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Jay Ellis and His 100 MMA Losses: A Look Into His Bizarre Mixed Martial Arts Career

Published 02/21/2024, 3:17 AM EST

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Who comes to mind when you think of a fighter with a long list of losses? Does the mind first drift towards Tony Ferguson who’s been through a lot in recent times? Or perhaps Jeremy Stephens who has a record of 21 losses in his career? What if we were to tell you that there’s a fighter that might just surpass any and every name you can imagine?

Enter Jay Ellis – a 40-year-old MMA fighter who has recorded a number so large, perhaps it could become difficult to even grasp. For the sake of comparison, Ellis has lost almost double the number of bouts UFC veteran Jim Miller has ever even fought. And Miller is the fighter with most bouts in the UFC at a total of 55.

Jay Ellis, a history of defeats

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It is clear from his history that Jay Ellis is yet to give up. Despite collecting a whopping 109 losses in his career, Ellis still keeps going. The last time he fought in an MMA bout was for Showcase MMA in January 2024, where again, he fell to Ricky Clabough via a first-round submission.

Clearly, he’s been through a lot of sour defeats in a career that spans almost two decades. In his MMA journey that started in 2005, ‘Hurricane’ has only managed to collect just about 16 wins. He’s participated in boxing bouts as well and found similar disappointment.

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It would also appear that fights involving Ellis don’t usually go on for too long, as he either gets knocked out or submitted in most of his losses. Clearly, he’s a fighter who lives on extremes within the sport, either going down or tapping out.

He initially lost his first four pro fights before securing a victory in the fifth in 2006 against Nate Mohr. Now, years later, his last victory came in 2021 and since then, he’s been on a nine-fight losing streak. While Ellis is at the peak of perhaps the most losses, there are several others who have achieved marvelous feats in the art of coming up a bit short.

Fighters who know loss like the back of their hands

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Weight cuts, time in camp away from family, and no days off – every fighter sacrifices something to win a fight. However, there are also those that sacrifice all this in vain, and end up getting beaten again and again. One of these fighters is Jonathan Ivey.

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Ivey has lost a record 58 times in his professional MMA career. However, in contrast to Ellis, he’s racked up more wins at 33. Ivey is almost fifty years old and is still active. He last fought at Gamebred Fighting Championship 2, where he got knocked out in the very first round. He’s not close to Jay Ellis, but 58 is still a big number.

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Yet another big name in the game of losing is Shannon Ritch. The last time he fought was at Rebel FC in 2020 and has a record of 88 losses. Clearly a veteran in the game, Ritch has also won his fights 57 times. That’s a lot of bouts even for a 53-year-old. How do you feel about these insane figures? Let us know in the comments.

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Written by:

Prit Chauhan

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Prit Chauhan is a UFC writer at EssentiallySports. His portfolio shows him as the go-to event coverage writer at ES and his work on UFC 297 is proof of the same. As an experienced writer and a longtime MMA fan, Prit’s strong suit lies in telling the relatively unknown and more personal stories of fights and fighters.
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Edited by:

Yeswanth Praveen