Being a UFC interim champion is a tough job. While you officially may be recognized as a champion and get a nice pay bump, many fans won't see you as a real champion and nothing more than a placeholder until the actual champion of the division comes back to competition.However, that is not a fair criticism. Many future and current Hall of Famers of the sport of MMA were interim champions, and while some of them may have never secured the actual undisputed title, they were the champion in recess and for a brief moment were the best active fighter in their weight class.
10 Renan Barao
Nowadays, Renan Barao is mostly talked about for his historic crash and burn following the loss of his bantamweight championship, going 2-7 after his loss to T.J.Dillashaw at UFC 173. However, his rise up to becoming champion is something worth admiring.
Barao was 28-1 when he got his chance at interim gold against Urijah Faber while Dominick Cruz was on the shelf. Barao defeated Faber to win the interim belt, and promptly got two straight title defenses against Eddie Wineland and Michael McDonald before being promoted to undisputed champion.
9 Robert Whittaker
Robert Whittaker's interim title win was one for the history books. Facing off against Yoel Romero at UFC 213 as an underdog, many just thought the bout was a mere formality for Romero to win so he could set up a grudge match with then injured middleweight champion Michael Bisping.
Whittaker turned the tables on the pair, defeating Romero despite an injury to his leg. In a weird turn of events, Bisping lost his middleweight championship to Georges St-Pierre at UFC 217, but St-Pierre vacated the belt a month later due to medical issues, and Whittaker was promoted to undisputed champion despite never unifying the belt.
8 Frank Mir
Frank Mir is considered one of the greatest heavyweights of all time and for good reason. So when he got the call to face Antonio Nogueira at UFC 92 for the interim championship due to Brock Lesnar's health issues, he didn't flinch.
Mir won the interim strap from Nogueira at the event and set up a rematch with Lesnar for the undisputed title. Sadly for Mir, the unification bout didn't go well as he was dominated and knocked out in round two at UFC 100.
7 Dustin Poirier
Dustin Poirier's interim title run was extremely brief but is one worth noting. UFC 236's original plan was to have an interim title bout between Tony Ferguson and featherweight champion Max Holloway, due to Khabib Nurmagomedov being suspended for his role in the UFC 229 brawl. However Ferguson declined the bout, and thus Poirier got the call.
Poirier defeated Holloway in a back and forth slugfest, and became UFC lightweight interim champion. While he did lose his unification bout against Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 242, he will get another crack at becoming champion later this year against Charles Oliviera.
6 Tony Ferguson
Tony Ferguson's run of dominance at lightweight from 2013 to 2020 was nothing short of incredible, winning 12 fights in a row and capturing an interim championship in the process. Ferguson's interim title came while Conor McGregor was on the shelf due to his hundred million dollar dance with Floyd Mayweather in 2017, and as a result, Ferguson was matched up with Kevin Lee at UFC 216.
Ferguson defeated Lee at UFC 216 to win the interim championship, and while he would later be stripped of the title due to injury, you can't take his name out of the history books of champions.
5 Max Holloway
Max Holloway is one of the greatest interim champions of all time, but he's also only an interim champion due to a weird set of clauses. UFC 206 was originally set to have Holloway vs former lightweight champion Anthony Pettis in a title eliminator bout. However, as a result of the headliner Daniel Cormier falling out, Holloway and Pettis were bumped to the main event and had an interim championship put on the line.
The weird part was, there already was an interim champion. Jose Aldo had just won the interim title at UFC 200 and was supposed to fight Conor McGregor in a rematch, but McGregor declined and as a result, Aldo was promoted to interim champion, and then the winner of Holloway vs Pettis would be the interim champion. In the end, Holloway dominated Pettis to win the strap, and then promptly dominated Aldo to unify the titles.
4 Conor McGregor
Conor McGregor's bout against Jose Aldo at UFC 189 was set to be a battle for the featherweight championship. However once Aldo fell out due to an injury a couple of weeks out, Chad Mendes stepped in and the UFC threw an interim title on the line.
McGregor won the bout via knockout and became a star in the process. He went on to unify the title months later at UFC 194, knocking out Aldo in 13 seconds and cementing his place among the featherweight greats of the sport.
3 Randy Couture
Randy Couture's light heavyweight debut at UFC 43 against Chuck Liddell had an interim title on the line, due to the champion Tito Ortiz being on the shelf. Couture was coming off of two straight losses but was still considered one of the greatest fighters on the planet.
Couture proved it as well, dominating and finishing Liddell in round three. Couture became the first-ever UFC fighter to win a title in two different weight classes and went on to defeat Ortiz to unify the championships.
2 Georges St-Pierre
Georges St-Pierre in April of 2007 had lost his welterweight championship to Matt Serra and somehow ended the year with gold around his waist. St-Pierre defeated Josh Koscheck, before being matched up with former rival Matt Hughes at UFC 79 for an interim title bout due to Serra having to sit out due to injury.
In the end, St-Pierre defeated Hughes to win their trilogy and the interim title. He then defeated Matt Serra a few months later to unify the titles.
1 Jon Jones
Jon Jones is arguably the greatest fighter of all time, but his interim title run was nothing short of weird. Jones was set to fight Daniel Cormier in a rematch at UFC 197. Jones had defeated Cormier once before but was stripped of his title in 2015 due to some issues with the law, and Cormier won the light-heavyweight strap in the meantime. However Cormier dropped out, and Ovince Saint Preux stepped in and an interim belt was put on the line.
Jones defeated Saint Preux but was stripped of the light-heavyweight interim strap a few months later due to a drug test failure. Officially making him the first-ever fighter to be stripped of a belt twice.