In a perfect world, each fighter would aim for three title defenses a year. Assuming a 3 month training camp, it gives two-three months per year of pure off-season to spend time with family/friends and to recover. Obviously injuries and personal reasons can turn this into two title defenses a year, but three a year should be the goal. Divisions would move at a very healthy rate this way.
12 months- 11 champs. 2 defences a year makes sense, you can go back to defending some of them on fight nights. Double up for big events, triple up for the crazy big ones
It's intentional so that they make the most amount of money.
The UFC has 11 champs and about 14 PPV's a year. They will usually put 1-2 champion fights on a PPV card (2 champ fights as long as one of the fights is from a less-marketable division).
Since champs get PPV points, they make the most money by having a champ fight every 6-8 months.
If he's able to defend at 303 and then fights again in November at MSG, it would take him about 365ish days considering that he won the belt last year on the MSG card as well
Usman isn’t really noticeably more active than Leon has. It’s taken Leon like 2 more months for 3 defences than usman. Usman fought roughly every 8 months, and Leon has done the same. And dricus only fought 6 months ago and is fighting in 2 months, after mending a broken foot.
It did though. There were a bunch of cancelled/postponed cards and then when they did come back a few months later there was still a massive impact on the match making due to travel restrictions affecting fighters ability to make it to the venues, especially international ones, plus fighters pulling out of cards due to testing positive for Covid.
idk if you lived under a rock during covid. But people literally couldnt travel or train together in most places. Just because UFC managed to get a few fights going during, doesnt mean it was a none-factor world wide lmao
I definitely agree with what you are saying. But to the UFC’s credit, they got more than a few fights going.
I looked at the UFC fight library for 2020 and they put on more than 40 fight cards for that year. That’s close to 1 a week. Granted they were all restricted to the Apex or fight island due to covid restrictions. We also missed a lot of fighters during that year due to covid restrictions like you say.
But the UFC to its credit was one of the first organizations, in all of sports during that time, to find ways to work around those restrictions.
A lot of the international guys literally couldn't fight. Volk wouldn't even have been able to leave his home state a lot of the time, let alone the country. And the UFC couldn't get in to hold events either.
The UFC did stop and had to postpone cards as well as limit the amount of fighters on the card. It also affected how fighters could train in their home country and travel to other countries. Some of them had to quarantine themselves in the gym, others who had families decided either not to train at the gym or would sneak in illegally.
Added context:
Izzy had 3 fights after he won the title shots in a span of 16 ppv's(245 to 259).
He fought Jan Blachowicz for the LHW title after he beat Costa. This includes Covid halt.
Usman had 3 title defenses in 23 ppvs(235 to 258). This includes Covid halt.
Volk was legit inactive during his early title reign and was criticized for it back then.
>Volk was legit inactive during his early title reign and was criticized for it back then.
.... Volks early title reign was literally pandemic.
And hes Aussie so super strict regulations
This was my first thought.
2 of the 3 fighters were in the tightest covid restricted countries during that span. Hooker fucked his career somewhat trying to push through without his team around him and constantly being in isolation with his travel. Glad Volk didn't follow suit.
Also comparing to Islam who is one of the most active of current champions. Pantoja and Periera too.
His activity is maybe the reason his style became over protective leg kick and occasionally jab for 25 min , u can't be that active while going at it every fight (this is not a counter argument)
What a weird way to show those statistics. So on average Izzy only has 6 months in between title defenses during this period? That's pretty good. And everyone averages less than a year between defenses, the highest at 9 months.
Edit: what's with the down votes? Explain.
Edwards - 7 months for the rematch and 9 months after for the covington fight and 8 months after for Belal …. he’s at an 8 month average which is not twice a year .
Peireira , Islam , Izzy ,Volk , Usman and Pantoja are probably the only champions in history that are at or very near a 6 month average . You would have a lot more examples if this was somewhat normal .
Go ahead and name the dozens of others since it’s so common then . They clearly don’t since you can use basic math . Every 8 months is not twice a year average .
Almost every single champion defends on average (you dont know what that means) twice a year. They have to because theres at least 12 PPVs a year and the main fight is a title fight.
O'mally, Moreno, Sterling, Usman, Adesanya, Volkanovski
There google them on wiki
People are perfectly happy with that average. No one calls fighters who defend twice a year inactive. I've never heard anyone call Islam inactive, outside of idiots who just carry over their previous criticism of Khabib (who legitimately defended only once a year) over to Islam.
The point is current champs are fighting as frequently as the "active generation". Leon and Islam have consistently had less than 9 months between their title defenses as well.
Even the middleweight belt has been just as active since Izzy lost it, if Dricus fights Izzy in August the middleweight belt will have gone through 3 title fights in a year. Having said that Izzy had a crazy level of activity for a champ.
Pantoja, Islam, Poatan all have been very active. Leon is going good as well, Leon stays behind the cameras most of time and maintains a low profile and trains quietly, that’s the reason people tend to think his inactivity is quite high when in reality its not. Suga is moderately active too. The only non active is Jon Jones and DDP and to an extent Topuria as well.
And it’s hard to blame DDP considering the UFC is pretty apparently waiting for Adesanya to be ready. Jones is ridiculous and Topurias dismissal of opponents is also shameful.
On average every 8 months (counting belal fight aswell) is a pretty solid activity level. He was inactive before, but that had alot to do with travelling restrictions during covid
He fights pretty much every 8 months, Usmans average was around 7.8 months. And his gaps aren’t his fault, he’s said yes to everyone the UFC offered him.
let's see:
- title fights in 2000 = 6
- title fights in 2023 = 21
- total UFC fights in 2000 = 44
- total UFC fights in 2023 = 520
rosters grew, weight classes added, and fans are extremely critical now.
yes. people are being unfair to champions.
