History of UFC's champion vs. champion superfights

#2 Eddie Alvarez vs. Conor McGregor – UFC 205 – 11/12/2016

Conor McGregor's win over Eddie Alvarez made him the first man to simultaneously hold two UFC titles

What led to the fight?

Reigning UFC Featherweight champion Conor McGregor was granted a shot at the Lightweight title right after defeating longtime 145lbs champion Jose Aldo in December 2015 – a sign of his huge popularity and drawing power largely eclipsing the UFC’s usual matchmaking system. McGregor had never fought at 155lbs in the UFC when he was signed to fight then-champion Rafael Dos Anjos at UFC 196 in March 2016.

RDA ended up withdrawing due to injury, however, and that left McGregor to face late replacement Nate Diaz, who defeated the Irishman in a non-title affair. After defeating Diaz in a rematch, ‘The Notorious One’ was finally granted his shot at the Lightweight crown when the UFC needed a big fight to main event their debut show in Madison Square Garden.

It wouldn’t come against Dos Anjos, however; the Brazilian lost his title to Eddie Alvarez in July, and so ‘The Underground King’ ended up making his first title defense against the trash-talking Irishman on arguably the UFC’s biggest-ever show to that point.

What happened?

The fight was as one-sided as St-Pierre vs. Penn, but this time it was in the favour of the smaller man – albeit on paper only, as McGregor actually looked bigger than Alvarez when the two faced off inside the Octagon.

The shorter Alvarez simply couldn’t get inside to land any big punches on the Irishman, and McGregor made full use of both his reach advantage and punching power by abusing ‘The Underground King’ from range.

Alvarez was knocked down three times in the opening round alone, and after a clean combination put him down for a fourth time in the second round, referee Big John McCarthy stopped the fight in McGregor’s favour.

When the fight was over, McGregor was furious that the UFC didn’t present him with two title belts, and then refused to apologise for all the trash he’d talked in the build-up to the fight. It was probably his highest watermark in the UFC, as he became the first UFC fighter to hold titles in different weight classes simultaneously.

What went down in the aftermath?

The pay-per-view sold incredibly well – drawing about 1.3m buys – cementing McGregor’s status as the biggest drawing card in MMA history, and was a huge success for the UFC in their Madison Square Garden debut.

However, the fight turned out to be the Irishman’s final one in the Octagon for well over a year, as he refused to defend either one of his titles and instead postured for a boxing match with pay-per-view megastar Floyd Mayweather. That fight went down in August 2017 and saw McGregor stopped in the 10th round via TKO.

During his long hiatus from the sport ‘The Notorious One’ was stripped of both of his titles. Upon his return in October 2018 at UFC 229 he attempted to win back the Lightweight crown he’d wrested from Alvarez, but failed in his bid to defeat new champion Khabib Nurmagomedov.

The show drew a ridiculous 2.4m pay-per-view buys though – a UFC record – meaning a rematch could go down at some point in 2019.

As for Alvarez, he went on to a trio of truly wild fights – fighting to a No Contest with Dustin Poirier, defeating Justin Gaethje in a brawl and then losing to Poirier in a rematch – before departing the UFC for the ONE Championship promotion in late 2018. He never came close to regaining the title after his loss to McGregor, but remained a semi-big star in the UFC thanks to his exciting style inside the Octagon.