5 longest winning streaks in UFC history

UFC 220 last weekend saw two of the more impressive winning streaks in the promotion end when both Francis Ngannou – unbeaten over two years and six fights – and Volkan Oezdemir – unbeaten for a year and three fights – lost their respective title fights. Basically, all undefeated streaks tend to end at one point or another.

Some last for far longer than Ngannou’s or Oezdemir’s though, and go down in history, making the fighter on the streak into a true UFC legend. Here are the five longest winning streaks in UFC history.

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#5 Max Holloway – 4 years, 12 fights

Max Holloway's streak has taken him from the bottom of the card all the way to the top

The current UFC Featherweight champion and Hawaii’s favourite son, Max ‘Blessed’ Holloway is also on one of the most impressive win streaks in UFC history. Since the beginning of 2014, he’s torn through twelve opponents, going from men at the very bottom of the UFC roster like Will Chope and Clay Collard, to the very top of the tree with his two wins over Jose Aldo.

There are a number of different things that make Holloway’s winning streak impressive. Firstly, the consistency in which he’s fought – while other top fighters spend months on the shelf, Holloway’s averaged three fights a year since his streak began, although admittedly he’s slowed down slightly since moving into title contention in 2016. But his next title defence is already booked – against Frankie Edgar in March – and that alone makes him one of the UFC’s more active champs.

Secondly, his finishing rate is phenomenal. Of the twelve wins on his streak, he’s finished nine of them before the final buzzer – two submissions to go with seven wins by KO or TKO, too, proving he’s a well-rounded fighter and not just a knockout artist. At just 26 years old and seemingly improving with every fight, the scariest thing about Max Holloway is that this streak could go on for some time, moving him even further up this list.

#4 Demetrious Johnson – 5 years and 6 months, 13 fights

Despite 13 wins in a row, Demetrious Johnson remains somewhat unappreciated

Reigning UFC Flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson already holds one UFC record to his name – the most successful title defences in a row with a total of 11 – but he may well rise up this list if he continues to fight as well as he has been, totally outclassing his opponents for the most part every time he steps into the Octagon.

Some fans might criticise ‘Mighty Mouse’ for his strength of competition, mainly because Flyweight isn’t a glamour division like Middleweight or Heavyweight, but realistically, the fighters Johnson has been defeating aren’t weak at all – they’re simply not in the same league as the Mouse, who makes them look like amateurs in comparison. That’s not a knock on them – Johnson is simply that good.

With an upcoming Superfight against UFC Bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw looming, Johnson looks set to be faced with his biggest challenge yet. But if he can defeat Dillashaw – extending his run to 14 wins in a row – then surely even the casual fans would begin to recognise his greatness. As it is, he’s largely underappreciated, but it’s hard to argue his brilliance when you look at his phenomenal win streak.

#3 Jon Jones – 6 years and 4 months, 13 fights

Jon Jones has beaten everyone at 205lbs

Former UFC Light-Heavyweight champ Jon Jones actually ties with two other fighters with a thirteen-fight winning streak, but as his run technically ended when the California State Athletic Commission changed his July 2017 win over Daniel Cormier into a No Contest due to Jones’s positive drug test, he comes in at #4 rather than any higher.

Ignoring his PED issues – which is hard, I know – Jones has essentially cleared out what used to be the UFC’s glamour division.

Name one of the top 205lbers of the last ten years aside from older names like Ortiz and Liddell, and they’re probably on Jones’s list of victims somewhere. Mauricio Rua, Ryan Bader, Rampage Jackson, Lyoto Machida, Rashad Evans, the list goes on. ‘Bones’ has basically destroyed them all with his incredible offensive tools – a ridiculous reach, phenomenal grappling and some of the nastiest striking in the division.

Incredibly, had it not been for a refereeing gaffe, Jones would top this list with a seventeen-fight win streak over a period of just under nine years. Back in 2009 the future champion destroyed Matt Hamill, but found himself disqualified due to referee Steve Mazzagatti deciding the elbows that lead to the TKO were illegal downward ones.

It was the only blemish on Jones’s record until this summer, making him clearly one of the best fighters in MMA history.

#2 Anderson Silva – 7 years, 16 fights

Anderson Silva holds the UFC's longest winning streak at 16 fights

While he’s now won just one of his last six fights, legendary former UFC Middleweight champion Anderson Silva remains the holder of the greatest winning streak in UFC history. Averaging a fight every five months or so during his streak, Silva was simply unstoppable from his June 2006 debut – a knockout of the iron-chinned Chris Leben – to that fateful night in July 2013 that saw Chris Weidman knock him out to end the run.

Silva claimed the UFC Middleweight title in just his second UFC fight – a brutal knockout of longtime champion Rich Franklin – and he made a total of ten successful title defences during his reign. If Travis Lutter – dispatched via submission in February 2007 – had made weight, Silva would’ve had eleven successful defences, and of course, he also stepped up to 205lbs on three occasions, beating larger fighters in James Irvin, Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar.

Silva’s finishing rate during his winning streak was incredible, too – of his sixteen wins, just two of them went the distance – his fights with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu masters Thales Leites and Demian Maia. Outside of those, though? It was a masterpiece of violence, as Silva stopped ten fights with strikes and three via submission, with the other coming via a doctor stoppage. Despite his recent issues with PEDs and his string of losses since 2013, his incredible win streak means he’ll always be a contender as the greatest MMA fighter of all time.

#1 Georges St-Pierre – 10 years and 5 months, 13 fights

GSP is the greatest Welterweight in UFC history

Georges St-Pierre comes in above Demetrious Johnson and Jon Jones in the list despite having the same amount of wins because his win streak dates back to August 2007 – over a decade ago – when he bounced back from a shock loss to Matt Serra to outpoint top contender Josh Koscheck.

Granted, GSP did sit out for a period of four years – from November 2013 to November 2017 – but when he returned last year he re-affirmed his greatness by choking out Michael Bisping to claim the UFC Middleweight crown.

The Canadian legend has since relinquished his title and is now back on the shelf with an apparently bad case of ulcerative colitis – throwing his future into doubt as it looks like it could be some time until he returns, if ever – but even if he doesn’t, his win streak is unbelievably impressive.

Even ignoring his time away from the sport, you simply can’t fault the quality of opponents that GSP defeated during his run.

The names roll off the tongue as a who’s who of the 170lbs division – Matt Hughes, Jon Fitch, Thiago Alves, BJ Penn, Carlos Condit – all true greats and all defeated and outclassed by ‘Rush’. He might’ve faced criticism for his lack of finishes – in that 13-fight streak, Bisping was just his fourth finish – but GSP was the master of making great fighters look like amateurs. His win streak is likely to never be topped in the Welterweight division.