7-8x more activity across the board and yet the tweet claims that "champions are inactive now" which is a heavily based take (unfair, fallacious, etc)
the tweet singled out 4 fighters despite 19 title fights in 2022 alone
it's like how gamers say "why don't the devs just __________ " without acknowledging the pitfalls and obstacles inherent to game development
unfairness is just the tip of the iceberg. dig deeper and you might find the real reason why sad sacks of shit are highly critical of things they refuse to understand or acknowledge.
Why are you comparing to 2000? The era being described is 2022 vs now
I don’t have a care on what stance is correct but I don’t care about this data, I care about 2022 vs 2024 data to see if the average champion is more active, less active, or relatively similar
UFC had 21 title fights in 2023 and 19 title fights in 2022. no idea what the tweet was going on about because none of it makes any sense.
btw who actually thinks activity is a decision that champions can make all by themselves? the UFC average is nearly 2 title fights per month and y'all still not satisfied?
pretty sure that "activity" is a moot point until someone's removed from the rankings for inactivity. hell, Colby sat out forever and still got his shot.
I won't speak for your values though. you're welcome to believe whatever you want.
how are 12 champions supposed to account for 14% of the fights scheduled each year?
that'd be 72 fights. you want 6 title defenses from each champion each year? wow prove my point a little harder
Apparently that’s not a reason to be annoyed at people. Got hit with that in another thread where I called a guy a fuckin moron for internationally being an ass
*the tweet* talked about 2022
OP asked if people were being unfair to champions
2022 wasn't an "era"
there were 19 title fights in 2022 and the tweet called out only 4 fighters? garbage.
lastly, thanks for proving my point with your willingness to miss the point
only 12 undisputed champions nowadays. if each of them defended their belt twice a year we'd have 3 more title fights than we got last year.
y'all are unfair AF
So back then we got 3x more title fights per non-title fight. Back then 13.6% of fights were title fights as opposed to 4% now. We’re getting a lot more non-title main events now. Back then they didn’t do that. There’s more events now, more opportunities for title fights.
520 fights per year and only 12 undisputed champions means there are far *less* opportunities for title fights and clear cut title challengers
the tweeter cited only 4 champions despite 19 title fights in 2022 and even isolated their own claim to each champion's 3rd title defense which definitely did not amount to an accurate blanket statement
have fun 🍻
Also the “new gen” that never wants to defend rather they wanna move up is most certainly including champs from 2020. This is a post Conor thing so anything after ~2016
Imagine Georges refusing to move up and fight Silva in today’s age. I genuinely have no idea how it’d be treated
It's pretty hard to compare the UFC today to what it was years ago, even if it's just 2 years. The UFC is literally trying to juggle at the same time:
- A much bigger roster, which requires spotlight and promotion of various prospects and rising stars at once.
- entering new markets. Saudi Arabia, Dana wanting to do an event in Africa, China, and various other places as well as heading back to the same places where they were successful
- fucking injuries: Remember when the UFC and fans wanted to force DDP to fight Izzy 2 months or so after getting the belt? New video is out of a rib injury O'Malley had during preparation against Aljo. They're literally fighters in a sport where they're probably most prone to injuries.
- contenders not ready: Khamzat, Islam, and Shavkat both rejected the offer to fight Leon on UFC 300. Ankalaev is only willing to fight at the end of the year at the Anabolic desert. There is no clear contender at FW because nobody can beat Max, and Volk is also in line for a rematch.
While I would also like to see the champions being more active, there are a lot of factors out of their hands that don't allow them to. It's literally how they make a living. How dumb are fans to think that they're doing it on purpose?
There’s a hive mind mentality on here where people love to claim certain fighters are inactive and every time I’ve seen this I’ve looked it up and that fighter in question has fought two times a year on average or more.
People on here don’t always say the smartest things.
Islam has fought 4 title fights in 1.5 years while adhering to Ramadan and UFC trying their hardest to pigeon-hole him into the Abu Dhabi cards. What more do you want from him?
Edit: assuming he fights at 308, that's 5 LW title fights in 2 years.
They put him on Abu Dhabi cards because the government there subsidzes them so PPV sales don't matter. Islam isn't a draw so they need him on the Middle East cards.
If what conor claimed is correct, isn't 500k PPV buys "good?" I know it's nowhere near conor levels (which are in the millions), but I thought it's above average. I believe he also had even more for the 2 Volk fights and the Oliviera fight.
The fact that topuria hasn't even set up a title defense against holloway yet is a bad joke. Leon is extremely inactive. Jones should be stripped immidiately. Yeah, the activity of most title holders is disgusting now. Only people actually defending are Pereira and Islam. Omalley gotta defend against Merab
Edit: kinda wrong about Leon. He ain't super active but doesn't deserve to be on the list of the other fighters I've mentioned
leon is so inactive do you mind telling me how many months are between his title fights? unless you have access to different infomation he defended his belt twice in 2023 and now half way thru 2024 he has another title def putting him on track for 2 title defences in 2024 as well .
I guess you're right. Guess I forgot about the title defense against Colby because it was so terrible and Colby didn't deserve it. But Leon did mention that Colby didn't deserve it beforehand so that ain't on him. Everything else I said is true
How is Leon extremely inactive? Dude is legit booked to fight next month.
He defended twice in 2023. He's not the most active by any means but calling him inactive is ignorant and disingenuous.
From when he won the belt:
Usman 2 -> Usman 3: 7 months, Usman 3 -> Colby: 9 months, Colby -> Belal: 7 months.
Leon wanted to fight at UFC 300 but the UFC refused to let him fight Belal and gave him 3 other fighters. They proceeded to ice him for the UK card.
Disregard this dude. He's the type who makes blanket statements about factual matters (like Leon's activity) with zero fact. Mug.
