Runner-up Griffiths became champion next year, in 1982, defeating Alex Higgins, who in turn was the winner of the 1983 event, beating Davis 16–15 after having trailed 0–7 at the end of the first session.

In 1985, Willie Thorne led Davis 13–8 at the start of the evening session, only to miss a simple blue off its spot and lose 16–14.

The victory regenerated Davis's confidence after his devastating World Championship loss; Thorne, on the other hand, never won another ranking title.

Mountjoy produced a stunning display to win 16–12, when he was widely viewed as just making up the numbers against the rising Stephen Hendry.

Even more astonishingly, Mountjoy won the Mercantile Credit Classic the following month, which at the time made him only the fourth player to win two ranking tournaments in a row.

The final in 1994 against Ken Doherty is considered by many players as one of Hendry's best performance, as he won 10–5 making 7 century breaks along the way, six of which were in the span of eight frames played.

[6] Between 1994 and 1996, the championship was won by Stephen Hendry three times in a row, while from 1997 to 2002, the winner was one of the 'Class of '92' each year, with O'Sullivan, John Higgins and Mark Williams all claiming the title twice during this period.

In a match that featured the widest age gap between finalists in professional tournament history,[7] he lost 6–10 to the 18-year-old Ding Junhui, who became the first non-British or Irish and the second youngest player after O'Sullivan to win the UK Championship.

At one point, John Higgins, playing in his first major tournament after the end of a six-month ban for his involvement in match-fixing discussions, was 5–9 down to Mark Williams.

[18] This tournament saw yet another classic final, as Ronnie O'Sullivan won 10–9 over 2011 winner Judd Trump, who had recovered from 9–4 to take the match into a decider.

In addition, O'Sullivan set a new record for most UK titles with seven,[24] that he would extend to eight in 2023 by beating Ding Junhui,[25] who won the tournament for the third time in 2019,[26] and was a runner-up to Mark Allen in 2022.

[28] The UK Championship has had many different sponsors over the years, including Super Crystalate, Tennents, StormSeal, Royal Liver Assurance, Liverpool Victoria, PowerHouse, Travis Perkins, Maplin Electronics, Pukka Pies, 12BET.com,[2] williamhill.com,[29] Coral,[30] Betway,[31] Cazoo, and MrQ.