Biggest Upsets in UFC History: Top 10 Ranked by the Odds

UFC 162, July 6, 2013, Las Vegas. Chris Weidman won by KO (punches) at 1:18 of round two.

BestFightOdds lists Weidman opening at +165 and closing in a range of +200 to +210, with Anderson Silva around -230 to -260. That is the shortest price on this list, which tells you how much respect Weidman carried into the fight. It does not capture the shock of watching Silva, who had never lost inside the Octagon, clown with his hands down and get put to sleep by a left hook.

It mattered because it ended the most dominant title reign the sport had seen and started a run of champions losing belts in ways nobody saw coming.

UFC 278, August 20, 2022, Salt Lake City. Leon Edwards won by KO (head kick) at 4:04 of round five.

Edwards opened at +250 and closed between +260 and +300 per BestFightOdds, with Kamaru Usman closing around -315 to -380. The odds understate the moment. Usman had taken the first fight, and after Edwards nearly choked him in round one, the champion had controlled everything since, with less than a minute left on the clock.

Edwards walked him to the fence, feinted, and landed the left high kick that produced the most replayed knockout of the decade. A fight that was a lock for the champion through 24 and a half minutes became a title change in one second.

UFC 188, June 13, 2015, Mexico City. Fabricio Werdum won by submission (guillotine choke) at 2:13 of round three.

BestFightOdds has Werdum opening at +355 and closing at +365 to +370, with Cain Velasquez at -460 to -470. Velasquez was the interim champion's boss in the eyes of the market: a cardio machine who had never been outworked.

Werdum outlasted him at altitude. Velasquez faded, shot a desperate takedown, and gave up his neck. Werdum walked out as the undisputed heavyweight champion, and the Velasquez era, such as it was, never restarted.

UFC 217, November 4, 2017, Madison Square Garden, New York. Rose Namajunas won by TKO (punches) at 3:03 of round one.

Namajunas opened at +350 and closed at +500 per BestFightOdds, with Joanna Jedrzejczyk at -675 to -700. Jedrzejczyk was the undefeated strawweight champion and had spent fight week trying to rattle a challenger everyone assumed was too fragile for the moment.

Namajunas dropped her with a left hook, finished with punches, and then asked the crowd to be kind to each other. The fragile label went in the trash that night.

UFC 199, June 4, 2016, Inglewood, California. Michael Bisping won by KO (punches) at 3:36 of round one.

BestFightOdds shows Bisping opening at +600 and closing between +525 and +575, with Luke Rockhold as high as -1050 at the open and -750 to -800 at the close. Bisping took the fight on 17 days' notice, per CBS Sports. Rockhold had submitted him in two rounds 19 months earlier and said so at every opportunity.

Bisping clipped him with a left hook, dropped him again, and finished a champion who had barely bothered to put his hands up. After ten years in the UFC, Bisping became the first British champion, and he did it as a short-notice replacement.

UFC 193, November 14, 2015, Etihad Stadium, Melbourne. Holly Holm won by KO (head kick and punches) at 0:59 of round two.

Holm opened at +825 and closed in a range of +525 to +600 on BestFightOdds, with Ronda Rousey as steep as -1250 at the open and -750 to -900 at the close. ESPN's Reed Kuhn noted her price peaked at +1250 before late money crashed it to +525 at fight time. That late move is why she is fifth here rather than first.

Rousey was 12-0 and had been treated as unbeatable by the broader sports world. Holm boxed her, made her chase, and finished her with a left kick to the neck in front of a record crowd.

UFC 112, April 10, 2010, Abu Dhabi. Frankie Edgar won by unanimous decision after five rounds.

Per BestFightOdds, Edgar opened at +525 and closed at +620, with BJ Penn closing at -780. Penn was the dominant lightweight champion of the era and had not been seriously pushed at 155 pounds. Edgar was a small, fast wrestler-boxer most people had pencilled in as a stay-busy defense.

Edgar moved for 25 minutes, outlanded Penn and took every card. The decision was debated for about four months, until he beat Penn again, more clearly, in the rematch. Even for that second fight the market still had Penn as the favorite at -270 per BestFightOdds, which tells you how long it took people to believe in Edgar.

UFC 269, December 11, 2021, Las Vegas. Julianna Pena won by submission (rear-naked choke) at 3:26 of round two.

BetMGM's John Ewing told Action Network that Pena opened at +500 and closed at +700, with Amanda Nunes closing at -1200. BestFightOdds shows the same +500 opener and a closing range that topped out at +700. Nunes was the two-division champion in the middle of a reign Sherdog measured at 1,981 days, and she had been running through challengers without breaking a sweat.

Pena walked her down, outlanded her 74 to 36 in significant strikes in round two per BetMGM's numbers, took her back and choked her out. Nunes won the rematch, but the aura never fully came back.

UFC 173, May 24, 2014, MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas. TJ Dillashaw won by TKO (head kick and punches) at 2:26 of round five.

Dillashaw opened at +305 and drifted all the way to a closing range of +675 to +710 on BestFightOdds, with Renan Barao at -910 to -1000. Sherdog's betting column lists the close at +710 and -910, and ESPN's Reed Kuhn ranks it the biggest title-fight upset ever by closing odds. Barao had not lost in nine years and was being discussed as the pound-for-pound best.

Dillashaw dropped him in the first round and then did it for 22 more minutes, switching stances, moving angles, and making a great champion look slow. The fifth-round finish was almost a formality. It was not a lucky punch. It was a beatdown.

UFC 69, April 7, 2007, Houston. Matt Serra won by TKO (punches) at 3:25 of round one.

Sherdog's betting coverage lists Serra at +700 and Georges St-Pierre at -1000, the steepest favorite price on this list. BestFightOdds' archive does not reach back to 2007, so there is no cross-book closing range on record. Serra had earned the title shot by winning a comeback season of The Ultimate Fighter. St-Pierre had just dominated Matt Hughes for the belt and was being talked about as the future of the sport.

Serra, giving up height and reach, walked forward, landed a right hand behind the ear, and St-Pierre never recovered. A year later St-Pierre took the belt back with knees to the body and went on to one of the greatest careers in MMA history. Serra went 2-3 the rest of the way. That contrast is exactly why this is number one: a true one-night miracle against the best welterweight ever, at a price the market had already called a mismatch.