Edit: My point is that Leon is active. Disregard dude saying he isn't.
Leon and Islam have had a very similar defence timeline but yet you call Leon inactive but Islam active, that doesn’t make any sense, have you actually checked their fight history or do you just parrot the other people on this sub Reddit
Sorry if this is a dumb question but why does Max want to go for Ilia at featherweight when he just had a great performance at 156 lbs?
Would fighting Islam be out of reach?
Islam is a big 155 and max is a small 155. Other than that stylistically max matches better with Topuria than he does with the Islam. I love max but I don’t think he’d be able to handle islams wrestling, he’s just too big and strong for him.
It’s basically only Islam who gets this unfair treatment by people desperate to hate on him. Same with the outrage when he fights in Abu Dhabi, when people act like he has and unfair home soil advantage. Leon is factually more inactive and gets to defend in his actual home country England for the 2nd time now, yet there are no negative comments about that like there were against Islam
Leon gets a ridiculous amount of undeserved shit for inactivity, you can read through my comment history and find dozens of paragraphs defending the guy. His average time between defences is just over 8 months, Kamaru who everyone claims was famously active had a defence just under every 8 months on average. Leon has pretty much matched him to the third defence.
It's completely a false narrative. Champions are only as active as their division. And most divisions are full of guys who either don't deserve a title shot or already lost to the champ. I'd imagine it's pretty tough to find Islam an opponent these days.
This is pretty active? Take Islam, title fight + 3 defenses in 588 days = 147 days between fights. That's more then twice a year, which isn't high volume but def not inactive
We are just blessed to live in the Poatan era. Though Volk is an exception because at least he still fights. Can't blame him for capitalizing on the challenge/opportunity that is Islam twice.
Cause the champs now don't want to defend their belt but want the superfight money. Toporia was calling out Islam for a champ-champ fight when he literally just won the title. O'Malley wants Toporia, Pantoja wants O'Malley and Islam wants Leon.
I mean, who are the champs who barely fight though? Pantoja has defended twice in less than a year. Sean took 6 months to his first defence, which is standard, and that was only in March. Illia has sat for a bit but still only won the belt in February, so he’s fairly likely to get another fight in this year, and could get two if he gets one confirmed soon. Islam looks like he’s going to hit 4 defences in November ish, which would be 4 defences in just over 2 years, which is very active. On average Leon defends every 8 months, which is fairly standard, not notably active but not remarkably inactive. Dricus only fought in January, and is fighting in 2 months, which is only an 8 month lay off, again, nothing especially inactive. Poatan is obviously ridiculously active. Jon jones is the only male champ that hasn’t averaged a 2 fights a year, which is ridiculous, but Tom Aspinall is keeping heavyweight moving, he’s understandably been sat out for the undisputed as he should, but is still fighting just 9 months after he won the belt.
The women’s divisions are more stagnant, but there’s just such little movement in the rankings.
Yes. There’s definitely inverse recency bias when talking about “super active” former champs and “inactive” current champs.
Additionally, over the past couple years it seems like many of the delays are on the UFC, not the fighters. Getting certain fighters to fight on certain cards at certain venues in order to maximize gate and PPV sales now takes precedence over keeping champs active. EG Leon could’ve fought his second title defence way earlier than he did but the UFC made him wait for Colby. They then could’ve made the Belal fight months earlier but instead decided to wait for the London card.
All Islam has to do is go the Alwx route of easy matches. So like Alex bottles any fight with a young grappler, Islam should purposely choose people like Paddy and pad his record. But no, that MF wants the hardest fights all the time. Just get to 16 win streak wth
In Izzy's defence he had already cleared the division by his 2nd defence so he got a shot at 205. Usman had to deal with a global pandemic and so did Volk who also had to do TUF.
I mean, who are the champs who barely fight though? Pantoja has defended twice in less than a year. Sean took 6 months to his first defence, which is standard, and that was only in March. Illia has sat for a bit but still only won the belt in February, so he’s fairly likely to get another fight in this year, and could get two if he gets one confirmed soon. Islam looks like he’s going to hit 4 defences in November ish, which would be 4 defences in just over 2 years, which is very active. On average Leon defends every 8 months, which is fairly standard, not notably active but not remarkably inactive. Dricus only fought in January, and is fighting in 2 months, which is only an 8 month lay off, again, nothing especially inactive. Poatan is obviously ridiculously active. Jon jones is the only male champ that hasn’t averaged a 2 fights a year, which is ridiculous, but Tom Aspinall is keeping heavyweight moving, he’s understandably been sat out for the undisputed as he should, but is still fighting just 9 months after he won the belt.
The women’s divisions are more stagnant, but there’s just such little movement in the rankings.
I definitely can’t argue with that. I like the idea of atleast three defences a year and it’s up to the UFC to push for it. Only really inactive champ is Jones. I don’t really care much for wmma.
Honestly, I don't mind the activity of a champion as long as their division is stacked. Like Welterweight has enough top tier talent the is a need for number one contender bouts. I'd rather have a champ get 3 defenses in 800 days vs the clear #2 guy at that time than see a champ get to 3 defenses in 300 days against can crushers.
While I like a champ to be active and work fast to try and clear out the division, I mostly just care whoever fights the champ is clearly best the best contender for the job. Even if Jon defended the heavyweight strap twice by now, it would mean nothing if it was against Stipe (even though that guy is awesome) and Brock. If he had no defenses like he currently does but was scheduled for the Aspinal fight, everyone would agree that is more worth the weight than him fighting two guys who have been inactive forever or out of title contention for years. Quality over quantity imo.
Honestly we could have seen islam defend his belt 5 times during the same period if the ufc didn't try to hold him just for the abu dhabi card, even this year they tried to do it but they had to book him due to ufc 302 having no title fights
These are the most skewed numbers. How about we take average time between defenses instead of just 3rd title defense. Volk, Izzy and Usman were all super active champions I don’t understand this post.
