PhotoCred: MMA Mania / MMA Junkie
UFC vs. Bellator: The complete head-to-head history
UFC vs Bellator – The stats below have been updated as of 7/25/2021
The two most recognizable brands in MMA today are the UFC and Bellator. Housing the vast majority of the world’s most talented fighters, there’s always a discussion to be had about “who is better?”
Going into this past Saturday night, a topic on the minds of many during fight week, thanks to Joe Rogan and Brendan Schaub, was whether or not the best from Bellator can hang in the UFC. A debate that truly can’t be settled until we see it happen. Although to be totally fair, we have seen it on multiple occasions.
The perhaps most popular examples being with former Bellator kings Eddie Alvarez and Hector Lombard. Two men whose success went in opposite directions despite being two of Bellator’s all-time greatest fighters.
We’ve also seen it in the other direction with UFC mainstays like Rory MacDonald and Gegard Mousasi jumping ship. Two men who wound up becoming champions, but weren’t as dominant as maybe they were expected to be.
As for the past weekend itself, we saw the event pairing of Bellator 238 and UFC Raleigh taking place. The day marked the 40th time that the promotions have held head-to-head events on the same day.
Bellator began its existence in 2009 as the very first event went down on April 3. It wouldn’t be until March 29, 2011, that they would challenge their 18-year old counterpart with a same-day event. That being Bellator 37 vs. UFC 128.
In the headlining bouts of each card, we saw two future legends in the infancy of their legacies. For the UFC, it was the event that Jon Jones made history by becoming the youngest champion in promotional history. Thus leading to a legendary reign over the 205-pound division – something that to this day has remained intact … but not without some speed bumps along the way.
Bellator 37 saw Patricio “Pitbull” Freire get a big TKO victory over Georgi Karakhanyan to advance through the featherweight tournament. The younger of the two Pitbull brothers would go on to become the current featherweight and lightweight champion. Along with that, he holds numerous Bellator records and is the winningest fighter the organization has ever seen.
This most recent clashing of events saw featherweight queen Cris “Cyborg” Justino make some more history of her own. In the Bellator 238 main event, Cyborg would obtain her fourth championship in a major promotion by taking out Bellator’s only 145-pound champion, Julia Budd.
While Cyborg just made her Bellator debut, this wasn’t her first time being featured on one of these head-to-head fight days. The bout marked her third fight on such an occasion and her first as a representative of Bellator. The first two coming in her UFC debut at UFC 198 on May 14, 2016, and the other being her second title defense against Yana Kunitskaya at UFC 222 on March 3, 2018.
As the years have gone on, there have only been more same-day events between the two fight leagues as 2019 held a record high of nine. A number that should actually be as high as 10 but that was changed due to the cancelation of UFC 233 on January 26.
In a rare instance, we even saw the UFC hold two events on the same day against a Bellator card with UFC Sao Paulo and UFC Belfast against Bellator 165 on November 19, 2016.
UFC vs Bellator – Head-to-head events per year since first:
- 2021 – 1 (So far)
- 2020 – 1
- 2019 – 9
- 2018 – 6
- 2017 – 4
- 2016 – 7
- 2015 – 0
- 2014 – 4
- 2013 – 0
- 2012 – 2
- 2011 – 7
Number of times titles were on the line:
- 2021 – 1 (So far – Bellator 1, UFC 0)
- 2020 – 1 (Bellator: 1, UFC: 0)
- 2019 – 10 (Bellator: 8, UFC 2)
- 2018 – 7 (UFC: 4, Bellator: 3)
- 2017 – 6 (Bellator: 5, UFC: 1)
- 2016 – 8 (Bellator: 4, UFC: 4)
- 2014 – 3 (Bellator: 2, UFC: 1)
- 2011 – 7 (UFC: 5, Bellator: 2)
Times we saw title vs. title events:
- 2021 – 0 (So far)
- 2020 – 0
- 2019 – 1 (UFC 237 vs. Bellator 221, May 11)
- 2018 – 1 (UFC 220 vs. Bellator 192, January 20)
- 2014 – 1 (UFC 180 vs. Bellator 131, November 15)
Fighters that have fought on head-to-head events for each promotion and the number of times doing so:
- Gegard Mousasi – 5 (3 in UFC, 2 in Bellator)
- Ryan Bader – 4 (2 in Bellator, 2 in UFC)
- Benson Henderson – 4 (3 in Bellator, 1 in UFC)
- Blagoy Ivanov – 4 (3 in Bellator, 1 in UFC)
- Cris Cyborg – 3 (2 in UFC, 1 in Bellator)
- Phil Davis – 3 (2 in Bellator, 1 in UFC)
- Ben Saunders – 3 (2 in Bellator, 1 in UFC)
- Hector Lombard – 2
- Jessica Aguilar – 2
- Wilson Reis – 2
- Chael Sonnen – 2
Some notable fighters’ number of times fought on head-to-head events:
- Patricio Pitbull – 6 (all Bellator)
- Ilima-Lei Macfarlane – 4 (all Bellator)
- Darrion Caldwell – 4 (all Bellator)
- Henry Corrales – 4 (all Bellator)
- AJ McKee – 5 (all Bellator)
- Douglas Lima – 4 (all Bellator)
- Fabricio Werdum – 3 (all UFC)
- Rose Namajunas – 3 (all UFC)
- Junior Dos Santos – 3 (all UFC)
- Chan Sung Jung – 3 (all UFC)
2020, like 2018, got off to a hot start and fight fans are only getting treated to bigger and better amounts of action when these events are scheduled. It will be exciting to see what the future holds as the competition only continues to heat up.
