10 UFC Fighters Who Have Fallen on Hard Times
Into every life, a little rain must fall. And sometimes the roof is a little leakier in MMA.
Like a major league pitcher with a million dollar fastball, when a fighter's skills go, they go. Even when natural gifts are still fully in place, a bad night can easily turn into a bad year with the right (or wrong, I suppose) matchmaking.
It can be hard to deal with for fans, not to mention the fighters themselves. But that's the business, and everyone understands the risks, even if that doesn't make them easier to swallow once they come home to roost.
OK, enough idiom-mixing. These are the active UFC fighters who have currently fallen on hard times. Since falls are worse when they occur from higher heights, most of these fighters are ex-champs or contenders. They are ranked mainly on performances inside the cage, as well as their career pinnacles compared with their current state of affairs.
Finally, this isn't a list of fighters with the longest losing streaks. These are fighters whose careers have taken a fairly sharp turn for the worse in the relatively recent past.
10. CB Dollaway
1 of 10
CB Dollaway has always been a little chinny, but his top-flight wrestling skills helped him cover that vulnerability.
Emphasis on "helped." Past tense. Dollaway has now dropped three straight, two of them by knockout. At UFC on Fox 17 in December, Nate Marquardt ended Dollaway's night just 28 seconds into the second round.
Wisely, the athletic commission sanctioning the fight, the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, put Dollaway on an indefinite medical suspension. It might be a while longer before he shakes free all the cobwebs.
9. Michael Johnson
2 of 10
There must have been something in the Amway Center water in Orlando, Florida, on December 19.
On top of being the day that put Dollaway on the shelf, it also put a serious dent in the side of the Michael Johnson hype train.
Johnson dropped a unanimous decision that night to a certain Nate Diaz. It was the second straight loss for The Menace, who was previously on a four-fight winning streak, which included victories over Edson Barboza and Joe Lauzon.
After the loss to Diaz, Johnson acknowledged that Diaz's notorious in-cage trash talk "sucked me in," according to Matt Erickson and Justin Park of MMA Junkie.
"I got away from my game plan, and it is what it is," Johnson said. “But we’re going to put that behind us and move (on) and look forward to another big fight, hopefully.”
Johnson tried to do that with a fight against Tony Ferguson, but an injury derailed that attempt, and Johnson is currently still on the shelf. When it rains, it pours.
8. Jim Miller
3 of 10
One of the most popular fighters in the lightweight division, Jim Miller has earned a reputation for being game and tough.
Though he remains popular, he has had a tough time reaching the win column of late. After losing by chokeout to Michael Chiesa last December and then to Diego Sanchez by decision in March, Miller has dropped four of his last five.
Miller's record of past performance and his abiding popularity are keeping him in the UFC. A plum spot with Takanori Gomi on the UFC 200 card in July could be a pivotal bout for the New Jersey native.
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7. Hector Lombard
4 of 10
Hector Lombard's record over the past two years: 0-1 (1).
That's a pretty strange record. And how he got there is somehow even stranger.
The no-contest on his ledger is not so difficult to understand. He decisioned Josh Burkman in January 2015 but subsequently lost that victory and a year of his career when the Nevada Athletic Commission suspended him after testing positive for an anabolic steroid.
That's not the strange part, though. The strange part was his loss in March to Neil Magny, in which Lombard appeared to have Magny stopped, only to see Magny (with the help of a reluctant referee) hang on and storm back for a knockout victory of his own.
It's the latest chapter in an up-and-down UFC career for the decorated Cuban-Australian. We'll see if he can get off the schneid against Dan Henderson at UFC 199 this June.
6. James Te-Huna
5 of 10
At one point, James Te-Huna was 5-1 in the UFC. At one point, 10 of the wins on his 16-5 pro record were knockouts. At one point, he was one of the brightest prospects in the light heavyweight division.
This is not that point.
The New Zealand native is now 34 years old and a loser in his last four bouts. But it's more than that. Things were supposed to get better for Te-Huna after he returned from an 18-month injury layoff in March.
The UFC set up a triumphant return on a tee. It scheduled him to face converted hockey player Steve Bosse, a tough but unpolished fighter still seeking his first win in the UFC. What's more, it scheduled the fight in front of a Te-Huna-friendly Australian crowd.
As you know, since Te-Huna's on this list, it didn't go Te-Huna's way. Bosse knocked him out in 52 seconds.
It can't be comfortable in the Te-Huna household these days. His UFC release is probably just as likely (if not more so) as another UFC fight.
