The Untouchables: Ranking the Longest Winning Streaks in UFC History
Published on August 9th, 2026Written By: Dave Manuel
On Saturday night in Philadelphia, Islam Makhachev walks to the Octagon with a number attached to him. Sixteen. That is how many consecutive fights he has won inside the UFC, a figure matched in the promotion's entire history by exactly one other man, and Anderson Silva set it thirteen years ago. If Makhachev beats Ian Machado Garry at UFC 330, the wall belongs to him alone. It is a strange record to chase, because a winning streak is the only achievement in sport that can be taken away by someone else on a single night, and because the men who hold the longest ones are rarely the men who won the most titles. This file counts them all: the eleven longest winning runs in UFC history, what each one was built on, and exactly how and where every broken one came apart. Two of them were never broken at all.
Sports-King Feature
The Longest Win Streaks
Sixteen straight is the record. One man is sitting on it right now, and he fights on Saturday. Every long run in UFC history, counted out on the wall.
THE ALL-TIME RECORD16
HELD BY ... ANDERSON SILVA AND ISLAM MAKHACHEVSET ....... JULY 2013, MATCHED NOVEMBER 2025
AT STAKE .. UFC 330, AUGUST 15A seventeenth mark would stand alone for the first time in thirteen years.
The Record16
Men Who Have Reached It2
Streaks Never Broken2
Live Right Now1
A winning streak is the purest thing a fighter can own and the most fragile. Titles can be vacated, rankings are opinions, and pound-for-pound lists are arguments. A streak is just arithmetic: win and it grows by one, lose once and it is gone forever, no matter how long it took to build. That asymmetry is why so few of these runs get past a dozen, and why the two men at the top of this wall sit so far ahead of the sport's other great champions. What follows is every run of twelve or more consecutive UFC victories, marked out the way a streak is actually experienced - one scratch at a time, with the day it ended written underneath.
01
ISLAM MAKHACHEV16
STREAK .... 16, ACTIVEBEGAN ..... SEPTEMBER 2016
SPAN ...... OVER 3,400 DAYS
LAST LOSS . UFC 192, OCTOBER 2015
DIVISIONS . LIGHTWEIGHT AND WELTERWEIGHTOne more mark and the wall belongs to him alone.
The only live streak on this list, and it goes to the wall again on Saturday. Makhachev has not lost since October 2015, when Adriano Martins knocked him out one minute and forty-six seconds into their fight at UFC 192. Everything since has been a straight line: a decision over Chris Wade in September 2016 to start the run, the vacant lightweight title against Charles Oliveira at UFC 280, defences against Alexander Volkanovski, Dustin Poirier and Renato Moicano, and then a move up a division to take the welterweight belt from Jack Della Maddalena at Madison Square Garden in November 2025 - a fight all three judges scored 50-45 and which made him the eleventh fighter in UFC history to hold titles in two weight classes. That win also ended Della Maddalena's own eighteen-fight winning run, which tells you something about the level. Sixteen marks on the wall, more than three thousand four hundred days without a loss, and one more win at UFC 330 makes the record his outright.
02
ANDERSON SILVA16
STREAK .... 16SPAN ...... JUNE 2006 TO JULY 2013
DAYS ...... 2,565
DEFENCES .. 10 MIDDLEWEIGHT TITLE WINS
DISTANCE .. ONLY 2 OF 16 WENT TO THE CARDSEnded by Chris Weidman, UFC 162, July 2013.
For a decade this was simply the record, unapproached and assumed unapproachable. Silva knocked out Chris Leben in forty-nine seconds on his UFC debut in June 2006, took the middleweight title off Rich Franklin in his second fight, and then did not lose for seven years. Ten successful title defences - eleven, had Travis Lutter made weight in February 2007 - plus three trips up to light heavyweight to beat James Irvin, Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar. The detail that separates his run from everyone else's is how it was done: of the sixteen wins, only two reached the judges, both against Brazilian jiu-jitsu specialists in Thales Leites and Demian Maia. The other fourteen ended early - ten by strikes, three by submission, one on a doctor's stoppage. Chris Weidman knocked him out at UFC 162 in July 2013 and the wall stopped at sixteen.
