Longest UFC Winning Streaks Without A Title Shot

MMA is such a competitive, multi-faceted and unpredictable sport that putting together long winning streaks very rarely happen – particularly in the UFC, where many of the sport’s best fighters battle each other on a regular basis.

With that in mind, you’d think that compiling a lengthy unbeaten run inside the Octagon would lead to a title shot sooner than later, but unfortunately the record books show that’s not always been the case.

As you’ll see in the pages that follow, there has been numerous examples in recent years of fighters putting together impressive winning streaks in the UFC without ever getting the opportunity to fight the champion of their division.

This is the story of some of those fighters who came so close, yet so far away to winning the belt, some who stubbornly refused to lose until they achieved their dream, and others who to this day continue to add to their unprecedented, record-breaking winning streaks in the hope that one day the blood, sweat and tears that they’ve spilled in the Octagon will finally be rewarded.

Matt Brown

7 Fights (February 2012 – May 2014)

Matt ‘The Immortal’ Brown’s seven fight winning streak between 2012-2014 will go down as one of the most unexpected career resurgences in UFC history, as prior to that he was on the verge of being cut after losing four of his previous five bouts.

A sudden surge in form saw him stop six out his next seven opponents by either TKO or KO, defeating well-respected fighters like Stephen Thompson, Mike Swick, Jordan Mein, Mike Pyle and Erick Silva along the way.

One final hurdle awaited him – a title eliminator fight against Robbie Lawler at UFC On FOX 12, but alas that proved to be a step too far, with Brown losing out by unanimous decision.

Brown has never been able to replicate that form in the years since, slumping to another 1-4 record over the past couple of years.

George Sotiropoulos

7 Fights (April 2007 – November 2010)

It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when TUF season 6 competitor George Sotiropoulos put together a solid case for a lightweight title shot with seven victories in a row in the UFC.

Sotiropoulos showcased his grappling skills in the Octagon with 3 of his first 4 victories coming by way of submission and then started to prove his worth against increasingly meaningful competition, winning decisions against the likes of Joe Stevenson, Kurt Pellegrino and finally Joe Lauzon.

With no title shot in sight, Sotiropoulos went on to fight Dennis Siver, who was able to prevent him from taking the fight to the mat and punished him on the feet en-route to a decision victory.

Siver had exposed the Aussie’s striking weaknesses and suspect chin, which others would go on to exploit that, resulting in KO and TKO losses in his next two fights, and in total Sotiropoulos would lose five fights in a row before retiring.

Jim Miller

7 Fights (July 2009 – March 2011)

Between July of 2009 and March of 2011, Jim Miller compiled seven consecutive victories in the highly competitive lightweight division without ever fighting for the title.

During that impressive run the veteran campaigner took out a string of recognised names likes Mac Danzig, Duane Ludwig, Gleison Tibau, Mark Bocek and Charles Oliveira, though perhaps there wasn’t a big name star in there that would get him the attention he deserved.

Next up came former WEC champion Ben Henderson, and unfortunately for Miller he would become the next victim for ‘Smooth’, who was forging his own title run that would eventually lead to him becoming the 155lb champ.

Francisco Trinaldo

7 Fights so far (september 2014 – tbd)

Brazilian veteran Francisco Trinaldo is currently enjoying the best form of his career at the age of 38, but despite recording seven victories in a row in the lightweight ranks he still finds himself a long way off title contention.

His current winning streak so far spans a two-year period and includes wins over the likes of Ross Pearson, Norman Parke, Yancy Medeiros and most recently Paul Felder.

However, Trinaldo has yet to face a top 10 ranked opponent, and as such he’s still only placed at No.13 in the division at the time of writing, leaving him with a lot of work still to do to get to the belt.

Dennis Bermudez

7 Fights (May 2012 – July 2014)

After emerging as the runner up on TUF Season 14 in 2011, Dennis ‘The Menace’ Bermudez would emerge victorious in his next seven fights over a two year period, which at the time was the longest winning streak in featherweight history.

His most significant wins during that spell were undoubtedly his split decision win over future 145lb No.1 contender Max Holloway and a rear-naked choke win over veteran campaigner Clay Guida.

Placed at No.7 in the rankings Bermudez looked to extend his unbeaten run to eight fights against Ricardo Lamas at UFC 180, but just 3.18mins into the bout his streak was over as he succumbed to a guillotine choke.

Raphael Assuncao

7 Fights (August 2011 – October 2014)

Raphael Assuncao came within touching distance of a bantamweight title shot during his seven fight winning streak between March of 2011 and October of 2014, but in the end it just wasn’t meant to be.

