<p>The best UFC rivalries generated fights you'd pay twice to watch, press conferences that still get replayed on YouTube, and moments that spilled out of the cage and into MMA folklore.</p><p>Some came with pantomime villains and trash-talk tours while others simmered quietly between two blokes who just genuinely didn't like each other.</p><p>This is a look at eight UFC rivalries that stand above the rest. Not every entry produced a trilogy, and not every one ended with a clean winner on paper, but they all share cultural weight.</p><p>Each of these feuds drew new audiences to the sport, shifted pay-per-view records, and made weekend viewing on Kayo or a mate's couch appointment-level for any Aussie fight fan.</p><p>If you've ever wondered why UFC tragics still talk about Anderson Silva the way cricket tragics talk about Bradman, you're about to find out.</p><p>Quick note before we dive in: this is about rivalries, not just <a href="https://www.sportsbet.com.au/huddle/ufc/ufc-news/best-ufc-fights-of-all-time">best UFC fights of all time</a>. So Forrest Griffin vs. Stephan Bonnar, iconic as that brawl was, doesn't make the list. It's one fight. A proper rivalry needs stakes, history, and (usually) a rematch.</p><h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>Randy Couture vs. Chuck Liddell (UFC 43, UFC 52, UFC 57)</h2><p>Before Conor McGregor was doing cage jumps in skinny suits, Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell were the two fighters who dragged the UFC out of its lowest years and into living rooms across America and Australia.</p><p>Their trilogy is the reason the promotion had a shot at mainstream culture in the first place.</p><p>They met three times. Couture took the first at UFC 43 in June 2003, out-wrestling Liddell and stopping him in the third round to claim the interim <a href="https://www.sportsbet.com.au/huddle/ufc/ufc-news/weight-divisions">UFC light heavyweight</a> belt.</p><p>Liddell came back at UFC 52 in April 2005 and knocked Couture out in the first round, lifting the title.</p><p>The rubber match at UFC 57 in Las Vegas on February 4, 2006 produced the same result for The Iceman, a second-round KO that drew an estimated 400,000 pay-per-view buys and a then-record gate of $3.3 million for the promotion.</p><p>What made it work was the contrast: Couture, the Olympic-pedigree wrestler with the quiet confidence of a man who'd already been heavyweight champion twice fought against Liddell, the mohawked counter-striker who made walking opponents onto his right hand look like an art form.</p><p>Add to that their coaching roles on the inaugural season of The Ultimate Fighter in 2005, which turned them into household names beyond hardcore fight circles, and you have the rivalry that set the template for everything that followed.</p><h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock (UFC 40, UFC 61, The Final Chapter)</h2><p>Shamrock vs. Ortiz is the first UFC rivalry that felt genuinely personal, the kind that crossed over into pro wrestling energy without being scripted.</p><p>Their feud ran for nearly four years and spanned three fights, all of which Ortiz won.</p><p>UFC 40 in November 2002 was the big one. Ortiz defended his light-heavyweight title and stopped Shamrock by corner retirement after three punishing rounds.</p><p>The event pulled in over 150,000 PPV buys, a huge number for the UFC at the time, and showed Zuffa ownership that bad-blood storylines could print money.</p><p>UFC 61 on July 8, 2006 was the rematch, after both coached opposing teams on The Ultimate Fighter 3. Ortiz finished Shamrock in 78 seconds amid an early stoppage that had the crowd booing.</p><p>That controversy set up a third fight just three months later, broadcast live on Spike TV, which averaged around 2.8 million American homes with a 3.1 household rating and peaked at 5.7 million viewers.</p><h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen (UFC 117, UFC 148)</h2><p>Chael Sonnen talked himself into one of the greatest rivalries in UFC history. His pre-fight press tour ahead of UFC 117 redefined what trash talk could look like, mixing Portland State politics with lines about Silva's mum, his country, and his dog. Silva didn't say much back.</p><p>Then he got into the cage.</p><p>UFC 117 in Oakland on August 7, 2010 is remembered as one of the all-time great comebacks.