Jon Jones was the youngest UFC champion in history when he won the light heavyweight title.
Jones won the interim UFC Light Heavyweight Championship at UFC 128 in March 2011 by defeating Mauricio Rua. He was 23 years and 242 days old, a record that made his rise one of the most remarkable in UFC history.
The victory also made Jones the youngest champion across any UFC division at that time. He later became the undisputed champion when he defeated Quinton Jackson, and he built a long title reign at light heavyweight before moving to heavyweight.
This record is often confused with the youngest fighter to compete in the UFC, which is a different statistic. Jones’s record specifically concerns becoming a UFC champion, not merely entering the promotion or winning a bout.