The 5 worst title reigns in UFC history

#1 Germaine De Randamie – UFC Women’s Featherweight title – 02/11/2017 to 06/19/2017

Germaine De Randamie was stripped of her Featherweight title after refusing to fight Cris Cyborg

When the UFC announced the signing of Cristiane Justino – AKA Cris Cyborg – in the summer of 2016, it only seemed like a matter of time before the promotion would create a Women’s Featherweight division to build around her.

That was indeed the case – but strangely enough, she wasn’t involved in the inaugural title bout despite being recognised as the world’s best 145lber for the best part of a decade. Instead – with Cyborg claiming she couldn’t make weight in time – the UFC matched Holly Holm and Germaine De Randamie for the newly minted title at February 2017’s UFC 208.

The fight didn’t make sense on many levels – Holm was coming off two straight losses and hadn’t fought at 145lbs before while De Randamie was just 3-1 in the UFC and also hadn’t fought at 145lbs. But the idea was that the winner would fight Cyborg anyway, so it didn’t matter too much.

In the end, it was a terrible, slow-paced fight that saw De Randamie take a unanimous decision despite two bad fouls – striking Holm after the buzzer had sounded to end both the second and third rounds. But if that wasn’t bad enough, when it came to defending her new title against Cyborg, the Dutchwoman had other ideas.

Citing a wish to move back to 135lbs – as well as not wanting to fight Cyborg due to her shady past with PED allegations – De Randamie refused to take the fight, and eventually the UFC were forced to strip her of the title and make a fight between Cyborg and Tonya Evinger for the vacant championship instead.

The way De Randamie’s title reign started was bad enough, but the fact that she’s the only UFC champion to be stripped of her crown solely due to refusing to fight an opponent means that her reign as Featherweight champion stands out as the absolute worst title reign in UFC history.