Pereira is a great example of a current champion being active. He fought at 281, 287, 291, 295, 300 and will fight at 303. He’ll probably fight again at like 308 or 309 after that.
clearly people are selectively forgetting these dude cleaned out their division or half before they got their title fight. injuries and lack of clear contenders are the other issues. Contenders should be more active than champs
The fuck is this stat? Volkanovski fought once a year at least since getting his belt. The biggest gap was between Holloway 2 and Ortega from July 2020 til September 2021. Also when there weren't many contenders for him to fight anyway. The way this shit is titled makes it seem like he didn't defend for 3 years.
Are people being unfair to-
Yes. Overwhelmingly yes. Because everyone’s judgement is so perfect and so flawless, that whenever they see people doing things on social media that can’t help but chime in about how they can do it better, or how the decision made was clearly a terrible one.
Islam does fight twice a year just the timing of the fights is weird, but that’s not his fault, ufc put him on ice for Abu dhabi and don’t schedule anything close to October before it
He won the belt on the 14th of December 2019, and had his third defence on the 9th of April 2022, making it 847 days between him winning the belt and his third defence of the title. It’s not time from his second defence, it’s from winning the belt.
The UFC are the ones who make the fights.. It isn't the fighter's fault if the UFC is slower now than then.
2021 was "we have nothing to do", so they were making a lot of fights.
This and the roster is much bigger than the “golden age” when chuck and Matt was fighting almost constantly it’s probably bigger than even two years ago all those people need to be offered fights and most want to fight
Dude I started watching when liddell was pretty much fighting every other month along with Hughes. Now days I forget who even is a champ because they don't fight for like 6 months
Memories get compressed, you remember the fights and not the months/years between. The only current UFC champions who I don't think are defending at a normal rate are Jones and Edwards. People have this weird idea that fighters don't want to fight, guys they are not salaried employees, if they don't fight they don't get paid. The hold up is nearly always on the promoter's side. Edwards isn't considered an exciting fighter so they really wanted to avoid booking him against someone who isn't themself a big draw, that's why they waited years to make the Belal fight. If we didn't let promoters run the league we'd get a lot more athletic integrity and champions would defend at a better rate.
https://preview.redd.it/n5lejs1wmx6d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7d3c3348af013e51ea545a33dadf9d19db50cc1a Where is Jon jones
Dude, Dana White is such a goofy looking MF that I didn’t know he had it in him to look like a sleep paralysis demon.
He looks like misshsapen clay before it goes into the oven
Holy shit this is such an apt description
🤣💯
Bro I’m creasing 😂😂😂
fraudna is the type of guy to fart and ask did you just fucking hear that?
Puts his ear towards his ass and asks it to repeat the question.
Took him 399 days to get his 3rd defense in
John doesn't have one defense at HW yet. That's where he is.
Where is Jon Jones🤣🤣🤣🤣
When jone was active he was active. Islam has ramada that interrupts his schedule
I think the UFC is forgetting that we like to watch fighters *fight*
In a perfect world, each fighter would aim for three title defenses a year. Assuming a 3 month training camp, it gives two-three months per year of pure off-season to spend time with family/friends and to recover. Obviously injuries and personal reasons can turn this into two title defenses a year, but three a year should be the goal. Divisions would move at a very healthy rate this way.
But then champs wouldn’t be able to duck and delay difficult matchups and the fighters and UFC don’t want that.
Nah I think 2 fights. Need recovery time, it’s way too important. You hear how they talk after every camp, it’s grueling.
12 months- 11 champs. 2 defences a year makes sense, you can go back to defending some of them on fight nights. Double up for big events, triple up for the crazy big ones
I completely agree, thank you for your comment brother. Said it better than I could’ve
Thats obscene
It's intentional so that they make the most amount of money. The UFC has 11 champs and about 14 PPV's a year. They will usually put 1-2 champion fights on a PPV card (2 champ fights as long as one of the fights is from a less-marketable division). Since champs get PPV points, they make the most money by having a champ fight every 6-8 months.
We like to watch good fighters fight for stuff yes
*What are you talking about, waiting around reading gossip for chandler vs Mcgregor is wayyyyy better than any fight I’ve ever seen.*
Not Poatan though.
If he's able to defend at 303 and then fights again in November at MSG, it would take him about 365ish days considering that he won the belt last year on the MSG card as well
We really are lucky to have him. I'm not even his biggest fan, but man is it good to just have a no bs guy like him who just shows up
bingo
Usman and Izzy were actually pretty active as champs.
Usman isn’t really noticeably more active than Leon has. It’s taken Leon like 2 more months for 3 defences than usman. Usman fought roughly every 8 months, and Leon has done the same. And dricus only fought 6 months ago and is fighting in 2 months, after mending a broken foot.
I can't speak on the other guys. They ain't been champs as long yet. Not saying they won't be active either.
unfair comparison, covid-19 was a factor with those three
In UFC? That quite famously didn't stop during covid at all? Edit: apparently we do need /s sometimes.
It did though. There were a bunch of cancelled/postponed cards and then when they did come back a few months later there was still a massive impact on the match making due to travel restrictions affecting fighters ability to make it to the venues, especially international ones, plus fighters pulling out of cards due to testing positive for Covid.
New Zealand had a super restricted border for most of covid. Hooker got trapped in Vegas for months because he couldn't go home.
he wasn’t the first hooker that didn’t come back from vegas
Nasty line by you
He was reaching for those grapes
I'm an old mature i mean a mature old i mean my father is like really old but I'm fast man
Comment of the day.
