Honestly. In terms of all around skill set, it's probably Mighty Mouse or Jon Jones. There's still a bunch of fighters I'd rather watch, thought. Think other fighters beat them in the "watchability" scale. Wand in PRIDE, before Cro Cop, was amazing. There's a bunch of fighters who out scale the GOATs list, just on pure "nutcase" scale. And those guys are always fantastic to watch. Because you know they are crazy brawlers. Diego Sanchez is like Gatti of MMA. His prime fights are more entertaining than the aforementioned fighters who are far more skilled than him, but I'd reccomend his fights to an MMA newbie before MM or JJ. Who's the best EVER? In terms of skill. Probably MM. One thing he lacks is KO power. Other than that, he's probably;t the most rounded fighter in MMA history.
I'm going to say it's GSP. Don't get me wrong, I never really enjoyed watching him fight but his resume is legimiately outstanding; people forget how highly regarded a lot of the guys he beat as welterweight champion were. 170 was pretty much as stacked back then as 155 is today. GSP's reign was a bit like the 'Crazy 88' scene from Kill Bill. He was just fighting off one dangerous, hungry contender after another. Jake Shields had just beaten Dan Henderson, Tyron Woodley, and Martin Kampmen. Jon Fitch had won like 7 straight fights when GSP beat him. Hendrick was on a long streak with some ridiculous kayos. Josh Koshcheck was a wrestling champ with TNT in his right hand. He survived a head kick and hellacious followup to beat Carlos Condit, and he outclassed Nick Diaz. On top of that he proved his superiority over BJ Penn and Matt Hughes, both probably Top 10 atgs in their own right. He avenged his other loss to Matt Serra. Even his pre-title run was outstanding: wins over Karo Parisyan, Jay Heiron, Jason Miller, Sean Sherk etc. Obviously throttling Bisping for a second title is the capstone of that resume. If Jon Jones wins and defends the heavyweight title, it get a lot harder to make the argument for GSP, although the drug failures will always void Jones' GOAT claim for many fans.
Jones got a gift decision in his last fight, arguable got a gift decision against Gus as well. Failure to mask your PED use, eye poker, in what ways is he the Possible (Maybe) GOAT based on this? I know MMA is still a young sport so anyone can be an ATG at this moment for crying out loud
GSP, His reign was as good as it gets. Fedor is a close 2nd though Jon Jones would easily be the choice if not for the PED stuff
If BJ Penn had gotten the nod over Edgar in the first fight like he should have and avoided tarnishing his record for the last 10 or so years I have no doubt he would be in polls like this himself. It's a shame because the guy deserves to be ranked next to the best of them. I truly believe a lot of people forget how good and special BJ in his prime really was.
Gus and Reyes clearly beat Jones. Santos arguably did too. There's a reason Jones is looking to cash out at HW now. He(or his handlers) knew it was only a matter of time before he lost there.
The problem is that as skilled and dominant as Khabib is, his resume remains pretty thin when you really examine it. McGregor sounds like a great win, but post-Mayweather McGregor was a shell of the guy who had demolished Eddie Alvarez after two years inactivity, lack of training and allegedly substance abuse. Dos Anjos was a good win and was about top 5 at the time, but he hadn't fully evolved into the guy who crushed Pettis yet. Poirier is definitely a great scalp who was in absolute prime at the time, and he's probably Khabib's best win. Barboza is a good fighter and that demolishing was very impressive, but I think he was already on the decline and Ferguson beat a better version of him. I hate to say this because I like Khabib's style a lot, but where is the strength of his resume? He needed that Ferguson win badly to cement his legacy and he let it slip away. A win over an ancient GSP would still be better than anything he's done so far, imo, and I think Khabib knows this and that's why he wants the fight so badly. If Khabib is planning on retiring soon and wants to really leave his mark in this sport, he needs to accumulate some quality scalps very quickly.