But for now, the complete head-to-head history between the UFC and Bellator can be seen below.
July 31, 2021
UFC Vegas 33
Bellator 263
Jan. 25, 2020
UFC Raleigh
Bellator 238
Dec. 21, 2019
UFC Busan
Bellator 236
Oct. 12, 2019
UFC Tampa
Bellator Milan / Bellator 230 / Bellator Kickboxing 12
Sep. 28, 2019
UFC Copenhagen
Bellator 228
Sep. 7, 2019
UFC 242
Bellator 226
Jun. 22, 2019
UFC Greenville
Bellator London / Bellator 223
May 11, 2019
UFC 237
Bellator 221
May 4, 2019
UFC Ottawa
Bellator Birmingham
Apr. 27, 2019
UFC Fort Lauderdale
Bellator 220
Feb. 23, 2019
UFC Prague
Bellator 217
Jan. 26, 2019
UFC 233 (Canceled)
Originally featured:
- (C)Henry Cejudo vs. (BW C)TJ Dillashaw
- Robbie Lawler vs. Ben Askren
- Joseph Benavidez vs. Deiveson Figueiredo
- Cortney Casey vs. Cynthia Calvillo
- James Vick vs. Paul Felder
- Aleksandra Albu vs. Emily Whitmire
- Markus Perez vs. Anthony Hernandez
- Marion Reneau vs. Yana Kunitskaya
- Kron Gracie vs. Alex Caceres
- Manny Bermudez vs. Benito Lopez
Bellator 214
Dec. 15, 2018
UFC on Fox 31
Bellator 213
Nov. 30, 2018
The Ultimate Fighter 28 Finale
Bellator 210
Jul. 14, 2018
UFC Boise
Bellator 203
May 12, 2018
UFC 224
Bellator 199
Mar. 3, 2018
UFC 222
Bellator: Monster Energy Fight Series: Atlanta
Jan. 20, 2018
UFC 220
Bellator 192
Dec. 9, 2017
UFC Fresno
Bellator 190
Nov. 19, 2017
UFC Sydney
Bellator: Monster Energy Fight Series: Homestead
Sep. 23, 2017
UFC Saitama
Bellator 183 / Bellator Kickboxing 7
Apr. 8, 2017
UFC 210
Bellator 176 / Bellator Kickboxing 5
Dec. 10, 2016
UFC 206
Bellator 168 / Bellator Kickboxing 4
Dec. 3, 2016
The Ultimate Fighter 24 Finale
Bellator 167
Nov. 19, 2016
UFC Belfast
UFC Sao Paulo
Bellator 165
Sep. 17, 2016
UFC Hidalgo
Bellator Kickboxing 3
Jul. 23, 2016
UFC 201
Bellator 159
May 14, 2016
UFC 198
Bellator 154
Apr. 16, 2016
UFC Tampa
Bellator 152 / Bellator Kickboxing 1
Nov. 15, 2014
UFC 180
Bellator 131
Sep. 5, 2014
UFC Connecticut
Bellator 123
Apr. 11, 2014
UFC Abu Dhabi
Bellator 116
Oct. 5 – 2012
UFC on FX 5
Bellator 75
Jun. 22, 2012
UFC on FX 4
Bellator 71
Nov. 19, 2011
UFC 139
Bellator 58
Nov. 12, 2011
UFC on Fox 1
Bellator 57
Oct. 29, 2011
UFC 137
Bellator 56
Oct. 8, 2011
UFC 136
Bellator 53
Oct. 1, 2011
UFC on Versus 6
Bellator 52
Mar. 26, 2011
UFC Fight Night 24
Bellator 38
Mar. 19, 2011
UFC 128
Bellator 37