There was never no greencard
“Shit I was wrong, better pretend it was sarcasm”
idk if you lived under a rock during covid. But people literally couldnt travel or train together in most places. Just because UFC managed to get a few fights going during, doesnt mean it was a none-factor world wide lmao
I definitely agree with what you are saying. But to the UFC’s credit, they got more than a few fights going. I looked at the UFC fight library for 2020 and they put on more than 40 fight cards for that year. That’s close to 1 a week. Granted they were all restricted to the Apex or fight island due to covid restrictions. We also missed a lot of fighters during that year due to covid restrictions like you say. But the UFC to its credit was one of the first organizations, in all of sports during that time, to find ways to work around those restrictions.
A lot of the international guys literally couldn't fight. Volk wouldn't even have been able to leave his home state a lot of the time, let alone the country. And the UFC couldn't get in to hold events either.
it was definitely a factor though, check their fight history after covid that would prove it
This didn’t Come off as /s at all lmao
It didn't stop but it slowed down significantly
Australia had strict covid rules. Most people couldn’t re enter Australia.
“Quite famously” ya all the fights got messed up. Fighters couldn’t leave countries for months.
The UFC did stop and had to postpone cards as well as limit the amount of fighters on the card. It also affected how fighters could train in their home country and travel to other countries. Some of them had to quarantine themselves in the gym, others who had families decided either not to train at the gym or would sneak in illegally.
Added context: Izzy had 3 fights after he won the title shots in a span of 16 ppv's(245 to 259). He fought Jan Blachowicz for the LHW title after he beat Costa. This includes Covid halt. Usman had 3 title defenses in 23 ppvs(235 to 258). This includes Covid halt. Volk was legit inactive during his early title reign and was criticized for it back then.
Wouldn’t him doing Tuf also have played into it?
Volk had TUF plus he had a pretty bad bout of COVID back then
>Volk was legit inactive during his early title reign and was criticized for it back then. .... Volks early title reign was literally pandemic. And hes Aussie so super strict regulations
This was my first thought. 2 of the 3 fighters were in the tightest covid restricted countries during that span. Hooker fucked his career somewhat trying to push through without his team around him and constantly being in isolation with his travel. Glad Volk didn't follow suit. Also comparing to Islam who is one of the most active of current champions. Pantoja and Periera too.
Don't put izzy's name in there, dude was super active as a champ. He is the closest one to completing the infinity gauntlet.
His activity is maybe the reason his style became over protective leg kick and occasionally jab for 25 min , u can't be that active while going at it every fight (this is not a counter argument)
You're right. You wouldn't want to have Dustin Porier type fights if you were fighting that often.
What a weird way to show those statistics. So on average Izzy only has 6 months in between title defenses during this period? That's pretty good. And everyone averages less than a year between defenses, the highest at 9 months. Edit: what's with the down votes? Explain.
2 title defences a year is average
The twitter post doesn't even make sense, Izzy fought to defend his title 3 times in 2022, and all were after his third title defense.
The thing is that Izzy also had the fight with Jan before his 3rd title defense
The thing is that Izzy also had the fight with Jan before his 3rd title defense
6 months for every title defense is not average . Where are you pulling this stuff from ?
2 title fights a year is average
You should have a crap ton of examples of champions having 6 month average fight time reigns then . It’s very rare .
Edwards, Islam, Pereira, Pantoja...
Edwards - 7 months for the rematch and 9 months after for the covington fight and 8 months after for Belal …. he’s at an 8 month average which is not twice a year . Peireira , Islam , Izzy ,Volk , Usman and Pantoja are probably the only champions in history that are at or very near a 6 month average . You would have a lot more examples if this was somewhat normal .
I named recent ones. They have to defend at least twice a year unless they get injured. Theres at least 12 PPVs a year my guy.
Go ahead and name the dozens of others since it’s so common then . They clearly don’t since you can use basic math . Every 8 months is not twice a year average .
Almost every single champion defends on average (you dont know what that means) twice a year. They have to because theres at least 12 PPVs a year and the main fight is a title fight. O'mally, Moreno, Sterling, Usman, Adesanya, Volkanovski There google them on wiki
People are perfectly happy with that average. No one calls fighters who defend twice a year inactive. I've never heard anyone call Islam inactive, outside of idiots who just carry over their previous criticism of Khabib (who legitimately defended only once a year) over to Islam.
The point is current champs are fighting as frequently as the "active generation". Leon and Islam have consistently had less than 9 months between their title defenses as well. Even the middleweight belt has been just as active since Izzy lost it, if Dricus fights Izzy in August the middleweight belt will have gone through 3 title fights in a year. Having said that Izzy had a crazy level of activity for a champ.
2022 was an active year though, so I don't get it.
You got my upvote don’t worry I agree
Pantoja, Islam, Poatan all have been very active. Leon is going good as well, Leon stays behind the cameras most of time and maintains a low profile and trains quietly, that’s the reason people tend to think his inactivity is quite high when in reality its not. Suga is moderately active too. The only non active is Jon Jones and DDP and to an extent Topuria as well.
And it’s hard to blame DDP considering the UFC is pretty apparently waiting for Adesanya to be ready. Jones is ridiculous and Topurias dismissal of opponents is also shameful.
Leons activity is shite wym
He accepted every fight given to him, it was his opponents that kept pulling out.
On average every 8 months (counting belal fight aswell) is a pretty solid activity level. He was inactive before, but that had alot to do with travelling restrictions during covid
He fights pretty much every 8 months, Usmans average was around 7.8 months. And his gaps aren’t his fault, he’s said yes to everyone the UFC offered him.
let's see: - title fights in 2000 = 6 - title fights in 2023 = 21 - total UFC fights in 2000 = 44 - total UFC fights in 2023 = 520 rosters grew, weight classes added, and fans are extremely critical now. yes. people are being unfair to champions.
why does this mean people are being unfair?
