So over the past year I've watched a ****-tonne of MMA fights. I own all the UFC DVDs that have been released, I've watched all the Pride and Strike force events that exist on the Internet. I've watched a fair few Rings, Dream, Heroes and Shooto as well. Not watched much Belator. Anyways after watching everything I've complied my top 66 ATG list. It isn't really based on resume or achievement, more of a list based on winnability. If debating lists is your bag feel free to critique providing its constructive. Have I missed anyone? Are any of the placements no justifiable? For better or worse, here goes. 1 Georges St Pierre 2 Anderson Silva 3 Fedor Emilianenko 4 Connor McGregor 5 Demetrious Johnson 6 Jon Jones 7 BJ Penn 8 Dominic Cruz 9 Daniel Cormier 10 Max Holloway 11 Matt Hughes 12 Jose Aldo 13 Frankie Edgar 14 Kazushi Sakuraba 15 Rodrigo Nogueira 16 Wanderlei Silva 17 Dan Henderson 18 T.J. Dillshaw 19 Mauricio Rua 20 Stipe Miocic 21 Tyrone Woodley 22 Mirko Filipovich 23 Rampage Jackson 24 Jake Shields 25 Royce Gracie 26 Chuck Liddell 27 Fabricio Werdum 28 Robbie Lawler 29 Randy Couture 30 Tito Ortiz 31 Luke Rockhold 32 Cain Velasquez 33 Lyoto Machida 34 Robert Whittaker 35 Takanori Gomi 36 Yoel Romero 37 Urijah Faber 38 Stephen Thompson 39 Jacare Souza 40 Eddie Alvarez 41 Kid Yamamoto 42 Gilbert Melendez 43 Cody Garbrandt 44 Shinya Aoki 45 Chris Weidman 46 Junior Dos Santos 47 Rafael Dos Anjos 48 Rich Franklin 49 Anthony Pettis 50 Rory Macdonald 51 Sean Sherk 52 Rashad Evans 53 Demian Maia 54 Frank Shamrock 55 Alistair Overeem 56 Vitor Belfort 57 Renan Barao 58 Benson Henderson 59 Chad Mendes 60 Miguel Torres 61 Alexandre Nogueira 62 Josh Barnett 63 Michael Bisping 64 Joseph Benavidev 65 Mike Brown 66 Henry Cejudo
These are hard to do but it's not a bad list at all,as a Diaz bros fan I'm suprised at some of the people you have put on the list above Nick such as Wonderboy.Also you have Holloway listed more then once.
I think Wonderboy is one of the best ever WW fighters. He reminds me of CroCop. Good spot on Holloway.
I'm not really a fan of McGregor, I much prefer submission fighters. But he's beaten the two best FW fighters other than himself and he's beaten one of the best ever LW fighters.
Bas Rutten would easily have made this list but I guess because majority of his career was in PANCRASE you wouldn't have got to see much of him other then his 2 UFC fights at the end of his career which included winning the UFC heavyweight title. Before UFC started PANCRASE contained most of the top dogs and he was 1 of the best ,he was an inspiration for at least a couple of the fighters in your list and was 1 of the few fighters who retired at or near his peak .
I have two problems with Bas. One is that I don't think Pancrase was entirely legit. Two is that h2h I don't think he stacks up against those HW fighters I've named above him.
Sure I have heard some things about PANCRASE but nothing worse then I heard about PRIDE with most of the stars on PEDS and multiple fixed fights,you didn't ever question why the refs had an ear piece during fights.I can understand you not having him on your list as you didn't see much of him fight but Bas is easily a top 50 P4P fighter beating a lot of the best fighters of his time before UFC was around. TBH I'm not sure I've seen many P4P ratings that have Frank Shamrock rated above Bas, who beat Frank twice and it should have been 3 times if not for there 1st fight where Frank was lucky to get the decision. Even tho Bas won the UFC title and beat a lot of the top Heavyweights I would class him as more of a Light-Heavyweight
Frank beat Tito which is better than anything Bas did. Even if you class him as a LHW, out of the LHW fighters on my list who was he better than? I think Belfort smashes him and he's the lowest of my LHW fighters.
How many fights of BAS have you seen?there is a few L-Heavy and Heavy is clearly better then on your list but I guess I can understand you picking so many recent fighters on your list.Tito is actually 1 of the guys who looked up to Bas when he started. Obviously polls like this are just speculation and while I disagree with some of your selections it's a pretty good list based on who you have seen fight. Any reason it's a Top 66 list?
Seen all his UFC fights and a couple of the Pancrase fights but for me they aren't legitimate enough to add to greatness. Plus even when the fights where on the level the rules were so obscure, no closed fists, rope breaks etc. For me his biggest weakness is his ground game. He can't stuff a takedown. There's no way he's beat someone as well rounded as Tito imo let alone those who later surpassed Tito skill wise. He was a great striker, deadly liver kicks, but for me his beat MMA stint was as a Pride commentator. Maybe I'm harsh on Pancrase but it's just how I view it. The way I compile my list is like a cumulative system. So I add fighters to it until there is 10 reps from their weight class and then if any more of that weight prove to be greater I then remove people from the list. In the lower weight classes there isn't 10 great fighters imo so the numbers are a bit lower than 80.
Mirko should be higher. Remember he was a small heavyweight that consistently beat larger men. Same with Fedor.
Can't really rank Mirko ahead of Miocic just yet and Fedor is the highest ranked HW fighter on my list.
Biggest problem for me in Nogueira. Nogueira would arguably be in the top 3, p4p of all time, had it not been for Fedor. His resume is insane. Herring, Hendo, Barnett, Cro Cop, Coleman, Couture, Sylvia, Ricco, Werdum, Kharitonov...Hell, the biggest reason behind Fedor's clout is that he could beat Nogueira. You could easily put him ahead of Mirko and Miocic.
