All-Time MMA Rankings: Heavy Hitters

In this part of the series, we will examine the all-time rankings of middleweight and above men’s divisions.  As I mentioned in the first part, while the top spots on the Absolute All-Time lists are somewhat likely to change in the near future, the individual divisional rankings are far less volatile.  We probably won’t see a new #1 in most of men’s divisions any time soon: As the sport has evolved and every top competitor became more well rounded, long title runs such as Fedor Emelianenko’s, Jon Jones’, and Anderson Silva’s are becoming a thing of the past. Are we past the golden age of the sport, where the best champions held on to the top of the division for a decade? Or are we just entering a new, more competitive, and therefore more enterntaining era?

The numbers in parentheses represent the all-time rating points.

Men’s Heavyweight

[#1]: Fedor Emelianenko (21848)

Next active fighter:  [#2] Stipe Miocic (11520)

Point differential: 1.89x

Other contenders: [#5] Fabricio Werdum, [#6] Junior dos Santos, [#8] Francis Ngannou

Fedor Emelianenko is almost universally considered the heavyweight GOAT of MMA.  [#2] Stipe Miocic is considered the greatest heavyweight to ever step into the UFC Octagon, holding four title defenses – a record for the UFC’s HW division. Unfortunately for Miocic, Fedor has nearly twice the amount of rating points, and Stipe’s career is winding down. Originally the scheduled for some-time-this-year match-up between Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic was supposed to be the retirement bout for both fighters.  However, more recently both Jones and Miocic have expressed willingness to unify the titles with the Interim HW champion Tom Aspinall. Beating both Jones and Aspinall will be a tall task for the 41-year old firefighter from Cleveland. And even if he should succeed, it frankly won’t be enough to overtake Fedor.

Beyond Miocic, we have a couple of retired fighters, followed by another couple of old guys.  The only reason I am mentioning Werdum and Junior Dos Santos as ‘contenders’ is that they are fairly high ranked and both still technically active fighters, even if they’re living out the remainders of their careers in the graveyard of bareknuckle MMA. Don’t expect much, if any, ascent on the all-time list for these two.

As for Francis Ngannou, he may have had potential had he stayed in the UFC and remained active.  Instead Francis fought out his UFC contract and left the promotion to join the Professional Fight League (PFL) and to try his hand at boxing.  On top of that, Ngannou started his MMA career fairly late, and the competition he will face in PFL won’t be very highly ranked. With all these factors combined, Francis’ potential for growth is limited, though I hope he does end up in the Top 5 when all is said and done.

Men’s Light-Heavyweight

[#1]: Jon Jones (30176)

Next active fighter:  [#10] Jan Blachowicz (5204)

Point differential: 5.79x

Other contenders: None.

Oh boy, the light heavyweights.  Here, we have Jon Jones firmly atop with a ridiculous amount of separation from the rest of the pack. The Top 10 is rounded out by 8 retired fighters from a past generation, and sitting at #10 the only active LHW on this list, Jan Blachowitz. I love me some ‘Legendary Polish Power’ – but Jan is also 41 and plagued by shoulder injuries, which means he likely won’t be rising very far from his current position.  And when Jan retires, the next active 205ers on the list will be [#17] Phil Davis and [#24] Jiri Prochazka.  We have a very long way to go here before anyone even sniffs the Jon Jones territory again.

Men’s Middleweight

[#1]: Anderson Silva (20582)

Next active fighter:  [#2] Israel Adesanya (12215)

Point differential: 1.68x

Other contenders: [#3] Chris Weidman, [#4] Gegard Mousasi, [#5] Robert Whittaker

The middleweight all-time list is an interesting beast.  While Anderson Silva retired from MMA and moved on to explore the world of boxing, #2 through 5 contenders are all still active.  Of course “active” is a relative term: Chris Weidman for example is barely hanging on by a string; the man who can’t get past Brad Tavares nowadays, will not be improving his all-time standing any further. On the other hand Israel Adesanya could have been within reach of Anderson’s record – but recent losses to Alex ‘Poatan’ Pereira and especially Sean Strickland may be indicators that Izzy is slowing down and not likely to go on another extended title run.  Still, I expect him to gain some on Silva before calling it a career.

Gegard Mousasi has been around forever, and left the UFC on a 5 win streak to try his luck at Bellator, where he held the middleweight championship for a while.  It’s a shame that Gegard has never had the chance to fight for a UFC title. He has lost his last two fights with Bellator, and with the promotion recently being bought out by PFL, the future is unclear for Mousasi. There’s quite a bit of separation between Gegard and Weidman, and I would be surpirsed to see him close the gap.

Finally, we have Robert Whittaker – former champ and current gatekeeper to the elite. With the revolving door that the middleweight throne has been lately, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Whittaker make another title run.  Whatever the likelihood of him winning the title, he probably won’t hold on to it for long if he does, and the separation between #5 and #1 is just too much. I would place Whittaker’s ceiling at around #3 in a best-case scenario.

In conclusion: the three heaviest of the men’s weight divisions are ruled by #2, 4, 5 on our All-Time Absolute list. Each one of them is an undisputed GOAT of their division, and each could make the solid argument for the overall title of the greatest combat athlete who has ever lived. There’s strong separation between the #1’s and the rest of the pack, and so I don’t believe the top-ranked guys in these divisions will be replaced in the foreseeable future.