A Comprehensive look at UFC Champions Ages and Primes

[HuskySamoan]

I had been gathering all the dates in years and days old when each champion won and lost their titles, I thought extrapolating information out of that and finding averages would be an interesting thing to create and share along with just useful data to have for any future MMA related efforts. I have a log with all the information mostly in order, but it's too long and too many numbers to post on here, you can PM me if you want the information to cross reference or for whatever reason.

To clarify a few things, for averages towards dates fighters lost their titles, I included if fighters had retired or the last date they had defended before vacating. If the fighter never defended their title then I simply only added the date towards the averages of when champions had won titles. Also for fighters from the WEC who were awarded their UFC titles I counted their first official UFC defense as the date they won their UFC title. I will try to mention all champions adjacent to the youngest and oldest if they are within 1 year of each other. I also only excluded Josh Barnett for the nature of his Championship win, he won the title and was subsequently stripped of the belt and banned before ever defending, in modern day that win would have been overturned into a disqualification or NC.

The Flyweight Division

The Average age of a champion winning the title in the Flyweight division is 30 years and 130 days

The Average age of a champion losing the title in the Flyweight division is 31 years and 139 days

Oldest Flyweight champion in UFC History Deiveson Figueiredo 34 years and 293 days (ongoing)

Youngest Flyweight champion in UFC History Demetrious Johnson 26 years and 40 days


The Bantamweight Division

The Average age of a champion winning the title in the Bantamweight division is 28 years 257 days

The Average age of a champion losing the title in the Bantamweight division is 29 years 319 days

Oldest Bantamweight champion in UFC history Henry Cejudo 33 years 98 days followed by Aljimain Sterling at 33 years 69 days (ongoing)

Youngest Bantamweight champion in UFC history Dominick Cruz 25 years 123 days closely followed by Cody Garbrandt at 25 years and 176 days

The Featherweight Division

The Average age of a champion winning the title in the Featherweight division is 27 years 262 days

The Average age of a champion losing the title in the Featherweight division is 29 years 124 days

Oldest Featherweight champion in UFC history Alexander Volkanovski 34 years 9 days (ongoing)

Youngest Featherweight champion in UFC history Jose Aldo 24 years 233 days, closely followed by Max Holloway at 25 years 180 days

The Lightweight Division

The Average age of a champion winning the title in the Lightweight division is 29 years 119 days

The Average age of a champion losing the title in the Lightweight division is 30 years 272 days

Oldest Lightweight champion in UFC history Sean Sherk 34 years 293 days

Youngest Lightweight champion in UFC history Anthony Pettis 25 years 266 days

The Welterweight Division

The Average age of a champion winning the title in the Welterweight division is 29 years 281 days

The Average age of a champion losing the title in the Welterweight division is 32 years 75 days

Oldest Welterweight champion in UFC history Tyron Woodley at 36 years 319 days

Youngest Welterweight champion in UFC history Carlos Newton at 24 years 260 days, closely followed by BJ Penn at 25 years 49 days and GSP at 25 years 152 days

The Middleweight Division

The Average age of a champion winning the title in the Middleweight division is 31 years 281 days

The Average age of a champion losing the title in the Middleweight division is 33 years 162 days

Oldest Champion in UFC Middleweight history Michael Bisping 38 years 248 days closely followed by, Anderson Silva at 38 years 83 days

Youngest Champion in UFC Middleweight history Robert Whittaker at 26 years 199 days

The Light Heavyweight Division

The Average age of a champion winning the title in the Light Heavyweight division is 31 years 289 days

The Average age of a champion losing the title in the Light Heavyweight division is 33 years 115 days

Oldest Champion in UFC Light Heavyweight history Glover Texeira 42 years 226 days closely followed by, Randy Couture 41 years 298 days

Youngest champion in Light Heavyweight history Jon Jones 23 years 243 days

The Heavyweight Division

The Average age of a champion winning the title in the Heavyweight division is 32 years 141 days

The Average age of a champion losing the title in the Heavyweight division is 33 years 323 days

Oldest Heavyweight Champion in UFC History Randy Couture 45 years 156 days

Youngest Heavyweight Champion in UFC History Frank Mir at 25 years 26 days closely followed by, Pedro Rizzo at 25 years 39 days and Andre Arlovski at 26 years 1 day

 

[HuskySamoan]

I'd like to say I feel while these statistics give value into understanding the prime ages of fighters relative to weight class, along with trends over eras. Important to note fighters are often in their primes much earlier than when they finally win the title, more times than not, I'd say 2 years prior on average. In less frequent occasion's fighters attain titles before their primes which I think was the case with Jones, GSP and Frank Mir pretty clearly. Pinpointing primes is tough, this is meant to just be statistics to use as guidelines for all sorts of things.

