The 5 best title reigns in UFC history

#4: Jon Jones – UFC Light-Heavyweight title – 03/19/2011 to 05/23/2015

Jon Jones' reign as Light-Heavyweight champion was dominant

Despite all of his out-of-cage issues – legal problems, failed drug tests, and so forth – it’s hard to call Jon Jones anything but the greatest 205lber in the history of the UFC. Before Jones won the Light-Heavyweight title in 2011, the record for most successful title defences was Tito Ortiz’s 5.

Jones blew that away during his time as champion – managing a total of 8 – before a suspension due to a hit-and-run incident saw him stripped of the gold in 2015. He also turned back the challenges of some truly great fighters, too – it could be argued that Rampage Jackson and Lyoto Machida were past their best, but the same can’t be said for Rashad Evans, Alexander Gustafsson, Glover Teixeira, and Daniel Cormier.

The best thing about Jones’s title reign was his absolute dominance – only one foe, Gustafsson, ever gave him something resembling a close fight. His other opponents – the afore-mentioned 6 plus Chael Sonnen and Vitor Belfort – were simply blown away in one-sided fashion.

So what prevents Jones from cracking the top 3? In my opinion, despite the greatness of men like Cormier and Gustafsson, 205lbs, in general, has been a thinner division in terms of talent than some of the others during Jones’s era. And due to his subsequent failed drug tests, you’ve got to question his run in the pre-USADA era.

With that said though, his reign is by far the UFC’s greatest in a heavier weight class.