For a few years now, I’ve been recording how many successful title defenses the reigning UFC champions had made at any one point in promotional history, to get an idea of how dominant each crop of champions has been throughout the years.

For example, if there were 5 simultaneously-reigning UFC champions who had a combined 10 successful defenses between them, their average is 2. If 4 simultaneously-reigning UFC champions had a combined 2 successful defenses, their average is 0.5.

I gathered this data for every point in UFC history (after championships as we know them were introduced in 1997) and plotted the results on the graph below.

Today, our 11 reigning champions hold a combined 12 successful defenses, giving them an average of 1.09 successful defenses each.

That figure has dropped by 58% since the start of the decade, with May 2019 recording the least-dominant crop of champions in over 11 years.

In fact, Amanda Nunes’ victory over Germainde de Randamie earlier this month was the first time a champion had made it to five successful defences since May 2017 (Joanna Jędrzejczyk), whilst no male champion has reached that mark since September 2014.

Statistically speaking, the most dominant crop of champions in UFC history (pictured below) reigned between the 25th of May 2013 and the 6th of July 2013. The 9 reigning champions at that time had made 35 combined successful title defenses between them- an average of 3.89 successful title defenses each.

This crop of champions combined for nearly 3 times the number of successful title defenses today’s batch of champions hold, despite having two reigning champions fewer.

Having the likes of Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes and Henry Cejudo simultaneously champion two weight divisions since 2016 hasn’t helped matters, as none of this quartet have attempted to defend both titles, essentially putting one belt on ice.

But even without the champ-champs hampering proceedings, there is no comparison between 2013’s champions’ success and that of today’s.

Has the sport developed to such an extent where it’s too competetive to reign supreme? Do fighters today value money-fights over lengthy title reigns? Has USADA had any sort of impact?

It’s hard to say, but the good news is that mathematically it’s unlikely that this figure can fall much further.