What I noticed is overall the LHW division in terms of the title picture and the Heavyweight division are much younger than I remembered them being with a few outliers, at LHW Couture and Glover are significantly older than the rest, I personally feel Glover's actual prime was years prior to him ever winning gold for whatever that's worth and while Jan Blachowicz is a great fighter I never considered him better than guys like Ankalaev or Jiri, he just happened upon the title later on in his career. Heavyweight is the oldest division but I was surprised to see it's not as old of a division as I thought or people make it out to be, Couture winning the title and losing it multiple times had a real impact too. I think even current HW mirrors this I consider Blaydes, Pavlovitch, N'Gannou, Gane, Aspinall to be far and away the most skilled guys and in their primes, the average age in that current group is only about 32.5 years old.

Flyweight is a division that I think we will see lower in averages drastically over time, there hasn't been many title runs yet and Deiveson becoming champ twice and Mighty Mouse having a long reign definitely skewed that a bit. I think we will see Bantamweight lower as well, but only by about a year, Cejudo being given a title shot at 135lbs when it was vacated had an impact with such a low champion count and Aljo is probably close to the end of his prime, the fighters I see most likely to dethrone him are all in their 20s still too.

I think in general besides what I've mentioned above these statistics stayed pretty consistent with my thoughts going into it, if you keep in mind that most fighters have entered their prime before having fought for a title a lot of the time, and are often closer to the end of their prime IN GENERAL when they've lost the title. Again these are my opinions and fighters peak differently, some earlier, some later, some longer, some shorter, some have slow descents while others nosedive. There's always anomalies and statistics that within context are probably more detrimental than helpful to averages but that's why I tried to gather a large but concise sample pool.

 

[Dreyga Hates You Sherbums]

It seems that 1st time champs seem to be getting older as the sport evolves

 

[kneebartotheface]

Thanks brah, interesting.

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

It feels like elite fighters are older on average now than they were pre-2010.

 

[HuskySamoan]

It feels like elite fighters are older on average now than they were pre-2010.

I think in general primes are usually about 26-32 in combat sports if athletes had an early enough start. I feel like this even carries over to wrestling and boxing, of course truly great combatants will probably still be one of the best even while falling out of their primes, not every guy has a fall off like Pettis or Garbrandt.

I think for welterweight it's slightly higher than that like 27-33 as a good range of entering and nearing the end of one's prime and for Middleweight and Light Heavyweight I feel it's more along the ages of 28-34 and Heavyweight 29-35.

I think for wrestling it's a bit different because if you are a truly elite talent, once you're 18 you go from competing in Juniors, Cadet, Highschool level things and immediately begin competing in trials and tournaments, if you win...you make the team and you compete at worlds and the Olympics, international, regional and continental events etc. Where in Boxing and MMA you might already be good enough to win a title at 23-25 but there's usually a standard of work expected of you and since in most of the world you can't even begin building that body of work professionally until 18 or if you cross over from wrestling or kickboxing typically several years later...a lot of guys are reaching the top of the mountain nearer to the end of their primes or even outside of it. Which I think skews people's perspectives a good bit.

 

[AbominableJoman]

Nice work there ts

 

[GBJohn]

As someone with a bit of stat geek in him, I really appreciate this type of data compilation. Thanks, @HuskySamoan !

 

[Chubi]

Wait...Aldo was 24 when he won the UFC belt ? I swear it feels like he was already 29 and he's 36 today.

 

[HuskySamoan]

Wait...Aldo was 24 when he won the UFC belt ? I swear it feels like he was already 29 and he's 36 today.

Aldo was born on September 9th 1986 and he beat Hominick in his UFC debut on April 11th 2011, so he was 24 years old 233 days at the time. Checks out.

