Fast facts
- Division: Bantamweight
- Record: 13-1
- Nationality: United States (Wikipedia lists him as American and Mexican)
- Team/gym: 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu Las Vegas
- Notable wins: Raoni Barcelos, Rob Font, Ricky Turcios, Vince Morales, Aori Qileng
The biggest win of Raul Rosas Jr.’s career is one he probably won’t want to rewatch. On September 26, in the main event of UFC Fight Night 289 (the card most outlets called UFC Vegas 121), he was trailing Raoni Barcelos on all three judges’ scorecards heading into the fifth round, according to MMA Weekly. Then, after a Rosas takedown, Barcelos lost consciousness and didn’t get up. The 39-year-old Brazilian left the cage on a stretcher, with officials at one point checking his pulse, Cageside Press reported, and he spent several nights in the hospital.
Rosas got the win and a Fight of the Night bonus. He also became the youngest fighter ever to headline a UFC Fight Night, at 21 years and 11 months. It was a strange, heavy way to cross a milestone, and it says something about how much has been packed into a career that started before he could legally buy a lottery ticket.
Clovis, Santa Rosa, Rome
His parents came to the United States from Iztapalapa, a district of Mexico City, and settled in Clovis, New Mexico. That’s where Raúl Gilberto Rosas Rios Jr. was born on October 8, 2004. When he was 13, the family moved to Santa Rosa, California. He picked up wrestling in high school and competed in pankration, an amateur sport that looks a lot like MMA with the edges sanded down.
He was good at it immediately. At 14, he flew to Rome for the IMMAF world championships and came home with gold. Wrestling and fighting ran in the house, too. His older brother Jessie is also a UFC fighter.
The pro career began in Tijuana, where Rosas went 5-0 for the Ultimate Warrior Challenge Mexico promotion. Every one of those fights ended in a stoppage, and none of them reached a third round. That was enough to get him a slot on Week 9 of Season 6 of Dana White’s Contender Series on September 20, 2022, against Mando Gutierrez. He won a dominant unanimous decision and got his contract at 17 years, 11 months and 12 days old, the youngest signing in UFC history.
The kid in the Octagon
Young prospects get swallowed by hype all the time, and Rosas came in with a nickname built for it: “El Nino Problema.” What’s held up over four years is the work. His UFC debut came at UFC 282 on December 10, 2022, against Jay Perrin, and he submitted him in the first round. That made him the youngest fighter to win a UFC bout, at 18 years and two months, and earned him Performance of the Night. MMA Junkie named him its 2022 Newcomer of the Year, MMA Fighting put him on its third-team All-Star list, and UFC.com ranked him ninth among newcomers.
The lone loss on his record came four months later. At UFC 287 on April 8, 2023, Christian Rodriguez came in at 137 pounds, one over the non-title bantamweight limit. The bout went ahead at catchweight, Rosas collected 20% of Rodriguez’s purse, and then he lost a unanimous decision. That’s a hard lesson for an 18-year-old, and he took it.
He hasn’t lost since. In September 2023 at UFC Fight Night 227, he stopped Terence Mitchell by TKO inside the first minute for another Performance of the Night. His fight with Ricky Turcios turned into a saga. Rosas pulled out with an illness just before their February 24, 2024 bout was set to start, the fight slid a week to March 2 and was then scrapped for reasons never made public, and it finally happened at UFC on ESPN 57 on June 8, 2024. Rosas choked Turcios out with a rear-naked choke in Round 2, his third Performance of the Night.
After that came decisions. He beat Aori Qileng at UFC 306 in September 2024, then Vince Morales at UFC on ESPN 64 in March 2025, which made him the youngest fighter to collect five UFC wins, at 20 years and five months.
The Font fight, and the style it revealed
A booking with Rob Font for September 13, 2025, fell apart when Rosas withdrew with an injury (David Martínez took the spot). They finally met at UFC 326 on March 7, 2026, and the result was one of the most lopsided grappling performances the division has seen. Rosas landed 16 takedowns on 88.9% accuracy, the highest takedown accuracy ever recorded in a UFC bantamweight bout. Those 16 takedowns are the second most in a bantamweight fight and the third most in any three-round UFC bout, and they tie Sean Sherk for fourth most in a single fight overall.
The career numbers tell you who he is. Wikipedia lists his control time percentage at 37.6%, third highest in bantamweight history, and his top position percentage at 47.7%, fourth highest. His 33 takedowns tie Tony Gravely for fifth in division history. Rosas fights like someone who learned early that the person on top makes the decisions. He grapples outside the cage too. On April 8, 2026, at Hype FC Brazil in São Paulo, he fought former two-time flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo to a draw in a submission grappling match.
What happened against Barcelos
Barcelos came in on a long win streak, as did Rosas, and MMA Weekly described the matchup as one that would push the winner toward a title shot. For four rounds, the veteran was the better man on the scorecards. Wikipedia records the finish as Barcelos going unconscious as a result of Rosas’s takedown. Glover Teixeira, speaking about his countryman, offered another view of the moment. He said Rosas had accidentally headbutted Barcelos, something nobody in the Brazilian’s camp realized at the time.
Teixeira said exams found swelling in the brain and called it a traumatic brain injury. In his telling, Barcelos’s mind was stronger than his body, and he simply refused to give up. MMA Weekly reported that Barcelos is awake, talking with friends and family, and walking around. Cageside Press noted he appears to be in good spirits.
Nobody should hold that ending against Rosas, and nobody should pretend it was a clean coronation either. He was losing a five-round fight to a seasoned bantamweight, kept wrestling into the championship rounds, and the night ended in a way no fighter would choose.
Where he stands
The rankings are a little muddled. Wikipedia had him at No. 8 among UFC bantamweights as of the Barcelos fight, while Knockout Daily’s Cagefile data lists him at No. 11 as of October 5. Either way, he’s 13-1 and eight fights into his UFC run, which is a body of work rather than a three-fight hype train.
No next opponent has been announced. Payton Talbott finished Figueiredo in the first round of the UFC 332 co-main event on October 3 and then called for Sean O’Malley. MMA Mania’s matchmaking column pushed back on that, arguing Rosas vs. Talbott is the easier fight to make and the one that makes more sense right now. Two prospects meeting this early would cost one of them his momentum. It would also tell us a lot about both.
Rosas turns 22 on October 8.