His biggest win during that period came in October of 2013 when he earned a split decision win over TJ Dillashaw, but in a twist of fate, a few months later his opponent would become the bantamweight champ after taking Assuncao’s spot against Renan Barao when he pulled out due to a rib injury.

Given his recent win over the champion, Assuncao would have been the obvious choice to fight him next had it not been for the fact that the UFC opted to give Barao an immediate rematch instead.

Assuncao would go on to defeat Bryan Caraway later that year, but then suffered a long spell of injury woes that’d keep him out of action for over a year and a half.

Upon his return Assuncao finally had the opportunity to rematch TJ Dillashaw at UFC 200, but by that stage his rival had lost the title and would go on to defeat him by unanimous decision, bringing an end to Assuncao’s winning streak.

Neil Magny

7 Fights (Feb 2014 – May 2015)

Few fighters have been able to match Neil Magny’s work ethic over the past few years, established himself as one of the most active fighters on the UFC roster.

Between February and October of 2014, Magny fought and won five times in the Octagon– tying for the UFC record for most wins in a calendar year.

Magny would add a further two victories to that tally in early 2015, giving him a total of seven wins in just 15 months – something that no-one had expected from the former TUF competitor.

All good things must come to an end though, and for Magny that came before he got a sniff at a title shot, with Brazilian BJJ master Demian Maia proving to much for him to handle on the mat at UFC 190 in the summer of 2015.

Magny hasn’t been quite as active since then, though he has compiled a 3-1 run and is currently ranked in the welterweight division top 10.

Junior dos Santos

7 Fights (October 2008 – June 2011)

Junior dos Santos is a rare addition to this list in that he did actually win the heavyweight title, but he had to compile a seven fight winning streak first.

JDS was thrown straight to the lions in his UFC debut against future heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum, but he was up to the task and TKO’d him in just 80 seconds.

The tough fights kept on coming, facing Stefan Struve, Mirko ‘Cro Cop’, Gilbert Yvel, Gabriel Gonzaga and Roy Nelson, and he proved up to the challenge, managing to keep his winning streak going.

Dos Santos had done enough to earn a title shot against Brock Lesnar, but when the champion fell ill with Diverticulitis, the Brazilian was forced into a title eliminator against the heavy-handed Shane Carwin at UFC 131 in 2011, which he’d win by decision.

Having defeated a murderer’s row of heavyweight talent, Dos Santos finally got his reward, fighting new champion Cain Velasquez at ‘UFC On FOX 1’ and KO’d him in just 64 seconds with a record 8.8 million viewers watching live on FOX.

Gray Maynard

8 Fights (September 2007 – August 2010)

There were undoubtedly times when Gray Maynard must have felt like a title shot was never going to come his way as he compiled an eight-fight winning streak in the lightweight division.

The problem for ‘The Bully’ wasn’t the level of competition he was facing as his rise up the ranks included wins over guys like Frankie Edgar, Jim Miller, Roger Huerta and Nate Diaz.

The real issue was that Maynard’s wrestling based approach had resulted in a string of decision victories, with fans having labeling him as “boring”.

Nevertheless, Maynard’s persistence finally paid off when he was lined up to face Kenny Florian in a title eliminator match-up, which led to him notching up his eighth victory in a row – by decision of course!

Maynard paid the UFC back for fiinally granting him a shot at the title as he delivered two classic fights with the champion at the time, Frankie Edgar, though he’d draw the first and lose the rematch.

Jon Fitch

7 Fights (October 2005 – March 2008)

Like Gray Maynard, Jon Fitch was another fighter who appeared to be denied a title shot longer than his peers due to being branded as a ‘boring’ fighter.

Fitch was the epitome of the ‘grinding’ approach to fighting that’s loathed by many fans, but the results spoke for themselves as Fitch put together an eight-fight unbeaten run in the UFC over a two and a half year period starting in 2005.

There were surprisingly few big names attached to Fitch’s title run though. Early on he defeated the likes of Josh Burkman and Thiago Alves, but the last three wins of his streak came against Roan Carneiro, Diego Sanchez and Chris Wilson.

The sheer number of fights he’d won (at the time tied Royce Gracie for the most consecutive victories in UFC history) was enough to get Fitch a shot at Georges St-Pierre’s title, but despite a ‘Fight Of The Night’ performance he’d lose by unanimous decision.

Fitch would put together another five fight winning run after that, but was never granted a second title shot.

Donald Cerrone

8 Fights (November 2013 – May 2015)

Given that he’s a popular, marketable and entertaining fighter, it’s perhaps surprising that it took an eight fight winning streak before Donald Cerrone was given a title shot at 155lbs.

