In a world where Khabib Nurmagomedov no longer fights for a living, being considered mixed martial arts’ best lightweight seems less meaningful a notion than it did a year ago.
But this is fine.
Great champions rise and fall, gracefully or otherwise, and new fighters step up to build legacies for themselves.
In that spirit the UFC crowned its eleventh undisputed lightweight title holder Saturday in Houston, and 31-year-old Charles Oliveira, who first stepped into the Octagon in 2010 and has done so 27 times since, proved to be the man for the job.