The UFC Men's Bantamweight Title: A Visual History

On April 9, the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s most glaring piece of unfinished business will be resolved — knock on wood.

When Aljamain Sterling and Petr Yan take the cage for the co-main event of UFC 273 next Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida, it will have been 13 months since their first meeting at UFC 259. On that night last March, a competitive fight that appeared to be gradually going in favor of incumbent champ Yan ended in chaos when Yan stunned the grounded Sterling with an illegal knee. “Aljo” became the first fighter in UFC history to win an undisputed title via disqualification, both men were clearly disappointed by the result, and an immediate rematch was the obvious next move.

It was not to be. Sterling’s ongoing injury issues necessitated neck surgery and a lengthy recuperation, leading the UFC to create an interim title, which Yan now holds after defeating Cory Sandhagen last October. Over a year later, the title is still in limbo, a once-respectful rivalry has descended into insult-laden bickering and everyone involved seems extremely ready to settle this thing and move on. In fact, the promotion has practically done so already, even going so far as to adorn Yan’s interim belt with one of the stones that signify a successful title defense. If next week’s unification bout falls through for any reason involving Sterling, it isn’t hard to picture the UFC stripping him of the title outright.

If there is any bright side to this quagmire, it is that the rest of the bantamweight picture has had plenty of time to sort itself out, and whoever emerges with the unified belt on April 9 will have his work cut out for him. Henry Cejudo, whose surprise retirement created the vacancy that led to Yan winning the belt in the first place, remains on the sidelines, and several top contenders have fallen off over the past year, but others have stepped up, including Merab Dvalishvili, Marlon Vera and Yadong Song.

Perhaps most shocking of all the developments in the bantamweight division since Sterling and Yan’s first fight is the resurgence of Jose Aldo. The former featherweight great was an afterthought a year ago; having lost to Yan for the vacant title in a matchup he frankly didn’t deserve, the conventional wisdom seemed to indicate that Aldo was done as a top contender. Instead, he has strung together three straight convincing wins over Top 10 fighters and could easily be next up for the winner of next weekend’s grudge match.

Here is the history of the UFC men’s bantamweight title and the times it was won, lost or defended. Interim title fights are omitted, other than the ones involving Renan Barao, since he was promoted to undisputed champ without a title unification bout.

Sherdog.com/Ben Duffy illustration