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The UFC is certainly no country for old men. With every event that passes, there seems to be a call for at least one ageing fighter to hang up their gloves before it’s too late for them.
Despite the world of MMA being a young fighter’s game, there have been a handful of fighters over the years who were able to defy Father Time, and continued to thrive at the top despite their advanced age.
Incredibly, a couple of fighters on this list remain active with the promotion today, with some continuing to pick up wins in the octagon. How much longer they can continue is anyone’s guess, but it’s fair to say that they’ve already proven the clock wrong on a number of occasions.
Here are five UFC fighters who have defied Father Time.
#5. Francisco Trinaldo – UFC welterweight
While it’s rare that fighters in the promotion defy Father Time in general, those who do tend to compete in the promotion’s heavier weight classes, where power and durability tend to be more important than speed and reflexes – two attributes that clearly tend to dull over time.
That’s why current welterweight contender Francisco Trinaldo is such an outlier. Sure, the Brazilian is not a title contender right now, nor has he ever cracked the top 10 in either weight class he’s competed in since his octagon debut in 2012, but the fact that he’s still around is, in itself, somewhat of a miracle.
‘Massaranduba’ debuted in the octagon following a stint on the first season of The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil. Fans would’ve been forgiven for considering him a young prospect looking to break through onto the big stage for the first time.
However, while Trinaldo was definitely looking to break through, he was already 33 years old by the time he faced Delson Heleno in his promotional debut, and had been fighting professionally since 2006.
Since then, ‘Massaranduba’ has put together an impressive octagon record of 18-7, competing in both the lightweight and welterweight divisions and winning multiple fights in both.
More remarkably, despite tending to lose to his tougher opponents, he’s always been largely consistent, hasn’t changed his approach – which tends to be heavy on kickboxing, with some wrestling and ground attacks mixed in – and doesn’t appear to have slowed down at all over the years.
When you consider that he’s now 43 years old, the fact that he’s currently on a two-fight win streak is genuinely insane. Father Time doesn’t appear to be ready to catch him any time soon.
#4. Andrei Arlovski – former UFC heavyweight champion
It’s safe to say that few fighters have been able to defy Father Time quite as impressively as Andrei Arlovski. In fact, there’s probably an argument that ‘The Pitbull’ has managed to do so on multiple occasions, making him even more remarkable.
Debuting in the octagon way back in 2000 at the height of the promotion’s ‘Dark Ages’, Arlovski rose through the ranks, eventually defeating Tim Sylvia to claim the heavyweight title in 2005. However, after defending it on two occasions, the Belarusian was dethroned by Sylvia in 2006.
A contract dispute then saw Arlovski leave the UFC for pastures new. A four-fight losing streak, with three of the losses coming via knockouts, seemed to suggest his time at the top was all but done.
‘The Pitbull’ surprised everyone though, by putting together a winning streak and returning to the UFC in 2014, where he further stunned fans by reeling off four wins in a row to somehow climb back into title contention.
However, Arlovski then hit a serious slide, losing five bouts in a row. Given that the final one, against Marcin Tybura, came when the Belarusian had turned 38 years old, it looked like his career was surely over for good this time.
Incredibly, though, Arlovski has continued to truck on, has won more fights than he’s lost in the years that have followed, and is somehow currently riding a four-fight win streak despite turning 43 in February. Even stranger is the fact that he seems more durable right now than he did in his prime!
#3. Randy Couture – former UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champion
The UFC’s original defier of Father Time, few fighters have ever achieved the kind of success that Randy Couture did at an advanced age. In fact, it’s highly likely that no older fighter will ever match his achievements again.
Couture debuted in the UFC back in the promotion’s early days, defeating Tony Halme and Steven Graham to claim UFC 15’s heavyweight tournament in 1997. Even then he wasn’t a spring chicken. ‘The Natural’ turned 34 years old a month after the event.
