6 UFC Superfights We Never Got to See

Love it or hate it, the UFC gives its people what they want.

Most of the time.

Though the promotion's 30 years have been dotted with scores of memorable fights across multiple weight classes, there have been a few that slipped through the cracks thanks to poor timing, bad luck or circumstances beyond Octagonal czar Dana White's control.

Given that reality, the B/R combat team gathered to come up with a list of a half-dozen instant classics that UFC fans never got to see based on the attractiveness of the matchup and the significance of the event, among other criteria.

Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought or two of your own in the comments.

It never happened. And when it comes to putting pen to paper on a contract, it was never particularly close to happening either.

But if you ask long-time UFC fans which two superstars who were active at the same time in adjacent weight classes should have come together but didn't, there's an excellent chance that Silva and St-Pierre will be the answer.

St-Pierre was Octagonally active across 13 years from 2004 to 2017, with a pair of title reigns at welterweight and another at middleweight that began and ended with a finish of Michael Bisping in the winner's swan song at UFC 217. Meanwhile, Silva's run in the company stretched from 2006 to 2020 and included a legendary stint at 185 pounds during which he successfully defended the championship 10 times from 2006 to 2013.

The disparate size of the would-be rivals is often labeled the reason the fight didn't occur, given that Silva was a tall, rangy middleweight at 6'2" and St-Pierre was a smallish, relatively speaking, welterweight at 5'10". But St-Pierre told MMA Junkie in 2021 that drug testing was the final practical hurdle that was never cleared.

"Looking back, if we would've done this, it would've been great, but it needed to be done at a catchweight with drug testing," he said. "That was my condition and I don't think UFC wanted it at the time. At the time I had so many challenges in my division.

"I was very busy in my division. I didn't want to go up, gain weight, try to go up, and then come back down. It would've been crazy, maybe a career breaker for me."

Everyone regrets the one that got away.

And for Dana White, this one might be it.

Brock Lesnar was as big a star, literally and figuratively, as the UFC has ever had, and the prospect of matching him with Fedor Emelianenko, who'd terrorized other promotions but never set foot inside a UFC Octagon, was almost too much to comprehend.

There's not a venue it wouldn't have sold out in 2009, when Lesnar was in the midst of a run that saw him finish Randy Couture, Frank Mir and Shane Carwin in succession and Emelianenko was running roughshod over rivals in the Affliction and Strikeforce promotions.

A 6'3", 265-pound wrestler against a 6'0", 237-pound judo ace? Sign us up.

But while White doggedly pursued Emelianenko's services with the idea of a Lesnar match specifically in mind, it never happened. And even years later, the boss still laments it.

"I've made every fight we've ever set out to make," he told Sun Sport in 2022. "The only fight I couldn't make was Fedor versus Lesnar. That was the only fight that I couldn't get done."

It could have happened. And maybe it should have happened.

But timing and logistics ultimately got the better of a would-be women's showdown between judo ace Ronda Rousey and slugger Cris Cyborg.

Rousey, for those unaware, was the brightest star in the UFC's sky after she arrived from Strikeforce in 2012 and through a subsequent run of six title defenses at 135 pounds, five of which ended within a single round. Cyborg, at the same time, was beating the brakes off all comers in the Invicta promotion's featherweight division, 10 pounds up the ladder.

Though chatter between the camps was frequent and fan sentiment was surely in favor of making it happen, no agreement was ever reached on weight.

Cyborg balked at the idea of melting down beyond 140 pounds and Rousey wasn't particularly agreeable to the idea of moving out of her comfort zone at 135.

It became a moot point when Rousey was dumped by ex-boxer Holly Holm in a two-round shocker at UFC 193 and again by Amanda Nunes in just 48 seconds at UFC 207.

She transformed into a WWE persona soon after and hasn't competed as an MMA athlete since, while Cyborg eventually reached the UFC and beat Holm in 2017, but lasted just 51 seconds against Nunes in her own competitive flameout a year later at UFC 232.

OK, maybe it's silly. But we're not ready to give up on this one quite yet.

Francis Ngannou was the UFC's biggest bogeyman in 2021 and 2022 following a smashing title win over Stipe Miocic and a compelling defense against previously unbeaten top contender Ciryl Gane. And for nearly every moment of that reign, he was a principal in a dream fight with ex-light heavyweight king Jon Jones, who'd vacated his 205-pound throne with designs on chasing a second title belt at heavyweight.

The chase was a bit too prolonged, though, and Ngannou's desire to supplement his Octagonal work with an occasional dalliance in the boxing ring led to his release by the company in January 2023. Jones finally reappeared two months later, submitting Gane in less than a round to win the title belt vacated when Ngannou was dismissed.

The Cameroonian has since made a splash in a stirring 10-round duel with Tyson Fury and is on the docket for a match with another boxing giant, Anthony Joshua. Jones, meanwhile, hasn't fought since the Gane win and is on the shelf these days nursing a pectoral injury suffered as he prepped for his match with Miocic at UFC 295 in New York.

Still, their names have been in each other's mouths now and then since Ngannou's UFC divorce, and if they both stay relevant past their next opponents, there's an awful lot of Saudi Arabian money out there that could persuade them to get together.

Stay tuned.

It's one thing to wish for a fight and never get it.

It's another thing to have it signed and sealed, but never delivered.

That's the case with Conor McGregor and Rafael dos Anjos, who were scheduled to meet for the Brazilian's lightweight title at UFC 196 in March 2016 before the champ pulled out with a broken foot. McGregor was chasing status as the promotion's first simultaneous two-division belt-holder, having blitzed Jose Aldo for the featherweight strap just three months earlier.

It shaped up as a classic duel between a preeminent striker and jiu-jitsu ace, but it turned into a disaster for McGregor, who stayed on the marquee and was choked out in two rounds by late-notice replacement Nate Diaz. He won a rematch with Diaz five months later and eventually got the 155-pound belt with a defeat of dos Anjos' conqueror Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205, but has won just once in four Octagonal appearances since.

As for dos Anjos, he's never scaled the same heights either, going 7-7 since missing the McGregor payday and losing the belt to Alvarez. He renewed his call for the "Notorious" one after a second-round finish of Bryan Barberena late in 2022 but was beaten by Vicente Luque five months ago and hasn't fought since.

You can't blame Tony Ferguson if this one haunts him daily.

In fact, it probably should.

The popular Californian was one of the UFC's top lightweights from 2011 to 2019, including a prolific stretch of 12 straight wins that included such high-profile elites as Rafael dos Anjos (UD 5), Anthony Pettis (TKO 2) and Donald Cerrone (TKO 2).

But he never fought Khabib Nurmagomedov.

The star-crossed rivals were in the works for a bout no fewer than five times, from a scuttled Ultimate Fighter match in 2015 through a UFC 249 main event that was foiled five years later when Nurmagomedov, by then the company's champion at 155 pounds, was unable to leave Russia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ferguson went through with the fight against fill-in Justin Gaethje for the interim belt and was comprehensively brutalized before being finished in the fifth.

Gaethje wound up with the full-fledged shot in what became Nurmagomedov's final fight five months later, while Ferguson devolved into a tailspin that's consumed his career—resulting in a skid that reached seven fights when he was outpointed by Paddy Pimblett at UFC 296 last month in Las Vegas.

Ouch.