Part 1 – Who’s the GOAT?

Part 2 – Heavy Hitters

Part 3 – Middle of the Pack

We’ve now gotten through the top two thirds of the men’s weight divisions, and established that the UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev stands the best chance of dethroning the all-time divisional #1, who just happens to be his mentor Khabib Nurmagomedov.  Let us now take a look at the lightest men’s weight classes, and see if my assertion holds true.

Men’s Bantamweight

[#1]: Dominick Cruz (8198)

Next active fighter:  [#7] Henry Cejudo (3693)

Point differential: 2.21x

Other contenders: [#10] Petr Yan, [#11] Cody Garbrandt, [#12] Sean OMalley

Similar to men’s lightweight, there is not as much separation between #1 and the rest at bantamweight.  Dominic Cruz’s reign at the top was brief, and though he is not officially retired, these days he fights very infrequently and isn’t likely to rise any further. Fortunately for Cruz, there just currently isn’t a serious contender to knock him out of the top spot. Aljamain Sterling was oh-so-close but moved up in weight. [#4] Renan Barao, who once so long ago looked like an unstoppable champion, recently made his return to MMA action, to atrocious results and is presently on a six-fight skid. Former champion Henry Cejudo would have likely been ranked much higher on these lists, had he not taken a three year layoff in the prime of his career.  Now, he stands with back-to-back losses and not a very clear path forward.

Another former champion, Petr Yan, was once lauded as the future of the division, but faltered badly in his last few outings and is now fighting for his UFC career. Yet another brief title holder Cody Garbrandt is a glass cannon who is not likely to catch lightning in a bottle like he did on the night he took the belt from Cruz. Finally, amongst all these past champs, we have the current top dog Sean O’Malley. In a less competitive division we could imagine Sean with a long reign at the top; however he is already talking about moving up to featherweight for a chance at the ‘champ champ’ status. He also has contenders like Merab Dvalishvili and Umar Nurmagomedov breathing down his neck.

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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.

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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.

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