Who is the Greatest Featherweight of All Time?
Although not having the lengthiest title history, Featherweight has seen some of the greatest champions in the history of the UFC. The four men who have held the Featherweight strap are all bound for the Hall of Fame: Jose Aldo, Conor McGregor, Max Holloway, and Alexander Volkanovski. With four of the greatest fighters of all time having held the belt, the discussion of who is genuinely the greatest Featherweight is a heated one. Today, we’ll determine who is the greatest Featherweight in UFC history.
Jose Aldo
The UFC’s inaugural Featherweight champion, Jose Aldo, was awarded the belt in 2010 following the UFC’s acquisition of the WEC. In his first UFC appearance, he defended his WEC title against Mark Hominick, being upgraded to UFC champion after the victory. He’d hold onto the belt until 2015, with successful defenses against names such as Frankie Edgar, Chad Mendes, Kenny Florian, and more. This is still the most successful reign as Featherweight champion, with Aldo holding the record for title defenses and consecutive title defenses with seven. He also holds the record for most UFC Featherweight title bouts, having fought for the gold eleven times. He was known for his excellent, devastating Muay Thai, using brutal body shots and leg kicks to dismantle his opponents. Winning the WEC title at 22, he rose to the top at a young age and remained there until retirement. In 2023, he was inducted into both the UFC and MMA Hall of Fame.
Conor McGregor
As most fans know, the man who dethroned Jose Aldo was Conor McGregor. Now easily the most famous MMA fighter on the planet, McGregor has transcended the sport. Aldo’s prior dominance made his one-punch knockout vastly more impressive and was what launched him into superstardom. While it’s impossible to deny McGregor’s importance to the sport, I don’t think he can be considered the greatest Featherweight of all time. Although he’s only one of four champions in the history of the weight class, he disappeared from the division as quickly as he arrived. He would never defend his belt, moving up two weight classes immediately after winning the title and ultimately being stripped due to inactivity. McGregor never returned to 145 after defeating Aldo and can only be considered an honorable mention here.
Max Holloway
Following McGregor’s vacating the belt, Aldo would win it back after defeating Frankie Edgar. Not long after, though, the next era of Featherweight would begin when Max Holloway defeated Jose Aldo for the title in 2017. He would rematch Aldo, defeating him again and firmly establishing himself as champion. Holloway would pick up two more defenses against Brian Ortega and Frankie Edgar, beating both in dominant fashion. In his bout with Brian Ortega, he’d set numerous Featherweight records, including the highest significant strike differential, most significant strikes landed in a fight, most significant strikes attempted in a fight, most total strikes landed in a fight, and more. These records would stand until he broke them in his fight with Calvin Kattar, setting even more records on top of the previous ones. Frankly, it’s nearly impossible for someone to come close to the number of records Holloway owns in the UFC. Holloway held the Featherweight belt from 2017 to 2019 until losing it to Alex Volkanovski but has continued to pick up impressive victories without the belt, including Arnold Allen and Yair Rodriguez.
Alexander Volkanovski
After defeating Max Holloway to win the title, they would immediately rematch, with Volkanovski securing another decision victory. After this, he’d acquire three more defenses, defeating Holloway a third time, then Brian Ortega and the Korean Zombie. From 2022 to 2023, he was ranked the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC. He holds the record for the highest striking differential in Featherweight history and the longest average fight time. One of the most well-rounded fighters of all time, Volkanovski has excellent speed and power in his hands, as well as fantastic grappling. On top of this, he’s one of the greatest leg-kickers of all time, holding records for the most leg strikes and leg kicks landed in a fight in Featherweight history. He took a massive risk, going up in weight to challenge Lightweight champion Islam Makhachev, and lost to him twice, but is still undefeated at 145 pounds. While his title reign will inevitably end someday, it's unlikely we’ll see another quite as dominant as he dismantled all his opponents other than Max Holloway.
Now, we must decide which of these three legends is the greatest Featherweight ever. From a fundamental standpoint, we can see how they fared against each other; Holloway has two wins over Jose Aldo, while Volkanovski has three wins over Holloway and one over Aldo. Unfortunately, this isn’t the most effective way of judging things; Aldo was no longer in his prime when he faced either of these men. Simply looking at wins and losses doesn’t tell the whole story: all three times Volkanovski and Holloway met have been hard-fought, tightly contested battles. Each man has many reasons to be considered the greatest of all time, but ultimately, I believe Jose Aldo is the greatest Featherweight in UFC history.
While Max Holloway holds nearly every record and wins over Aldo, it was Jose Aldo who opened the door for fighters like Holloway to earn these accomplishments. Before his entrance to the UFC, he was destroying legends like Urijah Faber and Mike Brown in the WEC, giving Featherweight legitimacy at a time when smaller weight classes were constantly overlooked. He was such a dominant champion heading into the UFC that they immediately made him their new champion after his debut. Even to this day, he remains the longest-reigning champion in the division's history and was still defeating top-tier opponents after losing the title. There is no discounting the dominance of Alex Volkanovski, but with the passage of time, Aldo’s dominance has been forgotten. Chad Mendes was undefeated when he first challenged for the title, Kenny Florian was a natural Middleweight and had a considerable size advantage, and Frankie Edgar was fresh off his legendary bouts with Benson Henderson. Not to mention, he scored all of these victories between the ages of 24 and 28, having won his WEC title at 22. Not only did Aldo pioneer the Muay Thai style in MMA, but he was one of the first fighters to make truly effective use of leg kicks, something we see nearly every fighter use today. Without Jose Aldo, the landscape of both the Featherweight division and MMA as a whole would be massively different, and for this reason, I believe he’s the greatest Featherweight of all time.