From there, the former Olympic wrestler became the first fighter to ever defeat Vitor Belfort, claimed the heavyweight title by unseating Maurice Smith, left the UFC for a period, and then stunned everyone by returning at the age of 37 to reclaim the title from the much younger Kevin Randleman.
When ‘The Natural’ finally lost his title to Josh Barnett in 2002 and then failed to defeat Ricco Rodriguez for it after Barnett vacated later that year, it looked like his time was finally up. After all, he was almost 40 at that stage.
Somehow, though, Couture’s best years were only just beginning. Rather than retire, he dropped to 205 pounds and defeated the weight class’ top two fighters, Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz, claiming the light heavyweight title and becoming the first man over the age of 40 to win UFC gold.
The fact that he retired from MMA in 2006 and then returned a year later at the age of 43 to win the heavyweight title for the third time, defeating Tim Sylvia, only added to his legend. When Couture finally stepped away from the octagon in 2011, he was just months away from his 48th birthday.
These days, ‘The Natural’ is persona non grata with the UFC thanks to his various feuds with the promotion’s management, but it’s impossible to take away his accomplishments, and it’s hard to imagine anyone topping them in the future.
#2. Aleksei Oleinik – UFC heavyweight
The oldest fighter currently competing on the UFC’s roster, Aleksei Oleinik, is not only thriving at the age of 44, but he’s also shown no signs of really slowing down yet, making him a fighter who is truly defying Father Time.
What makes Oleinik so unique is the fact that unlike many of the fighters who were able to fight at an advanced age, Randy Couture included, he didn’t start his career in MMA at a later stage in his life.
Incredibly, ‘The Boa Constrictor’ first fought professionally in his home country of Ukraine back in 1996 at the age of just 29. To say that the fact that he’s still competing today, some 16 years later, is insane would be a major understatement.
It’s not like Oleinik has ever taken lengthy periods away from fighting, either. By the time he signed with the UFC in 2014 following a win over Mirko Cro Cop, he held a ludicrous record of 51-9-1, making him by far the most experienced fighter in the promotion’s history.
Since then, Oleinik has been largely successful, putting together an impressive octagon record of 9-7. He’s beaten highly-rated fighters like Fabricio Werdum and Mark Hunt, and is the only fighter in UFC history to submit his opponents with an Ezekiel choke, something he’s managed to do twice.
How much longer ‘The Boa Constrictor’ can compete at the top is anyone’s guess, but he still looks to be in excellent shape. Judging by his recent win over Jared Vanderaa, he’s more than capable of fighting into his late 40’s.
#1. Glover Teixeira – UFC light heavyweight champion
When Glover Teixeira defeated Jan Blachowicz to win the UFC light heavyweight title in late 2021, he defied Father Time in the process. Incredibly, the Brazilian had turned 42 years old two days before his victory, making him the second oldest first-time champion in the promotion’s history in the process.
Unbelievably, Teixeira is arguably on the best run of his entire career right now despite his advanced age. He’s won his last six fights, finishing five of them before the final buzzer, and hasn’t lost since the summer of 2018, when he was outpointed by Corey Anderson.
It seems crazy to say this now, but that bout seemed to suggest that Teixeira was winding down and wouldn’t be able to compete at the top of the 205-pound division for much longer.
At that stage, the Brazilian had already been fighting in the UFC for six years, but his MMA career dated back much further than that – to 2002, to be exact. After earning a title shot at Jon Jones in 2014 and falling to the champion via unanimous decision, it felt like he’d probably reached his peak.
To see him down a champion who’d looked as good as Blachowicz had done coming into that fight, then, was genuinely stunning. It made Teixeira into one of the most unlikely champions in UFC history.
Whether he can continue to hold onto his title in the near future against dangerous contenders like Jiri Prochazka is another thing entirely. For now, it seems like he’s not ready to leave the top of the division yet, meaning Father Time is going to have to wait a little longer.
