The 5 Weirdest Records in MMA History

At UFC 239 in 2019, Jorge Masvidal sprinted across the cage and landed a flying knee flush on Ben Askren’s chin before the challenger had thrown a single strike. Askren was out cold five seconds into the fight — the fastest knockout in UFC history, shaving a full second off Duane Ludwig’s old record. Masvidal later admitted the run-and-knee had been drilled in the gym for months.

In 2000, Royce Gracie demanded special rules for his PRIDE bout with Kazushi Sakuraba: unlimited 15-minute rounds, no judges, a winner only by submission or a corner throwing in the towel. After ninety brutal minutes — six full rounds — Gracie’s corner finally surrendered. It remains the longest fight in major MMA history, and it earned Sakuraba his nickname, “The Gracie Hunter,” the man who beat four members of the legendary family.

Modern stars retire with 25 or 30 pro bouts. Travis “The Ironman” Fulton had 322. Fighting from the mid-1990s on, often several times a month — 38 times in 1998 alone — he piled up a barely believable 257 wins. Both are all-time records no contemporary fighter will ever come close to touching.

In a young man’s sport, Randy Couture won UFC gold at an age when most fighters are long retired, holding the heavyweight title and competing into his late 40s. Glover Teixeira later became the oldest first-time champion in UFC history, winning the light heavyweight belt at 42 — proof that occasionally the calendar just doesn’t matter.

Jon Jones retired widely regarded as the greatest of all time with a single blemish on his record: a 2009 disqualification against Matt Hamill. The catch? Jones was dominating, and he was DQ’d for “12-to-6” downward elbows — a strike the sport banned for murky reasons and then, in 2024, made legal again. The only loss on the GOAT’s record is for a move that isn’t even illegal anymore.