What's happening in the UFC Flyweight division?
By Ryan Mullen
With the UFC 2023 lineup coming to an end, a question lingers in some fans’ heads: What exactly is up with the Flyweight division?
UFC Flyweight Brandon Moreno (Image:Getty Images)
In the last five years, the Flyweight title has changed hands a total of six times. When looking at
other divisions, this might not seem out of the ordinary, however this is mostly due to the title being
vacated from injury. But with Flyweight Division, every title change has been caused by the
champion getting beaten. This chaotic era for the 125-pound belt is incomparable to the six-year
title reign and 11 successful defences of former champion Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson.
With the division’s former champions Henry Cejudo and Deiveson Figueiredo going to
Bantamweight, Flyweight has become a far more competitive weight class. The reason so many
fighters leave is hard to see.
In January, former Heavyweight Champion Francis Ngannou was stripped of his title and left the
company due to disagreements about pay and healthcare for fighters. Not long after, former
Flyweight Champion, Demetrious Johnson went live on his YouTube channel to deliver his take on it.
Johnson also had a very controversial departure from the sport, and a bad relationship with UFC
president Dana White. Johnson had this to say about his time as a UFC Flyweight:
“When I fought Dominick Cruz I was under contract, I was fighting for $14,000 [to show up]and
$14,000 [added win bonus].
“I lost to Cruz, so I made $14,000. Then I was about to fight Eddie Wineland, but that didn’t go
through, so I fought Ian McCall in Australia, and I was on the same contract. Then, I got a new
contract when I fought Ian McCall for a second time. I think I got bumped up to $20,000 and
$20,000.”
Demetrious ‘Mighty Mouse’ Johnson faces off with Henry Cejudo (Image:Getty Images)
Johnson shared more of the same, until eventually he went on to explain the real reason for his
dislike for the way flyweights are treated. He said: “I finally got a new contract as Champion, and I
think it was $125,000 and $50,000, but I couldn’t get pay-per-view points. That’s where a champion
makes the most bang for their buck. Because if you’re on a card with Conor McGregor and he does
2.1 million buys, just do the maths. You’re going to make a load of money. I never got the
opportunity to do that.”
The Flyweight division does not make nearly as much money as it should with the amount of
competition going on in it. There hasn’t even been a flyweight main event since 2020. They’re
always undercard, or co-main events- but never the headline fight of the night. The low pay and low
publicity of Flyweight may be the reason that its top fighters are migrating to a higher division.
Johnson was one of the sport’s most dominant champions, boasting the second longest title reign in
the sport’s history at 2,142 days straight. Fighters who aren’t even fighting for the championship or
are a champion have made twice as much as him without a bonus. During UFC 263 in July 2021, a
welterweight bout between Leon Edwards and Nate Diaz took place. They both left with a $220,000
and $250,000 payout respectively. In this same event, top contender Brandon Moreno fought
Deiveson Figueredo- the flyweight champion -for the title, the two walked away with a $200,000 and
$210,000 payout. While this does not seem like much of a difference, at the time of UFC 263,
Edwards and Diaz were ranked 9th and 12th in the Welterweight Division. In this event, two Light-
Heavyweights of a similar ranking to Edwards and Diaz, Jamahal Hill (17th) and Paul Craig (14th) also
clashed. They only got a payout of $28,000 (Hill) and $110,000 (Craig), including a performance-of-
the-night bonus on Craig’s part.
Weight control is infamous in the UFC. Fighters in the lower weight classes often lose tens of pounds
to compete in their preferred division. A prime example is former Lightweight title holder Khabib
Nurmagomedov, who walked around at 220 lbs, but cut down to 155 formatches. At flyweight, this is
even worse. Ex-champion Deiveson Figueiredo cut almost 40 pounds of weight to fight for the 125-
belt.
Deiveson Figueiredo weighs in (Image:Getty Images)
The division is one of the hardest to fight in due to its weight control, leading to the best contenders
moving up a class. The ones that don’t leave the company because of their low pay. This leaves
fighters that usually would be under-qualified to be champion in the running for the title- leading to
it changing hands constantly. If things continue like this, the division could lose even more funding
due to the lack of big names to headline events, which could lead to the abolishment of the entire
division due to nobody wanting to fight in it anymore.