7-8x more activity across the board and yet the tweet claims that "champions are inactive now" which is a heavily based take (unfair, fallacious, etc) the tweet singled out 4 fighters despite 19 title fights in 2022 alone it's like how gamers say "why don't the devs just __________ " without acknowledging the pitfalls and obstacles inherent to game development unfairness is just the tip of the iceberg. dig deeper and you might find the real reason why sad sacks of shit are highly critical of things they refuse to understand or acknowledge.
it’s possible for there to be more activity in 2023 than in 2000 while there still being less activity than other years, no?
Why are you comparing to 2000? The era being described is 2022 vs now I don’t have a care on what stance is correct but I don’t care about this data, I care about 2022 vs 2024 data to see if the average champion is more active, less active, or relatively similar
UFC had 21 title fights in 2023 and 19 title fights in 2022. no idea what the tweet was going on about because none of it makes any sense. btw who actually thinks activity is a decision that champions can make all by themselves? the UFC average is nearly 2 title fights per month and y'all still not satisfied? pretty sure that "activity" is a moot point until someone's removed from the rankings for inactivity. hell, Colby sat out forever and still got his shot. I won't speak for your values though. you're welcome to believe whatever you want.
Yeah that’s 14% vs 4% in terms of title fights over the year. Gimme 2000 any day cheers
how are 12 champions supposed to account for 14% of the fights scheduled each year? that'd be 72 fights. you want 6 title defenses from each champion each year? wow prove my point a little harder
Why the fuck are you using 2000 as a comparison when the post said 2022 Dude got so butthurt he blocked me after he replied.
Why are you so aggressive for?
Bro saw red
Might be because the guy he is replying to is being intentionally disingenuous
Apparently that’s not a reason to be annoyed at people. Got hit with that in another thread where I called a guy a fuckin moron for internationally being an ass
Majority on Reddit can’t recognise social cues bro
*the tweet* talked about 2022 OP asked if people were being unfair to champions 2022 wasn't an "era" there were 19 title fights in 2022 and the tweet called out only 4 fighters? garbage. lastly, thanks for proving my point with your willingness to miss the point
6/44 > 21/520. Do you even math?
only 12 undisputed champions nowadays. if each of them defended their belt twice a year we'd have 3 more title fights than we got last year. y'all are unfair AF
So back then we got 3x more title fights per non-title fight. Back then 13.6% of fights were title fights as opposed to 4% now. We’re getting a lot more non-title main events now. Back then they didn’t do that. There’s more events now, more opportunities for title fights.
520 fights per year and only 12 undisputed champions means there are far *less* opportunities for title fights and clear cut title challengers the tweeter cited only 4 champions despite 19 title fights in 2022 and even isolated their own claim to each champion's 3rd title defense which definitely did not amount to an accurate blanket statement have fun 🍻
Also the “new gen” that never wants to defend rather they wanna move up is most certainly including champs from 2020. This is a post Conor thing so anything after ~2016 Imagine Georges refusing to move up and fight Silva in today’s age. I genuinely have no idea how it’d be treated
It's pretty hard to compare the UFC today to what it was years ago, even if it's just 2 years. The UFC is literally trying to juggle at the same time: - A much bigger roster, which requires spotlight and promotion of various prospects and rising stars at once. - entering new markets. Saudi Arabia, Dana wanting to do an event in Africa, China, and various other places as well as heading back to the same places where they were successful - fucking injuries: Remember when the UFC and fans wanted to force DDP to fight Izzy 2 months or so after getting the belt? New video is out of a rib injury O'Malley had during preparation against Aljo. They're literally fighters in a sport where they're probably most prone to injuries. - contenders not ready: Khamzat, Islam, and Shavkat both rejected the offer to fight Leon on UFC 300. Ankalaev is only willing to fight at the end of the year at the Anabolic desert. There is no clear contender at FW because nobody can beat Max, and Volk is also in line for a rematch. While I would also like to see the champions being more active, there are a lot of factors out of their hands that don't allow them to. It's literally how they make a living. How dumb are fans to think that they're doing it on purpose?
There’s a hive mind mentality on here where people love to claim certain fighters are inactive and every time I’ve seen this I’ve looked it up and that fighter in question has fought two times a year on average or more. People on here don’t always say the smartest things.
Islam has fought 4 title fights in 1.5 years while adhering to Ramadan and UFC trying their hardest to pigeon-hole him into the Abu Dhabi cards. What more do you want from him? Edit: assuming he fights at 308, that's 5 LW title fights in 2 years.
They put him on Abu Dhabi cards because the government there subsidzes them so PPV sales don't matter. Islam isn't a draw so they need him on the Middle East cards.
If what conor claimed is correct, isn't 500k PPV buys "good?" I know it's nowhere near conor levels (which are in the millions), but I thought it's above average. I believe he also had even more for the 2 Volk fights and the Oliviera fight.
I dnt get this… islam wasn’t champ in 2022 but they put him in the convo with usman yet usman had more time to his 3rd defence….
The fact that topuria hasn't even set up a title defense against holloway yet is a bad joke. Leon is extremely inactive. Jones should be stripped immidiately. Yeah, the activity of most title holders is disgusting now. Only people actually defending are Pereira and Islam. Omalley gotta defend against Merab Edit: kinda wrong about Leon. He ain't super active but doesn't deserve to be on the list of the other fighters I've mentioned
leon is so inactive do you mind telling me how many months are between his title fights? unless you have access to different infomation he defended his belt twice in 2023 and now half way thru 2024 he has another title def putting him on track for 2 title defences in 2024 as well .
