Mailbag: What do the stats tell us about who wins title rematches like UFC 316?

Merab Dvalishvili won the first fight against Sean O'Malley, but who do the stats favor in UFC title fight rematches? (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)

Jeff Bottari via Getty Images

How often does the loser of the first fight actually win a title fight rematch, and what does that tell us about Sean O’Malley’s chances to get revenge against Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 316? Plus, has the UFC outgrown the need to listen to fans?

All that and more in this week’s mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @benfowlkesmma or @benfowlkes.bsky.social.

@justlikelasagna: Learn us a little bit about rematches in title fights and what that says about Suga Sean's chances this weekend.

I’m afraid it’s not great news for Sean O’Malley. I went through these numbers with the help of Michael Carroll from UFCStats.com last year ahead of the Alex Pereira vs. Jiri Prochazka rematch. In title fight rematches, the winner of the first fight ends up winning the second fight 63.2% of the time.

Of course, that was in the summer of 2024. And Pereira won the rematch with Prochazka, which nudged the percentage a little higher. And then Dricus du Plessis won his rematch with Sean Strickland, which nudged it even further.

Point is, the winner of the first title fight usually wins the second. In lighter weight classes, where one-punch power seems to be less of a factor, the stats favor the initial winner even more.

A few years back, our beloved Uncrowned editor-in-chief Shaheen Al-Shatti crunched the numbers ahead of the Francis Ngannou vs. Stipe Miocic rematch. He found that divisions above 170 pounds were much more likely to see a reversal of fortunes. Divisions under 170 pounds, which would include the men’s 135-pound class where Saturday’s rematch takes place? The loser of the first fight won the second meeting just 12% of the time. Which is to say … yikes.

@EyeofMihawk: Is the UFC at all susceptible to fan pressure? The petition circulating to strip Jon Jones, everyone and their mother saying Yair doesn’t deserve the title shot, give it to Evloev and make Lopes-Yair — is there a snowball’s chance in hell they listen?

Short answer: No. I don’t think the UFC is very susceptible to fan pressure right now. It is, however, susceptible to money pressure. If the people who fill those UFC coffers — talking about TV rights partners, the cities paying those site fees to bring UFC events to town, to a much lesser extent maybe even sponsors — start voicing some concerns about where things are headed, then we might see a change.

The issue is that the UFC and its parent company TKO have figured out so many ways to insulate the business from fluctuations in fan interest. They get paid whether we watch these Fight Nights or don’t. They get paid even if we don’t buy the pay-per-views or shell out for tickets. Between the site fees and the rights deals, the UFC rakes in money just for putting on an event — any event. This has very predictably skewed the incentive structure away from giving the fans what they want.

Can that change? Sure, if fans get fed up enough that these other stakeholders start to feel the pinch. But even then it would take a good long while for this giant oil tanker of a company to steer for a new course.

@NeedXtoseePosts: After the outpouring of love for Jordan Breen this week could you share what he meant to the wider MMA community

It’s too much to get into in this meager space, but Jordan Breen was a walking encyclopedia of MMA knowledge. He somehow knew as much about what was going on in the UFC as he did about third-tier Japanese promotions and upcoming Senegalese featherweights. It wasn’t like he was doing it to impress anybody, either. He just knew it because he was passionate about the sport and it made sense to him.

His radio show on Sherdog was also a bastion of realness at a time when there was almost zero media coverage of MMA. Now we’re groaning under the weight of so many podcasts and satellite radio shows and constant social media content producers talking MMA and trying to cozy up to whoever’s paying. Breen’s show was for hardcore fans who wanted to cut through the bull. It was one of a kind. And so was Jordan.

@INCagefighting: Who gets a more competitive fight out of Kayla. Julie or Rocky?

I think it’s probably Julianna Peña, but not by much. That’s mostly because I think Kayla Harrison is a big problem for both of them. She’s a big problem for basically everybody at women’s bantamweight right now, honestly.

Harrison’s ability to take over a fight right away and dictate every aspect of it gives her such an advantage. To beat her, you either need to have to ability to force her into more uncomfortable territory or else find the gaps exposed by her own aggression.

She’s not unbeatable by any means. But so far it seems like the biggest threat to her reign of terror is either the scale (making 135 pounds isn’t easy for her) or overall career-related attrition (her lone professional loss came when she fought five times in 13 months). A rested, healthy Harrison is a human wood-chipper in this division.

@Jietzsche: This Jones thing- It’s so out of character for UFC to meet exorbitant pay demands & treat a difficult “contractor” with effusive deference. So what gives? Is it the upcoming tv deal, lingering Ngannou pettiness, the criticism that will come if they botch another superfight..or??

I have a hard time thinking it’s all due to the looming prospect of a new TV deal for the UFC. If you’re telling me that the UFC decided to hold off on the good stuff for an entire year just so it can use it as a bargaining chip to negotiate a new broadcast rights deal, I’d say that’s as far down the road as the UFC has ever planned when it comes to matchmaking.

If Jon Jones was ready and willing to fight, it would have been booked and announced already. Intentionally keeping him on the shelf at this stage of his career (and with his track record of getting himself into trouble when those hands become idle too long) would be extremely dumb and risky. Windows of opportunity do not stay open for long in fight sports. If you have a chance to make a big fight, you make it now. Later may never come, for a vast array of reasons.

Plus, what you're essentially talking about here is a conspiracy theory. What, UFC executives told Jones to go lay low in Thailand while it uses him to negotiate a new deal? And they told themselves that the person they could trust to keep the secret and be a reliable partner in all this is ... Jon Jones?!?

I think what’s going on is that the UFC doesn't have many good options if Jones won’t fight. The rest of the heavyweight division is pretty stagnant. About the only exciting thing you could do with Tom Aspinall, absent a title unification bout with Jones, is to match him up against someone like Alex Pereira, assuming he’d be willing to go up in weight.

But if it’s just a choice between waiting for Jones to get bored or giving up and doing Aspinall vs. TBD? I think the UFC doesn’t see enough downside to waiting and seeing.

Should Tom wait for a possible fight with John Jones at MSG in November or fight for the belt against Gane in Paris ? (If it was in his power of course)

At this point, I’d have to say Aspinall would be foolish to wait for Jones. We saw how that worked for Michael Chandler, right? Jones has done everything except explicitly say the words, “I’m retired.” He’s living his best life. He thinks maybe he’ll pop in and out of the sport when he feels like it. He has the wall of victory already framed and finished in his house. He didn’t leave any space for an Aspinall fight.

Maybe he’ll come back at some point (I think he will), but there’s no guarantee it’ll be for a heavyweight title fight against Aspinall. If the UFC offers Aspinall a choice to wait or fight someone else (assuming it would be for the undisputed title and not more of this interim crap), he should fight and get paid. You don’t want to still be calling out the same non-fighter two years from now. It’s embarrassing, and at this point we have a lot of data to back that up.