Longest Tenured UFC Middleweights

Here is an ordered list of the 15 current UFC Middleweights that have been with the company the longest. (No Amateur TUF debut dates are counted). Do any names surprise you? Do the lengths of any of their careers based on their styles surprise you? Who from this list do you think will be the last to still be fighting for the UFC? Personally I was surprised to see that Whittaker has been around longer than Brunson, Jacare, and Hall. Also the inclusion of Antonio Braga Neto makes me laugh. Also interesting to note that Hall and Gastelum (future top 10 fighters) debuted against one another in a split decision and that they're still literally back to back in the UFC rankings nearly 8 years later. Another fun fact is that there was almost another tie with Tom Breese and Darren Till also debuting on the same night, but they just missed out on the top 15.  Let me know what you make of the list.


#1 Brad Tavares. Debut: 6/19/2010
#2 Tim Boetsch. Debut: 8/7/2010
#3 Chris Weidman. Debut: 3/3/2011
#4 Robert Whittaker. Debut: 12/14/2012
#5 Derek Brunson. Debut: 12/29/2012
#6 TIE (they even debuted against each other) Uriah Hall and Kelvin Gastelum  Debuts: 4/13/2013
#8 Jacare Souza. Debut: 5/18/2013
#9 Antonio Braga Neto. Debut: 6/8/2013
#10 Trevor Smith. Debut: 7/27/2013
#11 Zak Cummings. Debut: 8/28/2013
#12 Omari Akhmedov. Debut: 11/09/2013
#13 Krzysztof Jotko. Debut: 12/06/2013
#14 Sean Strickland. Debut: 3/15/2014
#15 Antonio Carlos Junior. Debut: 5/31/2014

I honestly thought that Jacare Souza had been with the UFC a little longer than that. He's been around a long time but if you had asked me when he made his UFC debut, I'd have guessed either 2010 or 2011.

I was shocked about Jacare as well for sure. Especially behind Hall, Gastelum, Whittaker, and Brunson. Also kudos as a British person for reading the American dates format without issue as an Englishman, and even bigger props for doing it without *****ing about it. No hate on those that do that though, I love bickering over national formatting differences, makes me laugh. 

@Drmaxis2

I've just got used to it! Obviously I prefer the British way as I think it makes more sense going date/month/year going in order from shortest to longest but I've learnt to live with it! It's the same with American spellings and American terms that are different as well such as pants = trousers, cell phone = mobile phone, soccer = football etc. By the way, we call your version of football "American Football".

#15 Antonio Carlos Junior was just released and Jared Cannonier (Debut: 1/3/2015) takes his spot at #15. 

Jacare was in Strikeforce before then so maybe that is why.

Jacare Souza has been released so everyone below him moves up a spot except for Jared Cannonier because Sam Alvey (if he's not soon to be released himself) is now back permanently at 185, so he slides in at #14 with a debut of 8/16/2014.

Update to my update: it has come to my attention that #2 Tim Boetsch has retired quietly, so everyone else below him also moves up a spot. Moving in behind Cannonier who is now at 14 with this news is a two-way tie at 15 between Darren Till and Tom Breese who both Debuted 5/30/2015.

Taking Braga Neto who hasn't fought in forever out moves Cannonier to 13 and makes for a tie at 14 for Till and Breese.  


Trevor Smith is out now too, apparently cut quietly in March 2020. After all of these updates I plan on making a post updating the master list after my notes here. 

* Edited at 05.24.2021, 3:18 PM ET *

#1 Brad Tavares. Debut: 6/19/2010
#2 Chris Weidman. Debut: 3/3/2011
#3 Robert Whittaker. Debut: 12/14/2012
#4 Derek Brunson. Debut: 12/29/2012
#5 TIE (they even debuted against each other) Uriah Hall and Kelvin Gastelum  Debuts: 4/13/2013
#7 Zak Cummings. Debut: 8/28/2013
#8 Omari Akhmedov. Debut: 11/09/2013
#9 Krzysztof Jotko. Debut: 12/06/2013
#10 Sean Strickland. Debut: 3/15/2014
#11 Sam Alvey. Debut: 8/16/2014
#12 Jared Cannonier. Debut: 1/3/2015
#13 TIE Darren Till and Tom Breese. Debuts: 5/30/2015
#15 Alessio Di Chirico. Debut: 4/10/2016

@Drmaxis2

The effort you put into this is awesome! I can imagine it must be a logistical nightmare trying to keep track of all of these fighters (this is the first I've heard about Trevor Smith being cut for instance, that flew right under my radar!)

Yeah I enjoy doing it out of curiosity about the results myself, so sharing it here seems like a no-brainer. As for the under-the-radar thing, yeah a lot of the time you only know way in hindsight (like with Tim Boetsch when somebody updated his wikipedia page based on info from a podcast he did) or Inferring a cut/retirement that wasn't mentioned publicly by either the UFC website updating to "former fighter" or just calculating how long it's been since somebody's fought and how likely it is they'll be back at all. 

#1 Brad Tavares. Debut: 6/19/2010
#2 Chris Weidman. Debut: 3/3/2011
#3 Robert Whittaker. Debut: 12/14/2012
#4 Derek Brunson. Debut: 12/29/2012
#5 TIE (they even debuted against each other) Uriah Hall and Kelvin Gastelum  Debuts: 4/13/2013
#7 Krzysztof Jotko. Debut: 12/06/2013
#8 Sean Strickland. Debut: 3/15/2014
#9 Jared Cannonier. Debut: 1/3/2015
#10 TIE Darren Till and Tom Breese. Debuts: 5/30/2015
#12 Misha Cirkunov. Debut: 8/23/2015
#13 Alessio Di Chirico. Debut: 4/10/2016
#14 Jack Hermansson. Debut 9/3/2016
#15 Abdul Razak Alhassan. Debut: 11/19/2016

#1 Brad Tavares. Debut: 6/19/2010
#2 Chris Weidman. Debut: 3/3/2011
#3 Robert Whittaker. Debut: 12/14/2012
#4 Derek Brunson. Debut: 12/29/2012
#5 Kelvin Gastelum  Debuts: 4/13/2013
#6 Sean Strickland. Debut: 3/15/2014
#7 Jared Cannonier. Debut: 1/3/2015
#8 Darren Till. Debut: 5/30/2015
#9 Marvin Vettori. Debut: 8/20/2016
#10 Jack Hermansson. Debut 9/3/2016
#11 Abdul Razak Alhassan. Debut: 11/19/2016 
#12 Gerald Meerschaert. Debut: 12/9/2016
#13 Paulo Costa. Debut: 3/11/2017
#14 Julian Marquez. Debut: 12/16/2017
#15 Michal Oleksiejczuk. Debut: 12/30/2017

#8 Darren TIll is out and Israel Adesanya is in at #15. 9-14 move up a spot.