03
KAMARU USMAN15
STREAK .... 15SPAN ...... DECEMBER 2015 TO 2022
DAYS ...... 2,596 UNBEATEN
DIVISION .. WELTERWEIGHT THROUGHOUT
RECORD .... LONGEST SINGLE-DIVISION RUNEnded by a Leon Edwards head kick, UFC 278, with under a minute left.
Usman holds a record the two men above him do not: fifteen consecutive wins without ever leaving the welterweight division, the longest single-division run in UFC history. It began with a decision over Leon Edwards in December 2015 and it ended, with a symmetry nobody could have scripted, against the same man. Between those two nights he took the title, defended it five times, and beat Colby Covington twice and Jorge Masvidal twice. At UFC 278 he was four minutes from a sixth defence and a sixteenth win when Edwards landed a head kick with under a minute remaining in the fifth round. Two thousand five hundred and ninety-six days unbeaten, undone in the last sixty seconds available.
04
MERAB DVALISHVILI14
STREAK .... 14SPAN ...... 2018 TO DECEMBER 2025
STARTED ... 0-2 IN THE UFC
14TH WIN .. CORY SANDHAGEN, UFC 320
THAT NIGHT 20 TAKEDOWNS, A UFC RECORDEnded by Petr Yan at UFC 323 in December 2025, with the title.
Everyone else on this list arrived and started winning. Dvalishvili lost his first two fights in the UFC and then won fourteen in a row, which is a different kind of achievement and arguably a harder one. The run took him through Marlon Moraes, Jose Aldo and Petr Yan, then to the bantamweight title with a decision over Sean O'Malley at UFC 306, defences against Umar Nurmagomedov and O'Malley again, and a fourteenth win over Cory Sandhagen at UFC 320 in October 2025 in which he completed twenty takedowns from thirty-seven attempts, a UFC record for a single fight. Two months later Petr Yan took the rematch and the belt at UFC 323, ending the streak at fourteen. It is the least stylish run on this wall and possibly the most relentless.
05
KHABIB NURMAGOMEDOV13
STREAK .... 13SPAN ...... JANUARY 2012 TO OCTOBER 2020
CAREER .... RETIRED 29-0
13TH WIN .. JUSTIN GAETHJE, UFC 254
STATUS .... NEVER BROKENWalked away with it intact. One of only two men on this wall who did.
Thirteen fights, thirteen wins, no losses anywhere in a professional career that finished 29-0. Khabib's UFC run started with a submission of Kamal Shalorus in January 2012 and ended with a submission of Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 in October 2020, after which he took off his gloves in the centre of the Octagon and never came back. Conor McGregor, Dustin Poirier and Al Iaquinta are on the list of men he beat along the way. What makes this entry different from the four above it is not the number. It is that nobody ever took it from him - the streak did not end, it simply stopped.
06
GEORGES ST-PIERRE13
STREAK .... 13BEGAN ..... AFTER THE MATT SERRA UPSET, 2007
13TH WIN .. MICHAEL BISPING, UFC 217
GAP ....... FOUR YEARS BETWEEN FIGHTS 12 AND 13
STATUS .... NEVER BROKENThe only streak here with a four-year hole in the middle of it.
St-Pierre's thirteen began in the least promising circumstances available, immediately after Matt Serra had knocked him out and taken his welterweight title in one of the sport's great upsets. He responded by beating Josh Koscheck and then not losing again, working through BJ Penn and Nick Diaz among many others. The extraordinary part is the ending. After twelve straight wins he walked away from the sport for four years, came back at UFC 217 in November 2017, moved up a division, and submitted Michael Bisping to win the middleweight title and make it thirteen. Then he stopped again, permanently. Nobody else on this wall interrupted their own streak with a retirement and resumed it.