</p><p>Sonnen dominated Silva for four-and-a-half rounds, dropping him with strikes, landing an obscene amount of top control, and putting together the kind of wrestling performance that should've ended the longest title reign in company history.</p><p>With less than two minutes left in the fifth round, Silva trapped him in a triangle-armbar and forced the tap. It was his 12th straight UFC win and still ranks among the more dramatic finishes the promotion has produced.</p><p>The rematch at UFC 148 on July 7, 2012 was the second-biggest MMA event of that year. Sonnen took the first round with another takedown and sustained top pressure.</p><p>In the second, he missed a spinning backfist, slipped, and Silva buried a knee in his ribs followed by a burst of punches to end it. Two years of talk, silenced inside five minutes of actual fighting.</p><p>The reason this feud sits so high is what it represented, as it went on to prove a fighter could drag the entire MMA conversation to a topic of his choosing through nothing more than a microphone and the right timing.</p><p>Even if Sonnen lost both fights, he still changed the sport.</p><h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier (UFC 182, UFC 214)</h2><p>If Silva vs. Sonnen was theatre, Jones vs. Cormier was the real thing. Two former Olympic-level athletes (Cormier in Greco-Roman wrestling, Jones a junior college standout) who couldn't stand each other, shoving each other during a televised staredown at UFC 178 media day on August 4, 2014, months before they fought at UFC 182.</p><p>They met twice. At UFC 182 on January 3, 2015, Jones won a unanimous decision after five tough rounds.</p><p>The rematch at UFC 214 on July 29, 2017 saw Jones land a head kick and finish Cormier in the third round.</p><p>That result was later overturned to a no-contest after Jones tested positive for Turinabol, an anabolic steroid. Cormier was reinstated as light-heavyweight champion without fighting another round.</p><p>On the cage record, Jones never officially lost to Cormier. In the story of the rivalry, neither man walked away clean. Jones has two wins with asterisks attached.</p><p>Cormier got closer than anyone else to solving the sport's generational puzzle, and then went on to become a two-division UFC champion at heavyweight while Jones navigated bans and absences.</p><p>The hatred between them never really softened. Even years after retirement, podcast spats and social media jabs kept the rivalry alive for a new generation of fans.</p><h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz (UFC 196, UFC 202)</h2><p>Only one UFC rivalry lasted less than six months and still reshaped the sport. McGregor vs. Diaz was a fluke of injury bookings that turned into one of the biggest storylines in combat sports history.</p><p>McGregor, then the featherweight champion, was originally set to challenge lightweight champ Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 196.</p><p>When dos Anjos broke his foot 11 days out, Nate Diaz accepted the fight at welterweight on short notice.</p><p>Most pundits dismissed him. At 4:12 of round two on March 5, 2016, Diaz locked in a rear-naked choke and handed McGregor his first UFC loss.</p><p>The rematch at UFC 202 on August 20, 2016 was five rounds of chaos. Leg kicks from McGregor, boxing counters from Diaz, a stadium that refused to sit down.</p><p>McGregor took a majority decision (48-47, 47-47, 48-47), reclaiming pride and levelling the score at 1-1.</p><p>The lead-up to that fight included flying water bottles and Red Bull cans at the Las Vegas media day, plus a pay-per-view that delivered 1.65 million buys and an Irish fighter pocketing a reported $3 million purse.</p><p>They've never fought a third time, which is partly why the rivalry feels unfinished. What they did, though, was prove the UFC could cross over into full-on pop culture.</p><p>If you think about it, McGregor's rise into a genuine mainstream sports star traces directly back to the two nights he shared the octagon with Diaz.</p><h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Conor McGregor (UFC 229)</h2><p>Some rivalries get better with trilogies. Some hit their peak once and never need another chapter. Khabib vs. McGregor sits firmly in the second camp.</p><p>UFC 229 on October 6, 2018 remains the most-bought pay-per-view in company history with 2.4 million buys, and most of that was built on buildup.</p><p>Five months before the fight, McGregor attacked a bus Khabib was riding in at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on April 5, 2018, smashing a window with a dolly. Fighters inside were injured. McGregor was arrested.