5. Frank Mir
6 of 10
To paraphrase the late, great Dusty Rhodes, you want to know about hard times? Hard times is taking a walk-off punch from Mark Hunt. That's hard times.
Especially when you recall that Mir won his first two bouts of 2015. Not only that, but he won them both by knockout—and not only that, he took home Performance of the Night bonus checks each time.
His decision loss to fellow aging heavyweight Andrei Arlovski in September felt more like a bump in the road in light of his resurgence. But then he fought Hunt.
Hunt laid Mir flat with a punch that would have knocked out a tree. That's the way it goes sometimes.
Now, Mir is embroiled in a drug-testing controversy that, if it concludes with a suspension, could be the end of the 37-year-old Mir's championship career. To be continued.
4. Lyoto Machida
7 of 10
After his body-kick knockout of Dollaway in December 2014, it looked like Lyoto Machida might be back to his old ways. Yeah, not the case.
In April 2015, now-middleweight champ Luke Rockhold submitted Machida in the second round. Then, Machida suffered the pain and indignation of being thrown around the cage by Yoel Romero for two-plus rounds before succumbing to an elbow-driven TKO.
Yes. It looked just as painful as it sounds.
The 37-year-old Machida looked to have a shot at a rebound this month against Dan Henderson. But that's not the way fate would have it, and the bout was scuttled after Machida acknowledged to a drug tester that he was taking a banned substance.
The former light heavyweight champ is still talented and enormously popular, but he needs a turnaround sooner rather than later.
3. Rashad Evans
8 of 10
A knee injury that refused to heal took two years away from Rashad Evans. Since his return last October, Evans hasn't yet shown that he is all the way back.
In his first fight back after the long layoff, he dropped a decision to standout wrestler Ryan Bader. OK. Fair enough. Just a little ring rust.
Then earlier in April came a one-sided knockout loss to Glover Teixeira. Not what Evans was looking for.
Evans said after the loss to Teixeira, per Adam Hill of the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
"I’ve been at the top and I’m riding real low right now. When you’re at this point, you need to re-evaluate everything. I don’t want to lose hope and lose my heart in fighting because it’s what I love to do. But at the end of the day, something’s got to change. I have to do something better. It’s embarrassing. It’s sad.
"
More recently, Evans sounded a more optimistic note, saying he may want to move down to middleweight. But his initial assessment was also correct. Although the former champ has earned the right to go out however and whenever he pleases, if he wants to get back to prominence, it looks like something will have to change.
2. Bethe Correia
9 of 10
Remember when Bethe Correia was the Horsewoman Killer?
Remember the Horsewomen?
I know it seems like a long time ago, and it was. Let me take you all the way back to the spring of 2015. Hozier appeared on the radio—and took us all to church. A television show called Game of Thrones captivated a nation. And a woman named Hillary Clinton announced she would run for president of the United States.
That was the time Correia dominated. After beating Jessamyn Duke and Shayna Baszler in succession, Correia took aim at their metaphorical big sister and chief Horsewoman: one Ronda Rousey.
It didn't go well for Bethe Correia.
A 34-second knockout ended Correia's time in the limelight at UFC 190. Then, earlier in April, she dropped a decision to Raquel Pennington and just like that was 9-2 as a pro instead of 9-0 as she was all the way back in that fabled spring of 2015.
Oh, what a difference a year makes.
1. Anthony Pettis
10 of 10
It really wasn't that long ago that Anthony Pettis was in the conversation about the best lightweight ever.
Unfortunately, injuries always seemed to sap his momentum whenever it really got rolling. But Pettis would get it back with a high-octane style that earned him the UFC title.
Then he lost the title in March 2015 to Rafael Dos Anjos.
Then he dropped a grinding decision to Eddie Alvarez and tumbled farther down the rankings.
Last Saturday a decision defeat to the talented Edson Barboza at UFC 197 made it three defeats in a row.
These might be the three best lightweights in the world right now, so it's hard to get too steamed up about Pettis' inability to beat them. Still, before losing to Dos Anjos, Pettis hadn't lost since his very first bout in the UFC—a decision defeat to Clay Guida back in 2011.
As Bleacher Report's own Chad Dundas put it: "Remember the custom suits? Remember the 'Showtime kick?' Remember the Wheaties box? Funny thing about stardom, though. In a sport as unforgiving as MMA, it can all go away in an awful hurry."
Scott Harris writes about MMA for Bleacher Report. For more stuff like this, follow Scott on Twitter.
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