In previous threads I presented analysis for HW and LW champions. All HW champions fights - who are the greatest MMA HW champions? LW championship timeline Here I will do similar for FW, BW, FlyW. I will start with graphs that show championship bouts for the latest time period ( 2009 - 2015). For FW and BW we have continuation of the belt from WEC (yellow) to UFC (orange). WEC didn't have Flyweight division, so I included Shooto and Tachi championship bouts.
Shooto is MMA organization where all lighter divisions started. First fight for the Featherweight Championship was in 1990. Initial Shooto FW champion was Kenichi Tanaka. In that initial championship bout he defeated Kazuhiro Sakamoto. In 1991 they had a rematch and Kazuhiro Sakamoto took the title. Next title holder was Noboru Asahi who was able to defend his title twice. 7 years passed between first and second defense. On Sep/5/1999 Alexandre Franca Nogueira captured the FW Shooto title from Noboru Asahi. He was able to defend that title 6 times before he had to vacate due to a knee injury. Before 1999, all Shooto FW bouts were between Japanese fighters. Even in the first 5 title bouts for Nogueira, all opponents were Japanese. FW division before 2007 was not very strong and that is reflected in the low score for the early Championship bouts: Championship Bout Leval is on scale from 0 to 8. It represents how strong and important each championship bout was.
Early WEC FW division was also very weak. That changed with the arrival of Urijah Faber. Prior to WEC, Urijah was KOTC FW champion. With the rise of WEC, the significance of Shooto FW belt decreased. Following graph shows the FW Championship bout timeline for this FW transition period ( 2002 - 2008): Urijah Faber was a very active champion. He had 6 title defenses in just 2 years.
In December 2006, Zuffa purchased WEC. In 2008 WEC significantly improved and extended roster of fighters. This reflected on the strength of Championship bouts. Here is how FW Championship Bout Level was developing from 2005 to 2015: FW belt timeline for the last 7 years: This shows how dominant champion Jose Aldo is.
In the next post I will add some more FW statistic and then go to BW championship bouts. Please post your comments.
Another FW belt worth mentioning is Bellator belt. Here is how that belt was changing hands: In the last 3 years almost all Bellator FW championship bouts are between 3 fighters: Curran, Straus and Freire.
Few interesting facts about FW championship bouts. FW division has the highest rate of successful belt defense. In UFC Jose Aldo defended his belt 7 times and belt never was captured (changing hands by beating current champion). That represents 100% rate of successful belt defense. UFC also had 1 fight for the FW interim belt, which doesn't count in the previous calculation. In WEC FW belt was captured 3 times and defended 10 times. That gives us 77% rate of successful belt defense for WEC FW. In Shooto that rate is 59% . In Bellator FW division, belt changed hands 5 times and was defended just 4 times. They have the lowest rate of successful belt defense = 44% .
nice graphs interesting that defending 3 times a year (which should be regular) is now being a very active champion
You know the adage "A picture is worth a thousand words". I am trying to create graphs that help people absorb large amounts of data quickly. I think that belt should be defended not more than 2 times a year. You have to give time for the new contenders to arise. Having very frequent championship bouts, just for a sake of creating more revenue, would result in devaluating overall worth of that belt. We usually have a lot of championship bouts either in a case of a frequent rematches , or champion fighting lower ranked opponents. On the other hand, it should be a standard to create interim belt in case when champion is not active for more than 1 year. After interim belt, we can give champion another 6 months, and if he is still not ready, then strip him. You cannot hold division hostage, injury or any other reason. There are other fighters that work hard to get opportunity to fight for a belt.
yeah youre right i think depends on the division and its depth but 3 times per year would be perfect. and 2 times if youre like a legend. just like mayweather does, fights only 2 per year but its like he earned it
On average, there are 7 months between two UFC FW championship fights. Same in WEC. Shooto had on average more than a year between two FW belts. For Bellator that is 8 months. Bellator used to have a tournament that was creating next title challanger. That is why their champions had just one title fight in period 2009 - 2012 .
First Bantamweight belt was awarded by Shooto in Dec 2000. Mamoru Yamaguchi was the first BW champion. In 2001 Masahiro Oishi took that title from Mamoru. Here is the rest of BW story: And this is the timeline for the last 7 years for WEC/UFC BW titles :