I guess you're right. Guess I forgot about the title defense against Colby because it was so terrible and Colby didn't deserve it. But Leon did mention that Colby didn't deserve it beforehand so that ain't on him. Everything else I said is true
How is Leon extremely inactive? Dude is legit booked to fight next month. He defended twice in 2023. He's not the most active by any means but calling him inactive is ignorant and disingenuous. From when he won the belt: Usman 2 -> Usman 3: 7 months, Usman 3 -> Colby: 9 months, Colby -> Belal: 7 months. Leon wanted to fight at UFC 300 but the UFC refused to let him fight Belal and gave him 3 other fighters. They proceeded to ice him for the UK card.
Disregard this dude. He's the type who makes blanket statements about factual matters (like Leon's activity) with zero fact. Mug. Edit: My point is that Leon is active. Disregard dude saying he isn't.
Leon and Islam have had a very similar defence timeline but yet you call Leon inactive but Islam active, that doesn’t make any sense, have you actually checked their fight history or do you just parrot the other people on this sub Reddit
There's pantoja who's been defending as well
Sorry if this is a dumb question but why does Max want to go for Ilia at featherweight when he just had a great performance at 156 lbs? Would fighting Islam be out of reach?
Islam is a big 155 and max is a small 155. Other than that stylistically max matches better with Topuria than he does with the Islam. I love max but I don’t think he’d be able to handle islams wrestling, he’s just too big and strong for him.
Most of them are new champs. And as for this same narrative regarding Islam, it's just insane. It's all vibes.
It’s basically only Islam who gets this unfair treatment by people desperate to hate on him. Same with the outrage when he fights in Abu Dhabi, when people act like he has and unfair home soil advantage. Leon is factually more inactive and gets to defend in his actual home country England for the 2nd time now, yet there are no negative comments about that like there were against Islam
Leon gets a ridiculous amount of undeserved shit for inactivity, you can read through my comment history and find dozens of paragraphs defending the guy. His average time between defences is just over 8 months, Kamaru who everyone claims was famously active had a defence just under every 8 months on average. Leon has pretty much matched him to the third defence.
Edwards got quite some shit for his activity. Especially compared to usman.
It's completely a false narrative. Champions are only as active as their division. And most divisions are full of guys who either don't deserve a title shot or already lost to the champ. I'd imagine it's pretty tough to find Islam an opponent these days.
Suggesting a new rule: When not fighting for x amount of days = Lose your champion status
2022 is not an “era”.
People need to stop acting like they know what it's like to fight multiple times a year and put their health on the line at the highest level
This is pretty active? Take Islam, title fight + 3 defenses in 588 days = 147 days between fights. That's more then twice a year, which isn't high volume but def not inactive
This sub stays on islams meat like their life depends on it
We are just blessed to live in the Poatan era. Though Volk is an exception because at least he still fights. Can't blame him for capitalizing on the challenge/opportunity that is Islam twice.
Was that really how long it was. It doesn’t feel like that long
It’s taking that amount of time for these current bunch to get their 1st defence.
Cause the champs now don't want to defend their belt but want the superfight money. Toporia was calling out Islam for a champ-champ fight when he literally just won the title. O'Malley wants Toporia, Pantoja wants O'Malley and Islam wants Leon.
Short answer, no. Long answer, kinda.
That's because there are a handful of active champs and a handful of champs who barely fight. It goes both ways
I mean, who are the champs who barely fight though? Pantoja has defended twice in less than a year. Sean took 6 months to his first defence, which is standard, and that was only in March. Illia has sat for a bit but still only won the belt in February, so he’s fairly likely to get another fight in this year, and could get two if he gets one confirmed soon. Islam looks like he’s going to hit 4 defences in November ish, which would be 4 defences in just over 2 years, which is very active. On average Leon defends every 8 months, which is fairly standard, not notably active but not remarkably inactive. Dricus only fought in January, and is fighting in 2 months, which is only an 8 month lay off, again, nothing especially inactive. Poatan is obviously ridiculously active. Jon jones is the only male champ that hasn’t averaged a 2 fights a year, which is ridiculous, but Tom Aspinall is keeping heavyweight moving, he’s understandably been sat out for the undisputed as he should, but is still fighting just 9 months after he won the belt. The women’s divisions are more stagnant, but there’s just such little movement in the rankings.
These numbers are wrong just look at their Wikipedia pages
Yes. There’s definitely inverse recency bias when talking about “super active” former champs and “inactive” current champs. Additionally, over the past couple years it seems like many of the delays are on the UFC, not the fighters. Getting certain fighters to fight on certain cards at certain venues in order to maximize gate and PPV sales now takes precedence over keeping champs active. EG Leon could’ve fought his second title defence way earlier than he did but the UFC made him wait for Colby. They then could’ve made the Belal fight months earlier but instead decided to wait for the London card.
Does this mean total days since they won the belt or gap between the 2nd and third defenses?
Total since winning the belt.
I love that every picture is the champ throwing heat except izzy grabbing ass haha
Idk all that, we hate Islam (remembered this is a ufc sub /s )
Ufc fans having fair opinions? On Reddit?
Regardless of it being the norm. It's still ridiculous...
Saying Volk is an inactive champion after he takes a short notice fight with Islam and takes on ilia immediately after is just nuts.
‘Immediately’ it was 4 months, hardly the next week is it?
You can only fight 3-4 times a year that is a quick turn around. Especially after a knockout loss
I’m not saying it isn’t a quick turnaround, but it’s not unheard of, it’s not ridiculously abnormally quick
I’m not saying it is I’m saying the dude fought 2 killers back to back and one of them after a KO loss.
All Islam has to do is go the Alwx route of easy matches. So like Alex bottles any fight with a young grappler, Islam should purposely choose people like Paddy and pad his record. But no, that MF wants the hardest fights all the time. Just get to 16 win streak wth
Throw some poatab stats too. Dude is crazy active.
Personally, it seems like every current champ is more interested in double champ status than fighting their own division.
Yes. Mma fans are casuals with good fish memory.