07
JON JONES13
STREAK .... 13BEGAN ..... BRANDON VERA, MARCH 2010
13TH WIN .. OVINCE SAINT PREUX, UFC 197
THE BREAK . A WIN OVERTURNED TO A NO CONTEST
CAREER .... 28-1, THE LOSS A DISQUALIFICATION
ALSO ...... UFC RECORD 16 TITLE FIGHT WINSThe only streak on this wall broken by a laboratory rather than an opponent.
This is where the counting gets contentious. Officially Jones sits in the group at thirteen, a run that began with a knockout of Brandon Vera in March 2010 and reached its thirteenth mark against Ovince Saint Preux at UFC 197. It was halted not by a defeat but by a result being taken away: his win over Daniel Cormier in their rematch at UFC 214 was overturned to a No Contest after he tested positive for a banned substance, the title was stripped and returned to Cormier, and the streak stopped there. He then won six more fights. The wider point is the one that makes his entry unlike every other on this wall - across an entire career he finished 28-1 with a no contest, and that single defeat was a disqualification, awarded when he threw illegal downward elbows in a fight he was comfortably winning. Jones has never been beaten by an opponent in the ordinary sense. He has been beaten by a rulebook and by a laboratory, which is either the greatest record in the sport or an argument about what a record is.
08
DEMETRIOUS JOHNSON13
STREAK .... 13SPAN ...... JUNE 2012 TO OCTOBER 2017
BEGAN ..... THE IAN McCALL REMATCH
BECAME .... INAUGURAL FLYWEIGHT CHAMPION
13TH WIN .. RAY BORG, UFC 216Ended in his next fight, against Henry Cejudo.
Johnson built his thirteen almost entirely with a belt on the line. The run started with the rematch win over Ian McCall in June 2012, made him the first flyweight champion in UFC history later that year, and continued through John Dodson, Henry Cejudo and Kyoji Horiguchi before finishing with a submission of Ray Borg at UFC 216 in October 2017 - a fight best remembered for the flying armbar off a suplex that ended it. For most of that period he was widely regarded as the best fighter alive pound for pound, in the division the promotion promoted least.
09
MAX HOLLOWAY13
STREAK .... 13SPAN ...... 2014 TO 2019
BEGAN ..... WILL CHOPE
13TH WIN .. BRIAN ORTEGA
ENDED ..... IN A LIGHTWEIGHT BOUTEnded by Dustin Poirier at UFC 236, a division above his own.
Holloway lost his UFC debut, went 4-3 across his first seven fights, and then won thirteen consecutive times. The streak carried him past Cub Swanson and Ricardo Lamas to the featherweight title and through Brian Ortega for the thirteenth. What ended it is worth noting: he moved up to lightweight to challenge Dustin Poirier for an interim title at UFC 236 and lost a decision. Take that fight out and he was still unbeaten at featherweight. Several of the streaks on this wall were ended by a division change rather than by a division rival.
10
NUNES, FERGUSON, VOLKANOVSKI12
AMANDA NUNES ..... 12, 2015 TO 2021SHE BEAT ......... ROUSEY, HOLM, SHEVCHENKO
TONY FERGUSON .... 12, 2013 TO 2019
HE BEAT .......... BARBOZA, DOS ANJOS, PETTIS
ALEX VOLKANOVSKI . 12, 2016 TO 2023
ENDED BY ......... MAKHACHEV, UFC 284Nunes is the only woman inside the all-time top ten.
Three at twelve, and the first of them changed her sport. Amanda Nunes won twelve straight between 2015 and 2021, beating Ronda Rousey, Holly Holm, Miesha Tate, Valentina Shevchenko and Cris Cyborg inside that run, and she remains the only woman in the all-time top ten for consecutive UFC victories. Tony Ferguson's twelve, from a submission of Mike Rio at UFC 166 through wars with Edson Barboza and Donald Cerrone, was the most consistently violent run of the modern lightweight era before Justin Gaethje ended it. Alexander Volkanovski matched the number at featherweight between 2016 and 2023, beating Chad Mendes, Jose Aldo and Max Holloway on the way to the title - and his streak has a particular relevance here, because the man who ended it was Islam Makhachev. Their meeting at UFC 284 in February 2023 snapped Volkanovski's run at twelve and took Makhachev's to twelve, which is the only place on this wall where one of these streaks directly consumed another. Below them sits Charles Oliveira at eleven, with Movsar Evloev and Carlos Ulberg both currently on ten and climbing.
