Top Ten mixed martial arts fighters of all time

:thinkThat is true and beating Igor to win it all at Pride is HUGE but, Frank lost to Bas rutten when he was still relatively green and never lost in the UFC. His standing would have been greater had he taken on and beat Sakuraba and Rickson. Other than those two, who else could he have fought?

 

Loses to guys like john lober don't do frank any favours in my opinion and also ducking out of fighting anyone half decent for half of his fighting career. His best win is the tito one and then he didn't do anything after that, i think he ahd the talent to carry on being a top fighter but if you don't fight anyone decent for such a long time it has got to drop you in the all time list.

 

:think Yes, he did improve by leaps and bounds in the rematch and spanked Lober. We lost out on some great fights because of his feud with the UFC and I'll have to revisit the specifics on the Shammy-Sak negotiations and why that did not come off.

Frank was rather small for Middleweight and he still mowed through the best that would get in there with him, and lets not forget that young tito (pre-injuries) was a ****ing beast.

 

I would say that frank is a much more talented fighter than coleman but the ufc and pride belts just have him up on my all time list. The one thing i can't understand is how i forgot to put sak on there that is the major crime of the list. What would your al time list be?

 

In no particular order:

Rickson Gracie
Fedor Emelianenko
Sakuraba
Royce Gracie
Randy Couture
Frank Shamrock
Chuck Liddell
Wanderlai Silva
Antonio Noguiera
Maurice Smith

 

In no order (for now)

1. Hughes (greatest welter all time)

2. Fedor (nuff said)

3. Sak (took on everyone who dared get in there)

4.Frank Shamrock D)

5. Wandy (frigging beast)

6. Randy Couture (The Hop of MMA and will surprise the heck out of us all by beating Lesnar with conditioning and dirty boxing)

7. BJ Penn

8.Royce Gracie (pioneer in the modern MMA and some very good wins)

9.GSP (sneaks in with a very impressive resume and skillset, and is nowhere near done.)

10. Uriah Faber (The Ricardo Lopez of MMA)

 

I respectfully disagree with Rickson and Mo' Smith being on that list as thier resumes are very thin in MMA com.

 

hwo come you have rickson on there when he has never really fought anyone

 

Because it's my list.

First of all - he defeated everyone in jiujitsu in Brazil during his formative years. He defeated every rival opponent of lute livre in Brazil as well as the infamous streetfighter Zulu - not once - but twice. He fought in quiet back room smokers in the US for years converting every martial artist he could slap a rear naked choke on to train in Brazilian Jiujitsu.

Second of all - he was instrumental in helping build the worldwide foundation of MMA. He would have fought in the UFC if he hadn't been told to step aside for Royce to fight. He trained Royce for all his early fights in the UFC and the entirety of the Pride organization was created to defeat Rickson. It's always a shame that Rickson wasn't able to fight more fighters as MMA developed - but he was aging and on the verge of retirement by the time MMA evolved.

 

he was able to fight more but decided not to i agree with your points on himbeing an excellent martial artist and helping to build the mma game but he really never fought anyone of note so i find it hard to say he is one of the best ever.

 

I don't discount his victories in Brazil - the cradle of MMA - as some fans do. These weren't just karate guys that didn't know how to grapple. They were mixed martial artists and he beat everyone there was to beat at that time.

 

Head to head I have Sak,Bas, and Couture beating rickson.

 

top guys like unskilled zulu, they were not true mmma guys the game has changed so much from when he was around. In terms of age it did stop randy fighitng the top modern guys i know rickson is a little older than randy but that wouldn't have stopped him fighint guys like markk kerr, sak, coleman etc.

 

They all certainly had a chance - but head to head I think Rickson would have subbed them all. ASide from Sakuraba - Rutten and Couture were all subbed by lesser submission fighters than Rickson. Inoue was one of Rickson's students at one time and he armbarred Couture in no time flat.

It's all conjecture at this point. Although there have been rumors of Rickson looking for one last fight - it is not going to happen.

 

Unskilled fighters are still dangerous and Zulu was one of them. Take Zulu out of the equation and you still have Rickson's rivals from the other jiujitsu and lute livre schools. The lute livre guys espoused the notion that gi training was useless and that fighters should train muay thai as well as jiujitsu. They were mized martial artists.