5 UFC fighters who were given a title shot after a lengthy layoff

In the world of the UFC, for the most part at least, title shots are earned. However, in some circumstances, this isn’t the case.

Over the years we’ve seen a handful of examples of fighters who were given a title shot by the UFC despite spending a lengthy period beforehand away from the octagon.

Surprisingly enough, these fighters largely saw mixed results in their eventual title fight, with some losing and some leaving victorious with gold around their waist.

Here are five UFC fighters who were given a title shot despite a lengthy layoff.

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#5. Stipe Miocic – former UFC heavyweight champion (two years, eight months out before fighting Jon Jones)

Stipe Miocic is the most successful heavyweight in UFC history [Image Credit: @stipemiocic on Instagram]

Few fans have complained about the headline bout for UFC 295, which is set to go down on November 11 later this year. The bout in question will see current heavyweight champ Jon Jones defend his crown against former titleholder Stipe Miocic.

However, if you scratch beneath the surface a little, it does become slightly jarring that Miocic has been handed this opportunity.

There’s no arguing with the Cleveland native’s credentials. After all, with two reigns as champion and four successful title defenses under his belt, Miocic is the most successful heavyweight in octagon history.

Despite this, it’s actually been more than two years since we last saw Miocic in action. His last fight, which took place in March 2021, saw him lose his crown to Francis Ngannou via KO.

While he’d won his previous two fights before that one, the fact is that since July 2018, Miocic has only stepped into the octagon three times.

Whether you believe he deserves this shot at Jones over the likes of Sergei Pavlovich or Tom Aspinall is highly debatable. Given his layoff, it’s also hard to imagine him having success against ‘Bones’.

Stranger things have happened, of course, but this piece of matchmaking stands out as a curious one for the modern-day UFC.

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#4. Dominick Cruz – former UFC bantamweight champion (one year, four months out before fighting TJ Dillashaw)

Dominick Cruz is one of the most injury-cursed fighters in MMA history [Image Credit: @dominickcruz on Instagram]

Perhaps no fighter in UFC history felt quite so cursed with injuries as Dominick Cruz. The promotion’s inaugural bantamweight champion, ‘The Dominator’ made two defenses of his title in 2011 before suffering a severe knee injury that kept him out for the entirety of 2012 and 2013.

Cruz returned in 2014 to shellack Takeya Mizugaki, but before he could attempt to reclaim his title, he suffered another bad knee injury that landed him on the shelf again.

By the time ‘The Dominator’ finally returned to fight then-champ TJ Dillashaw, he’d been on the shelf for the best part of a year and half, and hadn’t fought in a title bout for over four years.

Remarkably, that didn’t stop him from performing brilliantly, though, as he was able to outwit Dillashaw over five rounds to regain his crown.

While ‘The Dominator’ was unable to remain at the top of the division for much longer after this win, it remains one of the most incredible comebacks in MMA history considering the injuries he’d suffered and his lengthy layoff.

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#3. Conor McGregor – former UFC lightweight champion (one year, eleven months out before fighting Khabib Nurmagomedov)

After his lengthy layoff, Conor McGregor was unable to recapture the lightweight title [Image Credit: @thenotoriousmma on Instagram]

When Conor McGregor downed Eddie Alvarez to capture the lightweight title at the end of 2016, he became the first fighter to hold UFC titles in two different weight classes simultaneously.

‘The Notorious’ had already stopped Jose Aldo to claim featherweight gold a year prior, and if he’d been a big star at that point, his win over Alvarez pushed him onto a different level entirely.

The win meant that McGregor essentially transcended MMA. Rather than defend his newly won title against a top contender like Khabib Nurmagomedov or Tony Ferguson, then, he instead pursued a mega-money boxing match with Floyd Mayweather.

That fight came to fruition in the summer of 2017, with McGregor eventually losing via TKO. By the time the Irishman finally decided to return to the octagon, he’d been out of action for the best part of two years.

Although there were few complains around the sport’s biggest star attempting to regain the title he never lost, unsurprisingly, such a layoff didn’t prepare him for the storm that was to come.

Faced with Nurmagomedov, who’d claimed the title in his absence, McGregor proved to be miles out of his depth. ‘The Eagle’ destroyed him over four rounds, eventually submitting him with a neck crank.

While the fight remains the biggest selling in UFC history, in hindsight, it can also be seen as a watershed moment of sorts, as it marked the beginning of the end of the McGregor era in the promotion.

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#2. Dominick Cruz – former UFC bantamweight champion (three years, five months out before fighting Henry Cejudo)

Dominick Cruz's second comeback was not as successful as his first [Image Credit: @dominickcruz on Instagram]

Dominick Cruz might’ve had a lengthy layoff coming into his bantamweight title fight with TJ Dillashaw in 2016, but that was nothing compared to his time on the shelf prior to his 2020 clash with Henry Cejudo.

The back end of 2016 saw ‘The Dominator’ lose his title to Cody Garbrandt in a major upset. Although he was linked to fights in 2017 and 2018, they never came to fruition.

Essentially, Cruz suffered injury after injury to the point where he appeared to be retired. This only made his unexpected comeback in 2020 even stranger.

By that stage, of course, Henry Cejudo, rather than Garbrandt, held the bantamweight crown, and looked set to defend it against former featherweight king Jose Aldo in the early part of the year.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic then struck, forcing the world, the UFC included, to basically shut down temporarily.

When things opened back up, Aldo couldn’t enter the US from his native Brazil. With Cejudo still needing a title challenger, the promotion stunned everyone by turning to Cruz, who hadn’t fought in well over three years.

This time, the layoff proved to be a bridge too far for the former champ. Despite a bright start, he was stopped in the second round, suffering the first TKO loss of his career.

Since then, ‘The Dominator’ has fought a further three times, bizarrely making this period one of the more active of his career.

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#1. Ken Shamrock – former UFC superfight champion (five years, eleven months out before fighting Tito Ortiz)

Ken Shamrock had been gone from the octagon for nearly six years before his 2002 comeback [Image Credit: @kenshamrockofficial on Instagram]

The longest layoff for any fighter prior to a UFC title shot remains the near six year period that Ken Shamrock spent away from the octagon prior to his 2002 clash with Tito Ortiz.

Of course, there are some caveats around the situation that saw ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Man’ given his shot, and there were certainly very few dissenting voices at the time.

Shamrock’s heyday in the octagon of course came in the mid-1990’s, as he became one of the earliest stars in the promotion thanks to his rivalries with the likes of Royce Gracie and Dan Severn.

By 1999, though, he’d departed the world of MMA for a career with WWE, something that only saw his overall levels of stardom rise.

That year saw him make an appearance in the corner of teammate Guy Mezger for his fight with Ortiz. After ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ won, he flipped Shamrock off, sparking a major feud between the two.

For a while, it looked like the two men would never settle their grudge in the octagon, but 2000 saw Shamrock make an unexpected return to MMA, albeit in Japan with the PRIDE promotion.

Two years later, the UFC were able to persuade him to return to finally face Ortiz. The buzz around the fight was so big that top contender Chuck Liddell was happy to step aside for ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Man’.

The result was the first UFC pay-per-view to really crack the mainstream – arguably saving the promotion in the process.

As for Shamrock, while he lost in largely one-sided fashion, the event was such a success that there were no real “losers” to come from it.