[Quiz] Can you name every UFC Interim Champion?

The Interim Championship is one that causes a very split opinion amongst MMA fans. The UFC Interim Championship was first introduced back in 2003 in a Light Heavyweight fight between two fighters that we won’t mention in order to avoid spoilers for the below quiz. There are quite a few different reasons that the UFC matchmakers create Interim title fights with the most common one being that a current champion in a weight division has an injury and/or undergoing surgery but won’t be out long enough for the UFC to ask the fighter to vacate their belt. This then allows the top of the division to move forward and remain competitive within a championship mentality whilst the champion is aiming to recover to full health. There are usually between 1-2 Interim Championship fights before the champion returns to competition and their first fight back will be to defend the unified Championship against the current Interim Champion.

However, the controversy in the MMA community comes when fans think that an Interim title fight is not warranted. These opinions vary from fans thinking that the Champion should just vacate the belt due to being out injured for too long or in some cases because the Champion wants to fight somebody different to the opponent the UFC wants them to fight. The Champions in the UFC do tend to get a little freer choice when it comes to who they want to defend their belt against. The biggest controversial scenario with Interim title fights though is when the current Champion of a weight division decides to move to a different division in order to claim ‘Double Champion’ status. It’s very clear why a Champion would want to do this but it causes the top of the division they’ve temporarily left to stall and if the Champion does become a ‘Double Champion’ it then causes the same problem in two divisions. This was one of the reasons the UFC refused to let fighters try to achieve ‘Double Champion’ status for years and they were very firm in saying that if a UFC Champion wants to move into a different weight division that they must vacate their belt. This was of cause until arguably the biggest star in MMA history wanted to be the first UFC ‘Double Champion’, Conor McGregor. Since then, the UFC have been fair and let other fighters achieve this goal such as Amanda Nunes and Henry Cejudo.

There have been 18 Interim title fights since 2003. Can you name every Interim Champion?