All-Time MMA Rankings: Middle of the Pack

Part 1 – Who’s the GOAT?

Part 2 – Heavy Hitters

In the third installment of this series, I am going to take a look at the men’s welterweight, lightweight, and featherweight all-time rankings. Similar to the heavier weight divisions, these three lists are topped by true all-time greats in Georges St. Pierre, Khabib Nurmagomedov, and Jose Aldo. Are any of these three likely to be replaced at the top soon?  Let’s check it out.

Men’s Welterweight

[#1]: Georges St. Pierre (33894)

Next active fighter:  [#5] Leon Edwards (6873)

Point differential: 4.93x

Other contenders: [#8] Colby Covington

Currently the top rank on our men’s all-time absolute list (with Jon Jones very close behind), St. Pierre spent better part of a decade thoroughly dominating his contemporaries, with his losses to Matt Hughes and Matt Serra both avenged in an impressive fashion. With the next three on the list retired (or in Kamaru Usman’s case, moved up in weight), the current champion Leon Edwards is the sole threat to Georges’ position. It isn’t much of a threat, considering GSP has nearly 5x the amount of points compared to Edwards.

Leon Edwards is currently on a 12-fight undefeated streak (with 1 No Contest). Now that he is the champion, he will have have the opportunity to stack some title defenses and improve his standing.  Edwards has been moderately active, fighting twice a year in the recent years. At this pace he would have to stay at the top for several years to begin approaching #1. My prediction is that Shavkat Rakhmonov will soon dethrone the champion and halt his ascent up the rankings.  The only other name worth mentioning here is [#8] Colby Covington; everyone ranked above him here is a current or former champion, and I don’t see Colby breaking into that elite championship tier at this point in his career. At best, he might pass Johnny Hendricks and Robbie Lawler if Covington sticks around and wins some fights.

Men’s Lightweight

[#1]: Khabib Nurmagomedov (12481)

Next active fighter:  [#4] Dustin Poirier (7908)

Point differential: 1.57x

Other contenders: [#6] Charles Oliveira, [#8] Islam Makhachev

The men’s lightweight division is one with the least amount of separation between #1 and the rest of the pack. Khabib Nurmagomedov has simply retired too early, otherwise he could have added a few title defenses to his record, which would have put him much farther ahead in the all-time rankings. Thus, compared to most other all-time divisional #1’s, he sits fairly low on the Absolute list on #13.

The nearest threat to Khabib’s top spot is currently Dustin Poirier. The 35 year old former interim UFC lightweight champ is coming off a KO loss to Justin Gaethje, and has stated that at this point in his career, any fight could be his last. Dustin is facing a very dangerous up-and-comer in Benoit St. Denis at UFC 299, and a hard loss here could well precipitate his retirement. A win will keep him in title contention, but capturing the title from Makhachev and defending it several times is not something I can foresee for Dustin in the ultra-competitive division.

The other contenders consist of former champion Charles Oliveira and the current champion and Khabib’s cousin, Islam Makhachev. Oliveira is one of the UFC’s most decorated veterans, and has accumulated an 11-win streak prior to losing the title to Makhachev. Charles rebounded nicely with a first round KO of Beniel Dariush, and remains one of the top contenders in the division. Should he recapture the title and defend it a few times, Oliveira could be encroaching into Khabib’s territory.

As mentioned, the reigning lightweight champion Islam Makhachev is a serious obstacle for Poirier and Oliveira to continue their climb. And I believe that he is the single most likely currently active fighter to eventually take over the #1 spot on any of the men’s divisional all-time rankings.  All he would need is a handful of defenses over the next 2-3 years, to bypass his mentor Khabib. Alas, it seems that Islam has his eyes set on the welterweight division, where the opportunity to reach the top of the all-time list would be greatly reduced. Another Nurmagomedov cousin and Khabib’s protégé Usman is currently the Bellator lightweight champion who will be looking to fight out his contract and make a move to the UFC soon.  Perhaps he will be the one to reach #1, eventually.

Men’s Featherweight

[#1]: Jose Aldo (24619)

Next active fighter:  [#2] Alexander Volkanovski (14518)

Point differential: 1.69x

Other contenders: [#3] Max Holloway, [#8] Patricio Freire

Jose Aldo is #3 on our All-Time Absolute list, and like GSP, he has spent most of a decade near the top, stacking up those all-time rating points. Once Aldo’s reign ended, Max Holloway briefly took over, before eventually being replaced by Alexander Volkanovski. Volk was steady climbing the ranking with 5 title defenses, but father time remains undefeated, and so the 35-year-old was recently knocked out by Ilia Topuria. This yields 3 losses in 4 fights for Volk, and back-to-back knockouts in his two most recent outings – I guess the old adage held true once again. This is a story as old as sports, and we shall soon see Volkanovski hang up his gloves, long before catching up to Aldo in the race for the greatest featherweight of all time.

Behind Volkanovski, we have his long-time rival Max Holloway. I technically should not even be including Holloway on this list, as he is next taking on Dustin Porrier at 155lbs.  I don’t know whether his move to the lightweight division is a permanent one (I suspect it is), but if he does return to the 145lbs weight class, he is still young enough to bypass Volkanovski for #2 and reduce the distance between himself and Aldo.

Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire is also barely worth mentioning here; sitting at #8, Pitbull is 36 and in decline, losing his last two bouts. The long time Bellator contestant and sometimes champion is one of the few fighters discussed in this series who has never fought in the UFC Octagon.

To sum it all up: while GSP and Jose Aldo are not quite as deeply entrenched in their #1 spots as Fedor Emelianenko, Jon Jones, and Anderson Silva, they are still extremely unlikely to be displaced in the next decade. Khabib on the other hand is the most likely of all men’s all-time #1s to be overtaken in the near future.  It all depends on what we will see from Dustin Poirier, Charles Oliveira, and Islam Makhachev in their next few fights.