</p><p>The fight was made official weeks later, and the pre-fight press conference was venomous, with McGregor going after Khabib's religion, family and country of origin.</p><p>Inside the cage, Khabib controlled the fight. He dropped McGregor in the second round, ground him out on the mat, and submitted him via neck crank at 3:03 of the fourth.</p><p>Then the post-fight melee began. Khabib leapt the cage to attack McGregor's jiu-jitsu coach, Dillon Danis.</p><p>Members of Khabib's team, including his cousin, entered the cage and swung on McGregor while he sat against the fence. The Nevada State Athletic Commission later fined Khabib $500,000 and suspended him for nine months.</p><p>There's never been a rematch as Khabib retired undefeated at 29-0 in October 2020 and hasn't returned.</p><h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>Max Holloway vs. Dustin Poirier (UFC 143, UFC 236)</h2><p>This one's the exception. Every other rivalry on the list was fuelled by obvious dislike. Holloway vs. Poirier ran for over 13 years and is also one of the best technical rivalries the sport has ever produced.</p><p>They first fought at UFC 143 on February 4, 2012. Holloway was 20 years old, the youngest fighter on the roster, stepping in as an injury replacement. Poirier, 23, submitted him via triangle-armbar in the first round. At the time, neither of them was on anyone's radar as a future Hall of Famer.</p><p>Seven years later they ran it back at UFC 236 in Atlanta on April 13, 2019, this time for the interim lightweight title. Holloway, coming off a dominant featherweight title reign, moved up a division. Poirier won a five-round decision in one of the best <a href="https://www.sportsbet.com.au/huddle/ufc/ufc-news/weight-divisions">UFC lightweight</a> fights of the decade, ended Holloway's 13-fight win streak, and walked away with interim gold.</p><p>What makes this rivalry great isn't hatred. It's longevity, elite skill, and the kind of respect you only get from fighting the same person at two completely different stages of your career.</p><h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>Israel Adesanya vs. Alex Pereira (UFC 281, UFC 287)</h2><p>Adesanya vs. Pereira might be the only rivalry in UFC history that began outside of MMA and still managed to define a <a href="https://www.sportsbet.com.au/huddle/ufc/ufc-news/weight-divisions">UFC middleweight</a> era.</p><p>Their feud stretches back to 2016, when both were kickboxers, and it's one of the few examples of a combat-sports saga that spans two separate disciplines with real narrative weight.</p><p>In their first meeting at Glory of Heroes 1 in Shenzhen on April 2, 2016, Pereira won a unanimous decision. The second, at Glory of Heroes 7 (also known as Glory of Heroes 15) in Sao Paulo on March 4, 2017, was worse. Pereira dropped Adesanya with a left hook in the third round for a knockout. It was the last kickboxing fight of Adesanya's career.</p><p>When they met again at UFC 281 in Madison Square Garden on November 12, 2022, Adesanya was the reigning middleweight champion.</p><p>Pereira, having switched codes and gone 3-0 in the UFC in under a year, was the challenger. Adesanya led on the scorecards through most of the fight.</p><p>Then Pereira found the same left hook that had worked in the kickboxing ring, and Adesanya went down under a barrage of strikes for a fifth-round TKO.</p><p>At UFC 287 in Miami on April 8, 2023, Adesanya finally got a win.</p><p>He cracked Pereira with a right hand in the second round and followed up with ground strikes to regain the middleweight title, closing out their combat-sports head-to-head at 3-1 in the Brazilian's favour but with Adesanya walking away holding the most significant belt of the rivalry.</p><p>Pereira has since moved up to light heavyweight and become one of the sport's most destructive champions.</p><p>Adesanya is on a break from competition. Whether they meet a fifth time is anyone's guess. The four fights already on record make this one of the richest rivalries MMA has produced.</p><p>For punters looking to <a href="https://www.sportsbet.com.au/betting/ufc-mma/ufc-matches">bet on UFC</a> events featuring these legendary fighters or the next generation of rivals, understanding the history and context of these feuds can provide valuable insight into how fighters perform under pressure.</p>