The bantamweight division is one of the most electrifying divisions in MMA. The fighters are lean, fast, and dangerous, and that combination often leads to some historically good fights in the octagon.

Recently, at UFC 292, the UFC bantamweight power rankings shifted, and the division crowned a new champion.

In today’s piece, we’ll look at some of the best bantamweight UFC fighters of all time and rank them 1 to 10.

Who is the Bantamweight UFC Champion?

‘Suga’ Sean O’Malley claimed the title belt from Aljamain Sterling at UFC 292 following a TKO in the second round.

O’Malley waited patiently for his moment, and when Sterling stepped in to throw a right hand Suga caught him square on the chin and put him on the mat. The ensuing blows forced the referee to call the fight, and O’Malley was crowned the champ.

Suga has only lost one fight in his professional career, and the belief is that he could have won it had he not suffered an injury early in the first round. Now, he’ll get a chance to continue proving himself as one of the best bantamweight MMA fighters of all time while defending his belt.

Famous Bantamweight UFC Fighters

Dominick Cruz is one of the most famous bantamweight MMA fighters, having gone on perhaps the most impressive title run as the division's first ever champion in the UFC.

Cruz is currently 24-4, and at one point went on a 13-fight win streak while holding the belt for half of those fights. He claimed the bantamweight title twice, and is a legendary figure in the division, still fighting today.

The likes of T.J. Dillashaw, Petr Yan, Aljamain Sterling and Sean O’Malley have all been fighting at an elite level in recent years, and if you go further back, you’ll find famous figures in the likes of Renan Barao and Urijah Faber.

Who is the greatest UFC bantamweight of all time?

That award has to go to Dominick Cruz. He was destroying contenders for years and was unstoppable for almost a decade between 2008 and 2016.

While other fighters have had great title fights and defenses, nobody has done it like Cruz, and he’s still at it at the age of 38.

Honorable Mentions

Brazilian fighter Marlon Moraes was great in the division for a couple of years, and claimed four wins in a row that included a first-round finish against Aljamain Sterling and a submission win over Raphael Assuncao.

Moraes had a brawl with Jose Aldo, who had dropped down to bantamweight later in his career and came out on top in a split decision following a top tier battle.

Cory Sandhagen might creep into the top one day in the not so distant future, having regularly taken part in great fights and standing his ground. The only reason he’s not quite in the top ten is the losses he faced when he stepped into the octagon against some of the very best on this list.

Sandhagen has recently shown some fine form and is now on a three-fight win streak, which means he’s approaching the level where he can take a swing at some of the top ranked opponents once again. This time, perhaps he fares better?

Let’s move on to the top 10 list for the best bantamweight fighter of the UFC organization.

Ranking the Top 10 Greatest UFC Bantamweights of all time

10. Urijah Faber

Career Record: 35-11-0
Awards: 3x Performance of the Night, 1x Fight of the Night
UFC Belts: N/A
UFC Title Defenses: N/A

Urijah Faber, known as ‘the California Kid’, was one of the early bantamweights who emerged as a star in the UFC.

He came over to the UFC in 2011 and was thrown into a title fight with Dominick Cruz in just his second fight with the organization. He was this young kid with an entertaining fighting style, and the fight with Cruz went all the way to a decision. The fight was the first that had ever headlined a pay per view UFC event, and the fight itself was absolutely worthy of such an honor.

Despite never winning the bantamweight title, Faber did manage 10 wins in the division in the UFC. He was given four title shots but didn’t come out on top in any of those, and is therefore one of the better fighters the division has ever seen who didn’t hold the belt.

9. Joseph Benavidez

Career Record: 28-8-0
Awards: 4x Performance of the Night
UFC Belts: N/A
UFC Title Defenses: N/A 

While Joseph Benavidez never claimed a UFC title, he is one of the most entertaining fighters the bantamweight division has ever seen.

He fought at Flyweight and claimed the original title after a four-man tournament organized to decide the champion.

While he was a champ at Flyweight, he never quite got there at Bantamweight. That said, he did have some elite level finishes during the peak of his career, including deadly body shots, a couple of submissions and throwing some damaging hands.

Benavidez lost to some of the best fighters the UFC has ever seen, including two fights against Demetrious Johnson, the second of which went all the way to a split decision in a title fight.

He did the same against Dominick Cruz in what was the WEC before the merger. Again, one of those fights went to a split decision. He’s an underappreciated fighter for sure. 

