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Heavyweight: Not Brock Lesnar

Nobody beat Emelianenko until June 26, 2010, in San Jose, when Fabricio Werdum submitted him with an armbar in 1:09 in a Strikeforce match. So while Lesnar holds the most publicized version of a world title, Werdum actually holds the linear claim that traces back to Shamrock.

Light heavyweight: All UFC

Because Shamrock’s days as a light heavyweight were limited, the most legitimate title claim remained with UFC, which filled the void after Shamrock left the company with an April 14, 2000, match in Tokyo where Tito Ortiz beat Wanderlei Silva via decision. For the past decade, that title can be perfectly traced in the UFC cage to the championship held today by Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, who beat Lyoto Machida on May 8, 2010 in Montreal.

Middleweight: What you didn’t know about Silva-Sonnen

With Sonnen as the rightful champion, the linear “belt” moved with Sonnen to UFC when WEC dropped its middleweight division. Sonnen then lost to Demian Maia, who lost to Nate Marquardt. Marquardt lost to Sonnen, and the title finally wound up with Silva on August 8, in Oakland, via fifth-round triangle submission.

Welterweight: GSP’s world

The linear title, however, still ends up with current UFC champion Georges St. Pierre, but there is a winding road there.

Nakao lost in Japan to Tetsuji Kato, who lost to Hayato Sakurai, who lost to, of all people, a 167-pound Anderson Silva on August 26, 2001. Silva lost in Japan to Daijyu Takase, who lost to Rodrigo Gracie, also in Japan. Gracie lost to B.J. Penn in Honolulu. Penn returned to UFC and lost to St. Pierre on March 4, 2006. This was prior to St. Pierre’s first title win over Matt Hughes on November 18, 2006, in Sacramento, Calif.

In the past four-and-a-half years, St. Pierre only lost once, to Matt Serra, and immediately regained the title in the rematch.

Lightweight: Two lines of thought

A few months later, both titles underwent name changes. Pulver also ended up in a financial dispute with UFC, and left the organization and fought elsewhere without losing the championship.

Pulver’s first loss after winning the title was in Montreal, where he was knocked out in just 1:13 by Duane “Bang” Ludwig. Ludwig went to Japan and lost by submission to Penn on May 22, 2004 in Tokyo. Penn did not fight at lightweight again for three years, but when he returned, he defeated Pulver, Joe Stevenson to claim the vacant UFC title, Sean Sherk, Kenny Florian and Diego Sanchez. He would actually not lose a lightweight match until April 10, 2010 when he dropped the UFC title to Frankie Edgar, who beat Penn again in a rematch last weekend.

But could Penn truly said to remain the linear lightweight champion when he didn’t fight at that weight for three years, and had to be coaxed back into the division?

If you believe the answer to that question to be “no,” the most logical progression after Penn stopped fighting as a lightweight would be to move to the PRIDE World Lightweight Grand Prix tournament held in Japan in 2005. UFC didn’t even have a lightweight champion at the time, so the top lightweights in the world were involved. But the big issue in that tournament is that the weight class was 161 pounds, not 155, and that does make a difference.

Takanori Gomi won the tournament, beating Luiz Azeredo in the finals on September 25, 2005, via decision. Gomi solidified his claim beating Hayato Sakurai, which created PRIDE’s first lightweight championship.

This version of the linear title takes several turns from there. Gomi lost to Marcus Aurelio, who lost to Mitsuhiro Ishida, who then lost to Gomi. Gomi lost to Nick Diaz in Las Vegas, but the loss was overturned because Diaz tested positive for marijuana. Gomi then lost in one of the great upsets in MMA history, to unheralded Sergey Golyaev on November 1, 2008. Golyaev immediately lost to Eiji Mitsuoka, who lost to Kazunori Yokota, who lost to Tatsuya Kawajiri. By this point, in Japan, the lightweight division was 154 pounds, close enough to the 155 that has been the North American standard.

The title line would end with Dream champion Shinya Aoki, who quickly submitted Kawajiri on July 10, 2010, which was less than three months after Aoki was completely dominated in a Strikeforce fight by Gilbert Melendez.