List of UFC champions
Middleweight Championship
171 to 185 lb (77 to 84 kg) The Pride World Welterweight Title (176.4 lb) was unified with the UFC Middleweight Title on March 1, 2008, when Anderson Silva defeated Dan Henderson at UFC 82.

List of UFC champions

Section Title: Middleweight Championship
Table Section Text: 171 to 185 lb (77 to 84 kg) The Pride World Welterweight Title (176.4 lb) was unified with the UFC Middleweight Title on March 1, 2008, when Anderson Silva defeated Dan Henderson at UFC 82.

No.	Name	Event	Date	Reign	Defenses

1	United States Dave Menne def. Gil Castillo	UFC 33 Las Vegas, NV, US	Sep 28, 2001	105 days

2	Brazil Murilo Bustamante	UFC 35 Las Vegas, NV, US	Jan 11, 2002	267 days	1. def. Matt Lindland at UFC 37 on May 10, 2002

Bustamante was stripped of the title on October 5, 2002, when he left the UFC for Pride.

3	United States Evan Tanner def. David Terrell	UFC 51 Las Vegas, NV, US	Feb 5, 2005	119 days

4	United States Rich Franklin	UFC 53 Atlantic City, NJ, US	Jun 4, 2005	497 days	1. def.

5	Brazil Anderson Silva	UFC 64 Las Vegas, NV, US	Oct 14, 2006	2,457 days	1. def.

6	United States Chris Weidman	UFC 162 Las Vegas, NV, US	Jul 6, 2013	888 days	1. def.

7	United States Luke Rockhold	UFC 194 Las Vegas, NV, US	Dec 12, 2015	175 days

8	England Michael Bisping	UFC 199 Inglewood, CA, US	Jun 4, 2016	518 days	1. def. Dan Henderson at UFC 204 on Oct 8, 2016

Australia Robert Whittaker def. Yoel Romero for interim title	UFC 213 Las Vegas, NV, US	Jul 8, 2017	—

9	Canada Georges St-Pierre	UFC 217 New York City, NY, US	Nov 4, 2017	33 days

St-Pierre vacated the title on December 7, 2017, due to ulcerative colitis.

10	Australia Robert Whittaker promoted to undisputed champion	—	Dec 7, 2017	496 days (incumbent)

Nigeria Israel Adesanya def. Kelvin Gastelum for interim title	UFC 236 Atlanta, GA, US	Apr 13, 2019	4 days (incumbent)

Sentence(s)

Dave Menne was the first UFC Middleweight Champion.

final_sentence: Dave Menne was the first UFC Middleweight Champion.