Due to his willingness to fight at the drop of a hat, ‘Cowboy’ racked up his eight wins in just 18 months – including back-to-back wins over Myles Jury and Ben Henderson in the space of two weeks in January of 2015.

His other victims on the list during this streak were equally impressive, including future lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez, Edson Barboza and Jim Miller.

Cerrone’s well-earned shot at the lightweight belt came against Rafael dos Anjos at UFC On FOX 17 in December of 2015, but shockingly it took the champion just 66 seconds to TKO him.

’Cowboy’ got back on the saddle soon afterwards, and is currently riding a three-fight winning streak – this time at welterweight.

Khabib Nurmagomedov

8 Fights so far (January 2012 – tbd)

Few fighters have done more to earn a title shot than the 24-0 Khabib Nurmagomedov, yet eight fights into his UFC winning streak the Russian star is still awaiting his opportunity to prove he’s the best lightweight on the planet.

Not only has ‘The Eagle’ defeated eight opponents in the Octagon, he’s absolutely dominated them, with his stellar grappling in particular proving too much for fighters like Rafael Dos Anjos, Gleison Tibau, Thiago Tavares, Pat Healy and most recently Michael Johnson to handle.

Injury woes have undoubtedly hampered Nurmagomedov’s progress, with a two-year lay-off between 2014 and 2016 meaning that it’s taken him five years to amass his eight victories in the promotion.

With current lightweight champion Conor McGregor currently on hiatus while his girlfriend gives birth to their first child, it’s likely that Nurmagomedov will have to fight at least once more before getting the title shot he craves.

Yoel Romero

8 Fights so far (April 2013 – tbd)

A veritable man mountain, former Olympic wrestling silver medalist Yoel Romero has been terrorizing the UFC’s middleweight division during his eight-fight winning streak since joining the promotion in 2013.

The quality of competition he’s faced during that time, and the manner in which he’s defeated them has been remarkable – TKO’ing Tim Kennedy with punches, KO’ing Lyoto Machida with elbows and knocking out Chris Weidman with a flying knee, not to mention winning a decision veredict against another top contender, Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza.

Controversy has followed Romero though. For example, his corner’s stalling tactics earned him an extra 30 seconds on the stool inbetween round after almost being finished by Tim Kenndy in 2014.

More troublingly, Romero tested positive for a growth hormone in 2015, though he successfully argued that was due to a tainted supplement, resulting in his supension being cut from two years to six months.

There’s now light at the tunnel for Romero though as he’s currently expected to fight 185lb champion Michael Bisping in 2017.

Max Holloway

9 Fights so far (January 2014 – tbd)

We are now down to the last two fighters on this list, and both share the unwanted record for having the most consecutive wins without a title shot in the history of the sport.

Despite his nickname, Max Holloway has yet to be ‘Blessed’ with a featherweight title shot, despite racking up nine victories in a row in two and a half years.

Holloway’s performances inside the Octagon have been first-class during that period, with top 10 ranked fighters like Cub Swanson, Jeremy Stephens, Charles Oliveira and Ricardo Lamas all coming up second best against the Hawaiian.

More than anything it’s logistical issues that have kept Holloway from title contention, particularly with current 145lb champ Conor McGregor having essentially put the division on hold by competing at 155lbs and 170lb instead this year.

However, at the time of writing breaking news has just emerged that Holloway’s wait may finally be over, with McGregor agreeing to vacate the title, resulting in the Hawaiian’s upcoming fight with Anthony Pettis being upgraded to interim title status at UFC 206.

Tony Ferguson

9 fights so far (October 2013 – tbd)

Like Max Holloway, lightweight star Tony Ferguson is another hugely talented fighter who is doing everything right with nine consecutive victories in the UFC, yet the title remains just out of arm’s reach.

It’s taken three years for ‘El Cucuy’ to reach this point, and it’s been a thrilling ride, as evidenced by the fact that he’s finished six of those nine fights inside the distance, and earned two ‘Fight Of The Night’, three ‘Performance Of The Night’ and one ‘Submission of The Night’ bonus along the way.

Among the scalps he’s claimed include Gleison Tibau, Josh Thomson and Edson Barboza, while his last fight at UFC Fight Night 98 saw him defeat recently deposed lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos.

With Conor McGregor now the champion at 155lbs, Ferguson finds himself playing the same waiting game as Khabib Nurmagomedov, and they may have to put their winning streaks on the line by fighting each other to establish a clear No.1 contender.