8 UFC Records That Will Be Broken (And 8 That Won't)

Record: Jon Jones - 23 years, 243 days

Next Best: Jose Aldo - 24 years, 72 days

The meteoric rise of Jon Jones was a spectacular one to watch. At just 21-years-old, Jones was hastily thrown into his debut fight in the company at UFC 87, taking the fight on just two weeks' notice after another fighter pulled out. From there, the prodigy spent the next two years running through the lower-to-mid tier guys in the Light Heavyweight division, before fate intervened once again.

Much like his fortuitous debut call up, Jones was again the favour of injury when title contender Rashad Evans was forced to pull out of his title shot against Mauricio Rua. Jones was told, completely unaware of what had happened, in his post-fight interview after defeating Ryan Bader that he was chosen to replace his training partner Evans.

Just five weeks later, Jones defeated Rua to claim the gold, after once again being shoehorned into a spot on short notice.

There was so much going the way of Jones for this to happen. Of course, his talent was on full display, but the process of getting to the UFC alone is enough to make sure fighters barely get to the company at 23, let alone win titles.

Jose Aldo was close in terms of age, but he was literally awarded the Featherweight belt coming over from WEC without fighting for it. Josh Barnett was also 24, but he was the benefit of 2002's incredibly slim Heavyweight division.