Cruz, Mighty Mouse, Mike Brown, Aldo, Barao, and Figueiredo have ensured Faber and Benavidez have been unable to touch gold since November 2008 when Faber lost his WEC FW title to Brown.
Prior to that Faber was a longtime WEC champ (defended 5x) but Benavidez himself has never had the WEC/UFC gold.
Faber had a 13 fight win streak before he lost his title to Brown. Had 5 WEC title defences. Later he would win 4 UFC fights in a row to earn one of his title shots.
Benavidez had a 6 fight win streak in the UFC before a SD lose and another 3 fight UFC win streak to earn his most recent UFC title shot.
Faber is 20-3 in the WEC/UFC outsie of his title fight loses. 0-7 in title fights since Nov 2008.
Benavidez is 20-2 in the WEC/UFC outside of his title fight loses. 0-4 in title fights.
Its amazing to see two training parterns have such identical success in WEC/UFC fights, records identical minus a one loss difference. They both had such success at the WEC/UFC level and yet for twelve years now have had such failure in the title fights, completely shut out in title fights, 0-11.
It will be interesting to see if at 35, Benavidez has another run left in him.
What’s interesting is that they are also both gamers. They always show up to fight. Sometimes, they don’t look great in title fights (Faber v. Barao and Benavidez last night or Mighty Mouse 2), but sometimes they look quite good (Faber v. Cruz 2, Benavidez v. Mighty Mouse 1).
I think the bottom line is that are elite–but a notch below some of the truly great fighters. That means they will consistently win number one contender fights, but lose to the GOATs.
Yep, 13-5 overall in the UFC/WEC... 0-3 in title fights and 13-2 outside them.
So the three Alpha Male teammates are 53-7 in WEC/UFC non-title fights.
The group has won 88% of their none-title fights, incredible WEC/UFC win rate. If they never fought Frankie the group would have a 91% win rate in WEC/UFC in none-title fights, almost unheard of for UFC fighters, really unheard of for teammates.
0-14 in title fights since Nov 2008.
If you wonder how a group could look almost invincible without a title on the line and look cursed in title fights, Cruz, Aldo, and Johnson's reigns are most to blame for the group never being able to win titles.
Benavidez has to be among the best fighters to never get a title. Who knows though maybe he'll get another shot.
Division is shallow and he’s a name, 2-3 wins and he could get another shot.
Also holds a win over the current bantamweight champ (ccc)...so even if flyweight folds he still has at least a storyline to build off of there for another title shot. Although getting through any of the top 5 guys in that division to earn a shot is an entirely different beast
Dillashaw did win the UFC title while still with Alpha Male and Garbrandt of course was Alpha Male when he won the title so yeah... the second generation Alpha Male guys have won the title.
The UFC will never see a few teamates like Faber/Benavidez/Mendes do so well in the UFC in non-title fights winning 88% of their non-title fights for over a decade while going 0-14 in title fights, the extremes of the success and failure are just too great.
Now the original three killers of TAM, Faber, Benavidez and Mendes move to 0-15 in title fights since 2008 despite winning 88% of the time when not in title fights.
If you think Benavidez won the Pettis fight (he officially lost via SD) then Benavidez has really never lost a non-title fight but never won a title fight. I’m pretty sure that would be a record among elite MMA fighters in of itself.
I just don’t think we will ever see two or three elite teammates ever go 0-15 in title fights ever again. Maybe it happens again in fifty years but the odds are stacked against it as it is so hard to earn the shots and when you are talking about elite fighters… its hard not to win a certain percentage statistically, even as underdogs.
It's not on TAM levels, but if you exclude pre-2005 Randy then team Quest has a pretty atrocious Zuffa title run......... Hendo 0-3, Lindland 0-1, Quarry 0-1, and Chael 0-4 in title shots. Total of 0-9.
Evan Tanner (RIP) did get the belt though, but had a 1-2 record in title shots. 1-11 record if you include him.
You can look at it a couple ways, I guess. They were so good for so long that they kept fighting for the title. It’s rare that people have that type of longevity in the sport, and they ran into guys that were just a bit better than they were. In many cases, the fights were close/competitive, so it’s not like they were blown out of the water consistently.