On February 1 former UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya will fight in the main event versus Nassourdine Imavov. Adesanya will attempt to fall into a trend that has happened to other big-name fighters and former champions and that is once these MMA athletes have lost a big fight, they begin to fall in a downward trend which sometimes end their fighting careers.
In 2020 Adesanya was undefeated and was considered by many to be the greatest middleweight UFC fighter in history. Undefeated and having beaten every contender in his division, the middleweight champ decided to move up a division and try to wrest the light heavyweight title from Jan Blachowicz only to lose his first pro MMA fight by unanimous decision.
He would return to his original division and reel off three straight victories before meeting up with Alex Pereira who he had fought in kickboxing years before not once but twice losing one of those fights by knockout. Now with both fighters in the UFC, history repeated itself and Pereira scored a TKO over Adesanya to win the title. In almost an immediate rematch, Adesanya returned the favor and scored a knockout. Since then, Pereira has only gotten better and won the light heavyweight title.
As for Israel Adesanya, since that Pereira fight, he has lost his last two. First to Sean Strickland and once again lost his belt then almost a year later in 2024 he lost do Dricus Du Plessis by submission after dropping a decision in the earlier title match. In this next bout he is facing Nassourdine Imavov who has lost four fights, the same number of losses as his challenger. Imavov has won three in a row and six of his last eight with one draw against Chris Curtis.
Imavov’s sole loss in the last eight was to Sean Strickland the same man who also defeated Adesanya. While the former middleweight champion used to be a super confident, arrogant and cocky fighter, another loss here may spin him into retirement. Some of the fighters that have fallen into this losing slide after losing a big fight or losing in a dramatic way are below.
- Chris Weidman. The former collegiate wrestler won the middleweight title by defeating the legendary Anderson Silva in a crazy knockout finish back in 2013 then won a rematch when Silva suffered a horrific broken leg. Weidman would raise his record to 13-0 when he was TKO’d by Luke Rockhold. Two more losses would follow and then Weidman’s career took a deep slide as he lost seven of his last 10 fights. In those 10 fights Weidman was knocked out six times and suffered one submission. One of those knockouts was an eerily familiar broken leg at the hands of Uriah Hall that happened even without any contact with Hall. Weidman has since retired and a TKO loss to Eryk Anders obviously pushed him into calling it quits.
- Anderson Silva. The losses to Weidman began a triage of losses for one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time. Silva was 33-4 before losing to Weidman and with that first knockout loss he would then lose five of the next six and make the decision to go into pro boxing. His last UFC bout was with Uriah Hall, and he was knocked out in the fourth round. That was his third straight loss and fifth in his final six fights.
- B.J. Penn. Penn might be the worst example of a fighter who fought too long and past his prime. Considered as one of MMA’s greatest fighters when he was in his prime, Penn was 15-5-1 when he defeated another outstanding fighter in Diego Sanchez. Penn’s next fight was a loss to yet another great fighter, Frankie Edgar. That put the wheels on Penn’s incredible losing streak as he would round out his career losing eight of his final 10 fights with one Jim Fitch draw in-between. More incredibly is that Penn lost his final seven fights concluding with a loss to Clay Guida. Many fans including myself questioned why UFC President Dana White allowed B.J. to keep fighting when he obviously was not a good fighter anymore.
- Conor McGregor. I must mention the Irishman because while Nate Diaz handed him a devastating submission loss which he would redeem in his next fight albeit controversial, a knockout of Eddie Alvarez led McGregor into a fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov, perhaps the greatest martial artist ever. Khabib submitted McGregor and that led to two more losses in his next three fights including back-to-back TKOs by Dustin Porier. The last fight was on July 10, 2021, and McGregor has not fought since and there are no signs of his return to date.
- Dominick Reyes. When Reyes fought Jon Jones for the UFC light heavyweight title on February 8, 2020, he lost a unanimous decision that was extremely controversial. Many thought Reyes had rested the championship from Jones, but the decision went in favor of the champ. Following that close fight Reyes would lose the next three in succession. Despite winning his last two fights, including a TKO over a once promising Athony Smith, Dominick Reyes has not gotten back to a title fight.
- Rhonda Rousey. Once called the greatest female MMA fighter in the world Rhonda Rousey’s entrance into the sport and exit were completed in just a few years of competing. In just five short years, Rousey went from champion to being knocked out silly in her final two fights. With just 12 bouts in the UFC, nine came by way of submission and most were by her infamous arm bar. After beating just about every contender in the bantamweight division, in 2015 Rousey was matched up against Holly Holm. Holme was a boxing champion and would not fall prey to the arm bar and instead knocked out Rousey cold with a vicious head kick. A year later Rousey tried to make a comeback against then champion Amanda Nunes to take ever a more brutal beating than what Holm did to her, and she promptly retired after that fight. Rousey would go into pro wrestling, but her MMA days were over for good.
- Frankie Edgar. Frankie Edgar is one of the most courageous and tough fighters in UFC history. Having fought 36 times in his career, Edgar raised his record to 22-51 with a TKO of Yair Rodriguez and his career was looking fantastic. After losing to Brian Ortega next, Edgar came back with a victory over Cub Swanson then lost to Max Holloway. That was the beginning of the end for Edgar who would lose four of his next five fights with the only victory being a split decision over Pedro Munoz but by being knocked out in his final three fights that writing was on the wall that it was time to put his glove in the center of the octagon. In his final three losses, he was knocked out in the first round twice and in the third round to Marion Vera. The other two losses were to Cory Sandhagen and Chris Gutierrz in his final bout.
- Tony Ferguson. We finish with Tony Ferguson who might be the worst case in this topic. Once a very tricky and outstanding defensive fighter, was at the top of his game when knocking out Donald Cerrone in 2019. His next fight was against Justin Gathje and Ferguson was knocked out in the fifth round of the interim lightweight title bout. Ferguson has not won a fight since losing seven straight bouts with the last one taking place on August 3, 2024, when Michael Chiesa submitted Ferguson with a rear naked choke in the first round. Ferguson had battled some mental issues in the past and he vows to continue fighting. His record is currently 25 victories and 11 defeats.
