Against Velasquez, Werdum will fight to break the historical taboo of interim champions

Werdum (left) x Velasquez (right): retrospect favors the linear champions. Photo: Jeff Bottari/UFC

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This Saturday (13), the Brazilian Fabricio Werdum, interim heavyweight champion, faces the lineal champion Cain Velazquez in the unification of the titles in the under-120 kg division, scheduled for the main fight of UFC 188, in Mexico. If it depends on the retrospect of this type of confrontation, however, the Brazilian has plenty of reasons to worry and will face a historical taboo, since since 2008 an interim champion has not beaten the current champion in a duel for unification and this has never happened to an athlete who wasn't a former Ultimate champion.

The first time that the UFC saw a duel between two champions to unify a title, in 2003, it was also the first time that the interim title holder dethroned the current champion. At UFC 44, Randy Couture, who had already held the heavyweight belt twice before, beat Tito Ortiz and unified the titles in the light heavyweight category.

After that, it took five years before another interim champion could defeat the linear one. In 2008, the former champion Georges St Pierre arrived with the interim welterweight title to challenge his tormentor Matt Serra, to whom he had surprisingly lost the belt a year earlier. GSP beat Serra by knockout in his home country and regained his position as definitive champion of the 77 kg division.

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But, without a doubt, the most famous belt unification in the history of Ultimate took place in 2009, when the giants Brock Lesnar e Frank mir they faced each other in the main fight of UFC 100, the organization's biggest event in its almost 22 years. The rematch between the rivals attracted no less than 1,6 million buyers to the pay-per-view of the event, an absolute record in the history of MMA. On that occasion, Lesnar knocked out Mir and remained the absolute champion of the heavyweight division.

Furthermore, there were occasions in which the interim champions ended up promoted to permanent champions, but this happened without them beating the permanent belt holders, who ended up not being able to return to the octagon due to physical problems. In the case of the type most remembered by the Brazilian public, Renan Barao was promoted to bantamweight champion after two with the interim title, when Dominick Cruz He was injured again and completed three years of inactivity.