11
THE COUNTING RULES?
A STREAK ENDS ON . A LOSS, A DRAW OR A NO CONTESTWHICH IS WHY ..... JONES READS 13, NOT 18
DIVISIONAL LISTS . ARE COUNTED SEPARATELY
WEC WINS ......... DO NOT APPEAR ON UFC LISTS
JOSE ALDO ........ 15 STRAIGHT ACROSS BOTHEvery list of this kind is really a list of one organisation's bookkeeping.
Three rules explain most of the arguments. First, an official UFC streak ends on any result that is not a win, which includes draws and no contests as well as defeats - the reason Jon Jones stops at thirteen despite never having been beaten by an opponent. Second, divisional streaks are tracked separately from overall ones, which is how Usman holds the single-division record at fifteen while sitting third overall, and how Silva, Jones, Holloway and Johnson can each hold a divisional mark of thirteen. Third, these lists count UFC fights only. Jose Aldo won fifteen consecutive fights across the WEC and the UFC over eight years and appears nowhere on the page above, because the promotion he started in was a different company. None of this is dishonest. It is just worth knowing that a record like this measures wins inside one organisation under one set of conventions, and that the fighters themselves are usually keeping a different count.
The Full Wall
Every fighter with twelve or more consecutive wins inside the UFC, and how each run finished.
| Rank | Fighter | Streak | Span | How It Ended |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Islam Makhachev | 16 | 2016 to present | Active |
| 2 | Anderson Silva | 16 | 2006 to 2013 | KO, Chris Weidman |
| 3 | Kamaru Usman | 15 | 2015 to 2022 | KO, Leon Edwards |
| 4 | Merab Dvalishvili | 14 | 2018 to 2025 | Decision, Petr Yan, UFC 323 |
| 5 | Georges St-Pierre | 13 | 2007 to 2017 | Never ended, retired |
| 5 | Khabib Nurmagomedov | 13 | 2012 to 2020 | Never ended, retired 29-0 |
| 5 | Jon Jones | 13 | 2010 to 2017 | Result overturned to a No Contest |
| 5 | Demetrious Johnson | 13 | 2012 to 2017 | Decision, Henry Cejudo |
| 5 | Max Holloway | 13 | 2014 to 2019 | Decision, Dustin Poirier |
| 10 | Amanda Nunes | 12 | 2015 to 2021 | Upset, Julianna Pena |
| 10 | Tony Ferguson | 12 | 2013 to 2019 | TKO, Justin Gaethje |
| 10 | Alexander Volkanovski | 12 | 2016 to 2023 | Decision, Islam Makhachev, UFC 284 |
The Arithmetic
The wall, ranked
Jones is the only fighter here whose run was stopped by a result being taken away rather than by a defeat. Across his whole career his sole loss came by disqualification.
How the broken ones ended
St-Pierre and Nurmagomedov both retired with their streaks intact, which no other fighter on this wall managed.
The Record Book
The Two Who Never Lost ItOf the eleven runs on this wall, nine were ended by another fighter. Georges St-Pierre and Khabib Nurmagomedov are the exceptions, and they left in opposite ways. Khabib finished with a submission of Justin Gaethje at UFC 254, removed his gloves in the centre of the cage and retired at 29-0, a perfect professional record. St-Pierre stopped after twelve, stayed away four years, came back once to submit Michael Bisping for a title in a heavier division, and stopped again at thirteen. Neither man has a defeat at the end of his line. Everyone else does.
