Looking through the fights I have seen live I decided to see who I saw before they became champions.
Only criteria is they had to have fought on prelims or worse (see Jones, J)
Turns out more than I actually thought
Jon Jones – UFC 100 – dark match
Renan Barao – UFC 130
Demetrious Johnson – UFC 130
Glover Teixeira – UFC 146
Khabib Nurmagomedov – UFC 160
Robert Whittaker – UFC 160
Tony Ferguson – UFC 173
Cody Garbrandt – UFC 189
Raquel Pennington – UFC 191