Yair Rodriguez

BIOGRAPHY

Yair Rodriguez is a Mexican professional mixed martial artist in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) featherweight division. He was born on October 6, 1992, in Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico and started his training at age 12. After competing as an amateur for two years he made his professional debut in 2009.

Rodriguez quickly established himself as one of the most promising Featherweights of all time with a streak of six consecutive wins that saw him become the youngest ever champion in Latin America-based MMA promotion World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC). His impressive debut earned him a spot on The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America 2 where he went on to win both tournament finals by knockout. This pushed Yair into the spotlight within UFC’s featherweight division and secured him a five-fight deal with the promotion.

Since joining UFC in 2014, Rodriguez has gone 8-6 overall while remaining inside the top 10 rankings for much of his career there. Early on he had notable victories over Andre Fili which earned him ‘Performance Of The Night’ honors; as well as Alex Caceres which won him another ‘Performance Of The Night Award’ and Fight Of The Night honors for their thrilling back-and-forth battle before Yair got TKOd early into round 3. Yair also boasts finishes over BJJ world champion Charles Rosa via flying knee & submission expert Dan Hooker via punch KO within minutes of each other during their fight back at UFC 191 amongst several others throughout his career thus far.
Adding to further recognition and notoriety within MMA circles came when Yair fought future Hall Of Famer BJ Penn leading up to this past September 2019 during which he became only one out of three people ever to have defeated Penn inside the octagon following victories over legends like Takanori Gomi & Cole Miller previously mentioned – cementing himself even more firmly amongst elite status among Featherweight fighters around today’s day&times!

Outside of fighting Rodriguez also competes extensively in various Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournaments such as Copa Podio – a high level BJJ tournament taking place annually since 2013 – where he has taken part multiple times including last year’s edition held at Rio de Janeiro Brazil where tapped out an experienced black belt competitor from Demian Maia Jiu Jitsu Academy putting forward yet another strong display showing off what type athlete can be outside just usual fights circle! As well shown through initiatives started by Rodrigues such helping out local communities/schools with material donations brought by sponsorships obtained along journey towards stardom – hoping inspire others youths growing up under same circumstances once did too :)