The Streak That Ended a StreakWhen Makhachev beat Jack Della Maddalena at Madison Square Garden to reach sixteen and take the welterweight title, he was not the only man in the cage on a long run. Della Maddalena arrived with eighteen consecutive wins of his own across his whole career, fourteen of them finishes. One of the two had to end, and the judges scored it 50-45 across the board. It is a useful reminder that these numbers are not built against nobody: the fighters who extend them tend to do it by ending somebody else's.
Sixteen Fights, Fourteen FinishesThe statistic that still separates Anderson Silva from everyone else here is not the length of his streak but its shape. Across sixteen consecutive wins, only two went to the judges - against Thales Leites and Demian Maia, both elite grapplers who fought to survive. The remaining fourteen ended early: ten by strikes, three by submission, one on a doctor's stoppage. Nobody else on this wall finished at anything like that rate over a run of that length, and the front kick that knocked out Vitor Belfort remains the single most replayed moment of any streak here.
The Ones Still ClimbingMakhachev now owns the only live streak in the top ten, Dvalishvili's having ended at UFC 323 in December 2025. Below the twelves sit Charles Oliveira at eleven, and two active runs at ten - Movsar Evloev, still unbeaten as a professional, and Carlos Ulberg at light heavyweight. Neither is close to the top of this page yet, and the arithmetic of how few fighters ever get past a dozen suggests neither is likely to be. The record has been reached twice in thirty-three years. It has never been passed.
Sports-King's Note
Now for the fine printStreak lengths follow the UFC's own published record book, which counts consecutive victories inside the promotion only and treats any loss, draw or no contest as ending a run. That convention is the reason Jon Jones appears at thirteen, his run halted by a win over Daniel Cormier at UFC 214 being overturned to a No Contest rather than by any defeat; it is stated in the entry rather than buried here because it materially changes the ranking. His only career loss, in a record of 28-1 with one no contest, came by disqualification for illegal elbows in a fight he was winning. Fights contested in other promotions do not count toward these totals: Jose Aldo's fifteen consecutive wins spanned the WEC and the UFC across roughly eight years and therefore appear on neither the list above nor the UFC's. Divisional streaks are tracked separately by the promotion, where Kamaru Usman's fifteen at welterweight is the longest single-division run and Silva, Jones, Holloway and Johnson are level at thirteen in their respective weight classes. Makhachev's streak is live at the time of writing and stands at sixteen going into UFC 330 on August 15, where he defends the welterweight title against Ian Machado Garry; the figure will be out of date the moment that fight is scored. Dates, spans and the methods by which streaks ended are as recorded in fight results; day counts for unbeaten periods are approximate and measured between fight dates rather than between decisions. Where a fighter is still active, the entry says so rather than implying a run is complete.
One Last Word
Every mark on this wall took a training camp, a weight cut, a walk to the cage and fifteen or twenty-five minutes of somebody trying to take it away. Sixteen of them in a row is a decade of a person's life spent not losing. And the thing about the number is that it only ever moves one way for as long as you are perfect and then it stops forever, which is why two men have reached it, nobody has passed it, and one of them will find out on Saturday night whether he gets to be the first.
The hard numbers, for the road: the record for consecutive UFC victories is sixteen, held jointly by Anderson Silva, who set it between June 2006 and July 2013 with ten middleweight title defences and fourteen finishes, and Islam Makhachev, who matched it in November 2025 by taking the welterweight title from Jack Della Maddalena. Kamaru Usman is third with fifteen, the longest run inside a single division, ended by a Leon Edwards head kick with under a minute left at UFC 278. Merab Dvalishvili has fourteen, built after losing his first two UFC fights. Georges St-Pierre, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Jon Jones, Demetrious Johnson and Max Holloway are tied at thirteen, and Amanda Nunes, Tony Ferguson and Alexander Volkanovski at twelve. Only St-Pierre and Nurmagomedov never had their streaks broken. Jon Jones stops at thirteen only because a win was overturned to a no contest; his single career defeat, in a 28-1 record, came by disqualification. And Makhachev defends his title at UFC 330 on Saturday, one win from a record that would be his alone.
