Wrestling, Bare Knuckle, and Boxing content. We choose highlight the indie and regional scenes as passionately as the big leagues. Aside from exclusives on our Patreon account, we also provide video content on our YouTube channel ranging from interviews to highlighting current events.