What a difference two years make.
With his grisly rear-naked choke finish of Joseph Benavidez at UFC Fight Night 172 on Saturday, Deiveson Figueiredo put a figurative stranglehold on an Ultimate Fighting Championship men’s flyweight division that once seemed in danger of being closed down entirely. With a second definitive win over the No. 2 man in the division—and a successful trip to the scale this time—“Deus da Guerra” can now enjoy the view from the top for a little while as the next contender is sorted out.
Of course, men’s flyweight has not merely survived but reinvented
itself. For the first six years of its existence, the division was
all but synonymous with Demetrious
Johnson, who won the inaugural title and then proceeded to
defend it an unprecedented 11 straight times. During that reign,
flyweight struggled, as the division garnered a reputation for
being unmarketable and its king for being boring—somewhat unfairly,
as only four of his challengers managed to hear the final horn.
When Henry
Cejudo upset the champ in August 2018, “Mighty Mouse” decamped
for One Championship and Cejudo expressed his plan
to win bantamweight title, it looked quite likely that the UFC
might shutter the division. At one point, there were as few as a
dozen flyweights left on roster.
As we say, though, what a difference two years make. Cejudo did eventually set down the flyweight title, but not before becoming the first man to hold and defend two UFC belts simultaneously. And the division itself, once the object of conventional wisdom that “the little guys can’t finish a fight,” has seen its belt contested now in three straight fights that ended in vicious stoppages. In particular, Figueiredo’s performance on Saturday, which included three one-punch knockdowns and a technical submission that was viscerally uncomfortable to see, may be one of the most breathtakingly violent title fight wins in UFC history.
Here is the history of the UFC men’s flyweight title and the times it was won, lost or defended. It tells the story of a division moving out from the shadow of an all-time great and into a savage new chapter.
With his grisly rear-naked choke finish of Joseph Benavidez at UFC Fight Night 172 on Saturday, Deiveson Figueiredo put a figurative stranglehold on an Ultimate Fighting Championship men’s flyweight division that once seemed in danger of being closed down entirely. With a second definitive win over the No. 2 man in the division—and a successful trip to the scale this time—“Deus da Guerra” can now enjoy the view from the top for a little while as the next contender is sorted out.
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As we say, though, what a difference two years make. Cejudo did eventually set down the flyweight title, but not before becoming the first man to hold and defend two UFC belts simultaneously. And the division itself, once the object of conventional wisdom that “the little guys can’t finish a fight,” has seen its belt contested now in three straight fights that ended in vicious stoppages. In particular, Figueiredo’s performance on Saturday, which included three one-punch knockdowns and a technical submission that was viscerally uncomfortable to see, may be one of the most breathtakingly violent title fight wins in UFC history.
Here is the history of the UFC men’s flyweight title and the times it was won, lost or defended. It tells the story of a division moving out from the shadow of an all-time great and into a savage new chapter.
Ben
Duffy/Sherdog.com illustration
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