The UFC’s Middleweight division was first introduced to fight fans at UFC 31, in 2001, as UFC wanted to align the weight classes with the New York State Athletic Commissions guidelines.
This was at a time when UFC were fighting hard to gain state approval for their events, as roughly 30 states had banned MMA after a letter from John McCain called for all states to do so.
The first ever title fight took place between Dave Menne and Gil Castillo. Dave Menne won the fight and become UFC’s inaugural Middleweight Champion, joining the ranks of other UFC Champions.
Since its inception, the Middleweight division has always put on blistering title performances. Sonnen v Silva 1 saw Chael Sonnen almost sail to a title, until Silva threw up a triangle and submitted Sonnen with 2 minutes left to go in a title fight in which he was losing. Bisping v GSP saw GSP, the greatest welterweight of all time, come out of retirement and win the belt to become a 2 division UFC Champion.
However, when you think of greatest ever UFC Middleweights, one name comes to mind and that is Anderson Silva.
Silva holds the UFC record for the most amount of time as a Champion at 2,457 days as Champion.
He also holds the record for longest win streak in UFC, at 16 victories in a row.
At his peak, Anderson Silva made title contenders in the Middleweight division look like amateurs. He dismantled Rich Franklin to take the belt off of him at UFC 64 in 2006. He flatlined Vitor Belfort with a front kick to the jaw. He became the first man to finish Stephan Bonnar. Also, he dominated a very tough Dan Henderson and submitted him via rear-naked choke.
Here is a list of every UFC Middleweight Champion:
Table of Contents
UFC Middleweight Champions
| Date Made Champion | UFC Fighter Name | Country Of Origin | |
 | Sep 28, 2001 | Dave Menne | USA |
 | Jan 11, 2002 | Murilo Bustamante | Brazil |
 | Feb 5, 2005 | Evan Tanner | USA |
 | June 4, 2005 | Rich Franklin | USA |
 | Oct 14, 2006 | Anderson Silva | Brazil |
 | July 6, 2013 | Chris Weidman | USA |
 | Dec 12, 2015 | Luke Rockhold | USA |
 | Jun 4, 2016 | Michael Bisping | England |
 | Nov 4, 2017 | Georges St-Pierre | Canada |
 | Dec 7, 2017 | Robert Whittaker | Australia |
 | Oct 5, 2019 | Israel Adesanya | New Zealand |
