In boxing, when a fighter dominates a weight class he vacates the title and moves up. And if he dominates the next weight class, he does it again and again and again until he either loses, gets too old, gets to heavyweight and can’t move up anymore, or he just feels the next weight class would be too much. We’ve seen it with Manny Pacquiao, Floyd “Money” Mayweather, Roy Jones Jr., Oscar De La Hoya, “Sugar” Ray Leonard, Tommy “Hitman” Hearns, and on and on but it isn’t something that really ever happens in MMA.

There’ve been several fighters who’ve won titles in multiple weight classes like Randy Couture, BJ Penn, and Dan Henderson but in Randy and BJ’s cases, they were champions in a heavier weight class, lost, then moved down and won (and with Randy he went up again and won). Dan Henderson won at a lighter weight class then moved up and won but he wasn’t really fighting just at Pride’s welterweight division but moved around between welterweight, middleweight, and even heavyweight. Jake Shields comes to mind as someone who’s moved up from being a welterweight champion to a middleweight champion but only if the EliteXC title counts and lets be honest, not really. Part of why boxing’s able to do this is cause there are more (and some say too many) weight classes and more (and also too many) sanctioned organizations to give out titles. There has been potential in MMA, but it just hasn’t happened.

In the late 90s, Frank Shamrock was the UFC’s dominant 205-pound champion and after beating Tito Ortiz at UFC 22, instead of moving up he retired. Mind you, it would’ve been tough for him to move up considering he walked around at 185 pounds and was already fighting guys who usually cut 10-15 pounds to make 205. Fighting someone weighing 230-250 pounds (as the top heavyweights at the time usually weighed) would’ve been a stretch. He did comeback from retirement and won the Strikeforce Middleweight Title going down a weight class like Randy Couture and BJ Penn, but never went up and won.

Matt Hughes (as it says on his autobiography and is said by Mike Goldberg any time he fights) is the most dominant champion in UFC history ruling the welterweight division from 2001-06 (he did lose to BJ Penn in 2004 at UFC 46 but did avenge that loss in 2006 at UFC 63). He missed his window to move up after getting his title back in 2004 at UFC 50 after beating GSP cause there really wasn’t anyone left to beat and could’ve ruled middleweight for a couple years. Now I say only a couple years because of the man who entered the UFC in 2006.

Anderson Silva has been the UFC Middleweight Champion for almost four years and isn’t even close to being touched in that division. He’s flirted with the light heavyweight division a couple time knocking out James Irving and former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Forrest Griffin in spectacular fashion but never contended for the title because his friendship with Lyoto Machida. Machida ain’t the champ no more and considering the way Shogun opened up a can on “The Dragon” on Saturday, Machida’s gonna have to get in line (and pretty far back in the line) for a shot, so there isn’t much stopping Silva from moving up. Delaying it? Sure. Silva is scheduled to face Chael Sonnen in August at UFC 117 and when… I mean if he gets past him, Silva’s rumoured to face Vitor Belfort next. Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. He has to move up. He’s proved in his last three title defenses that he’s bored in middleweight and he’s shown that he could be dominant at 205 and most of the top guys at 205 are fighters who like to exchange, not fall on their back and try to trap you in their guard. If Shogun gets by the winner of the Rampage-Rashad fight at UFC 114 on the 29th, that sets up a Rocky IV-like matchup (you beat my friend and now I’ll beat you) and that could be one of the biggest fights ever. There are some contract issues that might get in the way, but there’s too much money to stop this from happening and we may finally see a mixed martial artist become a champion in two weight classes the traditional way.