8. Cody Garbrandt

Career Record: 14-5-0
Awards: 2x Performance of the Night, 2x Fight of the Night
UFC Belts: 1x Bantamweight Title
UFC Title Defenses: N/A

Cody Garbrandt came into the UFC in 2015 and very quickly worked his way into a title fight against Dominick Cruz.

Garbrandt fought five times in just over 18 months, going 5-0 and earning his shot at the title. In that fight at UFC 207, Garbrandt won by unanimous decision, making him the only fighter to ever take a title belt from Dominick Cruz.

Cody was able to knock Cruz down twice and claim the belt. Unfortunately, from that point onwards Garbrandt struggled. He lost the belt to T.J. Dillashaw in his first title defense and then lost four of his next five fights after that.

While his time at the top was short lived, the win over Cruz makes him one of the best, and certainly deserving of a top ten spot amongst the UFC bantamweight fighters.

7. Sean O’Malley

Career Record: 17-1-0 (1 NC)
Awards: 5x Performance of the Night, 3x Fight of the Night
UFC Belts: 1x Bantamweight Title
UFC Title Defenses: N/A 

Sean O’Malley’s rise to the top has been outstanding. He won the Ultimate Fighter competition in 2017, and since then has largely dominated his way through the division all the way to earning the title against Aljamain Sterling at UFC 292.

O’Malley has some elite finishes and a highlight reel that would sit amongst the very best. He recently added Aljamain Sterling to that highlight reel, knocking him out with a powerful right hand counter.

‘The Suga Show’ has some of the most precise and dangerous striking the bantamweight division has ever seen. He’s got the power to take a guy out with one punch, and his combinations and athleticism are off the charts.

Now the UFC bantamweight champion, there’s a good chance Sean O’Malley continues to climb this list.

As one of the best bantamweight UFC fighters right now, O’Malley will have several fighters desperate to have a crack at him. If he then starts to stack up title defenses, the sky's the limit for his legacy.

6. Petr Yan

Career Record: 16-5-0
Awards: 1x Performance of the Night, 3x Fight of the Night
UFC Belts: 1x Bantamweight Title, 1x Interim Bantamweight Title
UFC Title Defenses: N/A

Petr Yan exploded onto the scene in the UFC with six straight wins that earned him a title shot against the veteran Jose Aldo.

He had three knockouts and three unanimous decisions leading up to that fight, including a stoppage in the third round of a fight against Urijah Faber at UFC 245.

Yan went toe to toe with Aldo, and in the fifth round having really opened up Aldo’s face, the fight was eventually stopped while Yan was delivering a beatdown on the Brazilian down on the mat.

Petr Yan then lost that title in controversial fashion when he delivered an illegal shot against Aljamain Sterling, and since then he’s struggled to get back on track, with three losses in the ensuing four fights.

At his best, the Russian is one of the best, and still in the mix in the UFC bantamweight rankings.

5. Henry Cejudo

Career Record: 16-4-0
Awards: 3x Performance of the Night, 1x Fight of the Night
UFC Belts: 1x Bantamweight Title, 1x Flyweight Title
UFC Title Defenses: 2 

Henry Cejudo became just the fourth fighter in UFC history to claim belts at multiple weight classes simultaneously, making him one of the UFC legends.

Cejudo was at the very top in the UFC from 2017 to 2020, when he won in the second round of a title defense against Dominick Cruz. He had just become the first fighter to ever finish Cruz, one of the best the division has ever seen, and swiftly retired in the post-fight interview.

He’s a freestyle wrestler by trade, but his range of talent is insane. Wrestling, grappling, striking, he can do it all. Cejudo won two belts in less than six months, first claiming the Flyweight title over Demetrious Johnson, and then taking down T.J. Dillashaw in the first minute of the first round to add the Bantamweight belt to his collection.

After retiring in 2020 and spending three years away from the Octagon, Cejudo returned in 2023 where he was immediately introduced in a title fight against Aljamain Sterling. While he lost the fight, he is still considered one of the division's best. 

4. Aljamain Sterling

Career Record: 23-4-0
Awards: 1x Performance of the Night
UFC Belts: 1x Bantamweight Title
UFC Title Defenses: 3 

Aljamain Sterling has really been through it in the UFC, getting jeered and booed by crowds in his own backyards in recent years.

Sterling was crowned the champion of the bantamweight division following Petr Yan’s mistake in throwing an illegal strike. That set UFC fans on Sterling every time he stepped into the octagon ever since.

While it was a strange way to win the belt, Sterling did go on a five fight win streak to earn himself a shot at the title, including wins over Cory Sandhagen and Pedro Munhoz.