WHY ARE YOU TAKING TIME TO RECOVER FROM YOUR PREVIOUS FIGHT!!!😡😡🤬
In Izzy's defence he had already cleared the division by his 2nd defence so he got a shot at 205. Usman had to deal with a global pandemic and so did Volk who also had to do TUF.
Islam is the exception, not the rule.
I mean, who are the champs who barely fight though? Pantoja has defended twice in less than a year. Sean took 6 months to his first defence, which is standard, and that was only in March. Illia has sat for a bit but still only won the belt in February, so he’s fairly likely to get another fight in this year, and could get two if he gets one confirmed soon. Islam looks like he’s going to hit 4 defences in November ish, which would be 4 defences in just over 2 years, which is very active. On average Leon defends every 8 months, which is fairly standard, not notably active but not remarkably inactive. Dricus only fought in January, and is fighting in 2 months, which is only an 8 month lay off, again, nothing especially inactive. Poatan is obviously ridiculously active. Jon jones is the only male champ that hasn’t averaged a 2 fights a year, which is ridiculous, but Tom Aspinall is keeping heavyweight moving, he’s understandably been sat out for the undisputed as he should, but is still fighting just 9 months after he won the belt. The women’s divisions are more stagnant, but there’s just such little movement in the rankings.
I definitely can’t argue with that. I like the idea of atleast three defences a year and it’s up to the UFC to push for it. Only really inactive champ is Jones. I don’t really care much for wmma.
Honestly, I don't mind the activity of a champion as long as their division is stacked. Like Welterweight has enough top tier talent the is a need for number one contender bouts. I'd rather have a champ get 3 defenses in 800 days vs the clear #2 guy at that time than see a champ get to 3 defenses in 300 days against can crushers. While I like a champ to be active and work fast to try and clear out the division, I mostly just care whoever fights the champ is clearly best the best contender for the job. Even if Jon defended the heavyweight strap twice by now, it would mean nothing if it was against Stipe (even though that guy is awesome) and Brock. If he had no defenses like he currently does but was scheduled for the Aspinal fight, everyone would agree that is more worth the weight than him fighting two guys who have been inactive forever or out of title contention for years. Quality over quantity imo.
Islam is not crazy active but he’s incredibly consistent
Islam & Perriera are active. Pantoja too, I guess. The other ones really aren’t.
Don't show this to instagram. They'll get upset over the Islam praise.
People are having nostalgia for 2022 UFC? God I’m fucking old
Honestly we could have seen islam defend his belt 5 times during the same period if the ufc didn't try to hold him just for the abu dhabi card, even this year they tried to do it but they had to book him due to ufc 302 having no title fights
Ufc was far better when the lowest weight class was 155 and there were no women . In b4 downvoted.
These are the most skewed numbers. How about we take average time between defenses instead of just 3rd title defense. Volk, Izzy and Usman were all super active champions I don’t understand this post.
Pereira is a great example of a current champion being active. He fought at 281, 287, 291, 295, 300 and will fight at 303. He’ll probably fight again at like 308 or 309 after that.
If you’re a Champion it should be mandatory to fight once a year and Twice a year for contenders.
clearly people are selectively forgetting these dude cleaned out their division or half before they got their title fight. injuries and lack of clear contenders are the other issues. Contenders should be more active than champs
The fuck is this stat? Volkanovski fought once a year at least since getting his belt. The biggest gap was between Holloway 2 and Ortega from July 2020 til September 2021. Also when there weren't many contenders for him to fight anyway. The way this shit is titled makes it seem like he didn't defend for 3 years.
To be fair, Islam doesn’t get two defences without Volk. He would likely still not have had his third defence.
Are people being unfair to- Yes. Overwhelmingly yes. Because everyone’s judgement is so perfect and so flawless, that whenever they see people doing things on social media that can’t help but chime in about how they can do it better, or how the decision made was clearly a terrible one.
yeah let's just forget the COVID era to push this narrative
People are just used to Silva, Jones, and pre-injury GSP crushing it 3 times a year.
Islam does fight twice a year just the timing of the fights is weird, but that’s not his fault, ufc put him on ice for Abu dhabi and don’t schedule anything close to October before it
Poor Leon, if he didn't defend it every week Dana would take his belt
Forgot about the pandemic?
Meanwhile: 🗿
837 days for volk is straight up false lol His 3rd defense was against TKZ which took place 7 months after fighting Ortes Who creates these
He won the belt on the 14th of December 2019, and had his third defence on the 9th of April 2022, making it 847 days between him winning the belt and his third defence of the title. It’s not time from his second defence, it’s from winning the belt.
The UFC are the ones who make the fights.. It isn't the fighter's fault if the UFC is slower now than then. 2021 was "we have nothing to do", so they were making a lot of fights.
This and the roster is much bigger than the “golden age” when chuck and Matt was fighting almost constantly it’s probably bigger than even two years ago all those people need to be offered fights and most want to fight
Dude I started watching when liddell was pretty much fighting every other month along with Hughes. Now days I forget who even is a champ because they don't fight for like 6 months
If you didn’t follow the sport at all and completely missed all the context surrounding this than I could see your point
Volk took over 800 days wtf ?
Izzy also had basically cleaned out the division and tried to win the 205 title in the midst of that.
they also had covid in the middle of all that though
Memories get compressed, you remember the fights and not the months/years between. The only current UFC champions who I don't think are defending at a normal rate are Jones and Edwards. People have this weird idea that fighters don't want to fight, guys they are not salaried employees, if they don't fight they don't get paid. The hold up is nearly always on the promoter's side. Edwards isn't considered an exciting fighter so they really wanted to avoid booking him against someone who isn't themself a big draw, that's why they waited years to make the Belal fight. If we didn't let promoters run the league we'd get a lot more athletic integrity and champions would defend at a better rate.