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This weekend will see Nate Diaz face off with Khamzat Chimaev in the main event of UFC 279 in what is a classic bout between a young lion and an aging gunslinger.
Over the years, we’ve seen plenty of fights between an aging fighter and a younger one in the UFC. While the young lion usually comes out on top, that hasn’t always been the case.
Despite the promotion looking to build a new star off the back of a legend, the legend has sometimes been able to pull through with a big victory.
Here are five times in UFC history when an aging warrior beat a young lion.
#5. Frankie Edgar vs. Yair Rodriguez – UFC 211
When he took out B.J. Penn in violent fashion at the beginning of 2017, it looked like Yair Rodriguez was destined to make it to the top of the UFC’s featherweight division.
The promotion had already gotten their weight behind him, giving him a headline slot on a Fight Night show in 2016. It seemed that he was just one big win away from climbing into proper contention.
Frankie Edgar, on the other hand, finally appeared to be slowing down after a decade of action in the octagon. Sure, he’d beaten Jeremy Stephens convincingly to end 2016, but he was also 35 years old and had taken plenty of damage over the years.
Therefore, it made perfect sense for the promotion to match ‘El Pantera’ against ‘The Answer’, with the hope being that Rodriguez would pick up his biggest win to date.
Unfortunately, things didn’t quite work out that way. Edgar’s demise, it turned out, wasn’t quite as close as people had expected. Rodriguez simply didn’t have any answers for his sharp boxing and more importantly, his takedowns, and soon found himself underneath the former lightweight champ, taking a beatdown.
In the end, the Mexican fighter’s eye was so badly swollen that the fight had to be halted after the second round, and it was hard not to see the fight as a potentially career-altering beating.
Rodriguez did recover, but he spent over a year on the shelf recovering from the loss. Edgar, meanwhile,ended up working his way into another title shot in 2019. In this case, the young lion was put firmly in his place.
#4. Shogun Rua vs. Tyson Pedro – UFC Fight Night 142
Former PRIDE and UFC light heavyweight champion Shogun Rua had seemed near the end of his storied career for what felt like years before he was stopped violently by Anthony Smith in 2018, but that defeat felt like a watershed of sorts for him.
The Brazilian turning 37 years old shortly after the bout and given the myriad of injuries he’d suffered over the years, it seemed likely that he’d never recapture the old magic again.
It came as no surprise, then, when he was matched with surging prospect Tyson Pedro in his next bout. Pedro was coming off his first career loss – a submission defeat to Ovince Saint Preux – but the young Australian was still widely expected to destroy Shogun and pick up a huge victory.
Remarkably, though, Shogun came into the fight looking in far better shape than he had for his clash with Smith. He was able to survive an early barrage from Pedro, before surprising everyone by turning the tables in the second round.
He took the Australian down and dominated him on the ground. In the third round, with Pedro flagging badly and struggling with an apparent leg injury, Shogun landed a right hand that dropped him and quickly finished him off on the ground.
The victory put Shogun on a surprisingly good run, as he remained unbeaten through his next two fights going into 2020. While he now looks finished, it wouldn’t be an outright surprise to see him pull off another stunning win over a young lion in the future.
#3. Glover Teixeira vs. Ion Cutelaba – UFC Fight Night 150
When Glover Teixeira became the UFC light heavyweight champion in late 2021, he also became the oldest fighter to claim gold in the octagon for the first time, as he was 42 years old when he unseated Jan Blachowicz for the title.
It stands to reason, then, that the Brazilian has turned back the challenge of a number of young lions during his time in the promotion – but one fight that stands out in particular is his clash with Ion Cutelaba, which took place in the summer of 2019.
Teixeira was coming off a win over Karl Roberson leading into the fight, but prior to that, he’d looked past his best in a loss to Corey Anderson. Many fans figured that the explosive Cutelaba, who had smashed through his last two opponents in violent fashion, would be too much for him.
Early on, it looked like that would be exactly the case. ‘The Hulk’ beat Teixeira to the punch and dropped him with a spinning backfist, hurting him badly.
However, the Brazilian veteran was able to recover well, and in the second round, he turned the tables on his foe. Teixeira hurt Cutelaba with some heavy punches, and as he began to tire, he hit a takedown, flattened him out, and choked him out seconds later.
The performance was an excellent one from Teixeira, who proved that there was still life in the old dog. Four fights later, he became a champion.
#2. Vitor Belfort vs. Luke Rockhold – UFC on FX 8
When the UFC began introducing fighters from Strikeforce to its roster in early 2013, one of the athletes that everyone was clamoring to see in the octagon was Luke Rockhold.
The middleweight titleholder in the promotion, Rockhold held wins over Keith Jardine, Jacare Souza and Tim Kennedy. At 28 years old, he appeared to have a bright future.
When the UFC announced his debut fight, though, it didn’t seem like an easy one. Rockhold was matched against Vitor Belfort, who appeared to be on a real resurgence in his career and had knocked out Michael Bisping a few months beforehand.
Despite that, though, ‘The Phenom’ was 36 years old at the time of the fight, and Rockhold – who hadn’t lost in nearly six years – seemed more than capable of finding a way to victory over him.
Unfortunately for the Strikeforce champion, Belfort came into the fight in the best shape of his life and wasted no time in utterly waylaying him, decking him with a spinning kick before smashing him on the ground for a first-round TKO.
In this instance, though, the old lion had a secret in the form of the now-banned TRT, which essentially handed him his youth back. Just over a year later, the treatment was banned and Belfort’s octagon career largely ended in a whimper rather than a bang.
#1. Tito Ortiz vs. Ryan Bader – UFC 132
Once the UFC’s poster-boy, Tito Ortiz began to fall on hard times around the same time that he failed to unseat Chuck Liddell for the light heavyweight title at the end of 2006. After that defeat, his career hit a real funk and he suffered numerous defeats at the hands of opponents like Lyoto Machida and Matt Hamill.
By 2011, it seemed as if ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ only had one use for the promotion – to put over younger fighters, just as an aging professional wrestler would.
That was certainly the idea when he was matched with up-and-comer Ryan Bader at UFC 132. ‘Darth’ Bader had skyrocketed into the top 10, but had suffered his first loss at the hands of Jon Jones a few months before and was looking to bounce back in style.
Given the style clash – Bader was a superior wrestler to Ortiz, who often relied on little more than his takedowns at that stage – it seemed like ‘Darth’ Bader would easily dispatch of his older foe, probably in violent fashion.
Nobody had given Ortiz that memo, though. Early in the fight, he surprised Bader with a faked takedown into a short uppercut that landed cleanly on the jaw.
‘Darth’ hit the ground, and Ortiz quickly pounced, locked up a guillotine choke, and forced Bader to tap out after just under two minutes. Nobody could quite believe what they were seeing, particularly when ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ busted out his old “gravedigger” celebration – something fans hadn’t seen in years.
Unfortunately for Ortiz, the win didn’t signify a resurgence in his career, as he lost his next three fights before departing the UFC in 2012. But this fight still stands as a prime example that in the octagon, anything can happen – even an aging gunslinger pulling off a seemingly impossible win.