Following the controversial title fight, Yan and Sterling got a chance to settle the score in a rematch, and Sterling won again, only this time it was legit.

That said, the fight going to a split decision didn’t help his case. Fans felt he still hadn’t ‘earned it,’ so he went out and won two more title defense fights against T.J. Dillashaw and Henry Cejudo, growing as a fighter every time he stepped into the octagon.

Aljamain Sterling might not have won the belt in the most decisive way, but he certainly defended it well. Those title defenses put him amongst the top bantamweight UFC fighters in the game. Defending your belt three times is not easy to do.

Sterling now boasts a 23-4 overall record and is tied for first place for the UFC bantamweight title defense record, along with Dominick Cruz, T.J. Dillashaw and Renan Barao.

3. Renan Barao

Career Record: 34-9-0 (1 NC)
Awards: 1x Performance of the Night, 3x Fight of the Night
UFC Belts: 1x Bantamweight Title, 1x Interim Bantamweight Title
UFC Title Defenses: 3

Renan Barao was a part of the merger from WEC to the UFC, and quickly worked his way up to an interim title over Urijah Faber. Dominick Cruz was hurt, and so the interim belt was brought into play, and Barao claimed it with a unanimous decision victory over Faber.

Barao defended that title twice, and was eventually named the outright champion, defending that belt once too in his second fight against Faber.

At one point in his career Barao had won 32 straight MMA fights and was undefeated for almost a decade. In a way it’s a shame he fought a little longer than perhaps he should have, losing seven of his last eight fights in the UFC and tarnishing what would have otherwise been a pretty remarkable record.

Still, he is one of the all-time best bantamweight MMA fighters.

2. T.J. Dillashaw

Career Record: 18-5-0
Awards: 5x Performance of the Night, 3x Fight of the Night
UFC Belts: 2x Bantamweight Title
UFC Title Defenses: 3 

T.J. Dillashaw is one of the best bantamweight fighters in MMA history, without a doubt. His legacy was tarnished by the suspension he received in 2019 for use of an illegal substance, but outside of that, some of his performances were superb.

In his first title shot following a strong start to his UFC career, Dillashaw went into that fight against Renan Barao as the underdog. He was still relatively unknown and hadn’t beaten anybody of real significance, but stepped into the octagon against Barao and knocked him out in the fifth and final round.

Dillashaw went on to defend that title against Joe Soto, while claiming the performance of the night in the process. He would then defend it a second time in a rematch against Barao, becoming one of the greatest stars in the UFC.

He would eventually lose the belt in the third title defense against Dominick Cruz, but won it back again against Cody Garbrandt with a vicious right hook that put the defending champ on the mat.

All in all, three title defenses, 18 wins and some of the quickest, most impressive striking the bantamweight division has ever seen. Dillashaw is very talented, and deserves a spot near the top of this list of the best UFC bantamweight fighters to ever grace the UFC.

1. Dominick Cruz

Career Record: 24-4-0
Awards: 1x Performance of the Night, 5x Fight of the Night
UFC Belts: 2x Bantamweight Title
UFC Title Defenses: 3 

Dominick Cruz has one of the most impressive UFC bantamweight records in history and is undoubtedly the number one fighter on this list.

At one point, Cruz was 22-1, with the only loss he’d suffered in his career at that point coming against Urijah Faber back in the WEC in 2007.

When the WEC merged with the UFC, Cruz was one of the early stars. He was the initial champion of the bantamweight division, and successfully defended that title twice against both Faber and Demetrious Johnson.

Injuries messed with Cruz’s career throughout, and it was an ACL tear followed by a groin injury that eventually led to him having to vacate his belt.

It took him three years to make it back, and he made his comeback in 2014 in style, earning performance of the night in a victory over Takeya Mizugaki.

The following fight was a title shot against the current champ T.J. Dillashaw. Dominick Cruz won the belt back following a split decision after five rounds.

Cruz completed the trilogy against Urijah Faber with his third and final title defense, making him one of the most successful bantamweights in history.

It’s quite the spectacle to see that Dominick Cruz was as successful as he was despite facing numerous injuries throughout his career. Had he been healthier, his MMA record could be even better.

Cruz wins the title for the greatest bantamweight UFC fighter of all time, and his record and legacy are going to be tough to beat. The question is, who’s going to reach four title defenses and take the top spot?
Parameters for Rankings

These all-time UFC bantamweights have been ranked based on their accomplishments in the UFC. Factors such as performance against other all-time bantamweights have been considered, as well as titles held and title defenses.

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