I think Randy is the only reigning UFC champ who has ever won the title, gone and lost in another promotion but kept his UFC title and then returned and successfully defended the UFC title like nothing happened.
Crazy how Valentijn himself never did fight in the UFC and was 0-4 in PRIDE and retired 32-34 in MMA.
In his prime he beat Babalu, Randy, Freeman, Kohler, Tamura, Haseman, etc…
You just won’t see many fighters with wins like that who then continue fighting until they retire with a losing record.
You wonder what would have happened if he was as serious and disciplined as Alistair.
Records only tell you so much, especially about a fighters prime or strength of comp, like 14-17 Akira Shoji. Shoji was good enough to fight Renzo to a 30 min draw, TKOed Wallid, beat Guy Mezger and Braga and despite being 5’8… he went the distance with Mark Coleman.
Edit- Edit to say Randy was not the only champ to lose somewhere else and then return and defend his UFC title. Militech did that 3x. Forgot about then making the post.
Jens Pulver got knocked out by Bang Ludwig. He technically wasn’t the UFC champion as he vacated the title a few months beforehand. But he was still the lineal champion, having won two fights outside the UFC prior to fighting Bang.
Randy also lost to Enson, although I dunno if he was still technically the champ at the time of the fight as he vacated the title at some point and won it when he came back.
You know how it goes with talent, some talented athletes like money but they are not the GSP/Mighty Mouse/Khabib, obsessed and disciplined types. They are the fun, wild and partying types. I think thats probably what the deal is there. The NHB era certainly had some characters that were not afraid of partying a little bit.
Good call on Jens, yeah he didn’t return and defend like Randy.
I forgot Randy was already champ when Enson and Ilyukhin beat him. Yeah that time he had vacated the title.
Thats nuts Randy won the UFC title and then went and lost somewhere else, not once but twice he won the title and went and did that. Thats how it went in “the dark ages” of SEG though.
That was a myth from people that were not following the sport during the peak of the PRIDE/K1 era.
For example, I think UFC had like six HW fights total in 2004 and PRIDE had 90% of the top 30 HWs and was putting on tons of HW fights.
Plus so many great fighters went back and forth between the US and Japan back then. UFC vs PRIDE is a weird narrative that formed after the fact from TUF era fans talking out of their asses.
I don’t think I ever knew that happened until right now because I never watched that Superbrawl or that fight.
Whats crazy is, Pat lost a 2nd time while UFC WW champ, vs Pele in WEF 8, now that fight I did see and knew that happened.
Hang on a sec, Pat lost a 3rd time outside the UFC, vs Tamura in RINGS and then went back and got one more UFC title defense.
So while reigning and defending UFC champ, Militech lost not one, not two but three fights outside the UFC before he eventually lost the UFC title to Newton.
Thats a UFC championship record that can never be broke. Even with Randy, he lost outside UFC but only one time during each reign.
Crazy thing about Pele beating Pat the UFC champ there is five fights later he went and beat Hughes and then turned around two fights later and lost to 1-6-2 Matsui in one of the biggest upsets in MMA history up to that point.
They fucked those dudes up over a bathroom or something and the dipshit bouncers not having a clue who they were. Alistair got a crazy hand infection but they demolished those guys