 

[DOMMA]

 

[DOMMA]

^^^^ I joke, all kidding aside, I found this stat incredible and certainly an anomaly:

Oldest Champion in UFC Light Heavyweight history Glover Texeira 42 years 226 days closely followed by, Randy Couture 41 years 298 days

 

[HaulParris]

I'd like to say I feel while these statistics give value into understanding the prime ages of fighters relative to weight class, along with trends over eras. Important to note fighters are often in their primes much earlier than when they finally win the title, more times than not, I'd say 2 years prior on average. In less frequent occasion's fighters attain titles before their primes which I think was the case with Jones, GSP and Frank Mir pretty clearly. Pinpointing primes is tough, this is meant to just be statistics to use as guidelines for all sorts of things.

What I noticed is overall the LHW division in terms of the title picture and the Heavyweight division are much younger than I remembered them being with a few outliers, at LHW Couture and Glover are significantly older than the rest, I personally feel Glover's actual prime was years prior to him ever winning gold for whatever that's worth and while Jan Blachowicz is a great fighter I never considered him better than guys like Ankalaev or Jiri, he just happened upon the title later on in his career. Heavyweight is the oldest division but I was surprised to see it's not as old of a division as I thought or people make it out to be, Couture winning the title and losing it multiple times had a real impact too. I think even current HW mirrors this I consider Blaydes, Pavlovitch, N'Gannou, Gane, Aspinall to be far and away the most skilled guys and in their primes, the average age in that current group is only about 32.5 years old.

Flyweight is a division that I think we will see lower in averages drastically over time, there hasn't been many title runs yet and Deiveson becoming champ twice and Mighty Mouse having a long reign definitely skewed that a bit. I think we will see Bantamweight lower as well, but only by about a year, Cejudo being given a title shot at 135lbs when it was vacated had an impact with such a low champion count and Aljo is probably close to the end of his prime, the fighters I see most likely to dethrone him are all in their 20s still too.

I think in general besides what I've mentioned above these statistics stayed pretty consistent with my thoughts going into it, if you keep in mind that most fighters have entered their prime before having fought for a title a lot of the time, and are often closer to the end of their prime IN GENERAL when they've lost the title. Again these are my opinions and fighters peak differently, some earlier, some later, some longer, some shorter, some have slow descents while others nosedive. There's always anomalies and statistics that within context are probably more detrimental than helpful to averages but that's why I tried to gather a large but concise sample pool.

Great work TS, and I agree that it's an interesting revelation that HW is not as much of an "old men" division as people think it is.

 

[jko1355]

So you just used each champion as two data points? Start and end? I would switch it to each championship win. The age they were. The reason why is your data gives the same power to Michael Bisping with 1 defence to Anderson Silva with 13. Your numbers will also go down in age for a division like LHW because Jones prime will account for the amount of title wins he had instead of just two dates.

This data set gives a ton of weight to single fight champions.

Then you could see #of chmpionship wins by age and actually look at what is a normal athletic prime. You could still see the outliers like Randy or Glover but they would be come statistically insignificant.

 

[HuskySamoan]

Great work TS, and I agree that it's an interesting revelation that HW is not as much of an "old men" division as people think it is.

I think the shallow divisions sometimes tend to be older also because they tend to stagnate where top guys stick around longer than they otherwise would due to a lack of good prospects rising up and taking their places. That's definitely been a part of MWs history, HWs and LHWs. We've seen it debatably at Flyweight aswell. Although I think globally Flyweight is a deepish division the UFC just doesn't scout very hard or value signing and keeping top guys enough for it to flourish. Generational stagnation in divisions can lead to them being older I guess. Bigger guys in general tend to reach primes a little later, but only really a little bit.

 

[heavy_hands]

Josh Barnett won the hw belt at age 24 but of course he was stripped of the title

 

[Kenny Powerth]

Great thread!!

 

[Taric]

Athletic prime is generally between 25-30, so all of this checks out.

People bring up outliers about this stuff and say it's the norm all the time. Nice of TS to show they're full of shit.

 

[Dr. Stoppage]

I've always felt there is less of a physical prime as much as like a body of work.

A fighter's first marquee win to before his first major defeat (e.g. getting finished).

You could argue that Gaethje beat prime Ferguson since he was on a 12 fight winning streak. You might even be able to say Oliveria did too since the Ferguson loss to Gaethje was just 1 loss. That was a high level of competition. Stepping down to Dariush for his 3rd loss in a row the wheels have completely come off.

 

[Thepaintbucket]

Woodley was like 1 month shy from turning 37. Him and Anderson Silva by that point were geriatric defending champions. But then you look at Couture being 45 and Lesnar being 31 and go damn!

On the other hand Aldo and Jon were top level fighters in their early 20s and by 29-30 they were showing signs of deterioration