Best of the best

After a very dominant performance, Khabib announced his retirement from MMA. During his post-fight interview, Khabib mentioned he should be #1 in the pound-for-pound rankings. Consequently, there have been many debates and differing opinions regarding who is at the top of this list, and discussions about the ‘goats’ of MMA.

This is my take on who is the best, or at least who should be in the conversation. The top four UFC fighters are GSP, Anderson Silva, Jon Jones, and Khabib. You could make a solid argument for why any of them could and should be considered the pound-for-pound best.

Georges St-Pierre (GSP):

Without question one of the absolute greats of the sport. GSP took the sport from one era through to the next. When GSP started MMA, the fighters at the top of the sport were very good at one thing and good at another, while often displaying deficiencies in one particular area (e.g. Matt Hughes with Striking). GSP showed that you need to be able to do everything well to be at the pinnacle of the sport.

The argument against GSP is also the argument for him. He was beaten twice in his career – once in his first title fight against Matt Hughes and then against Matt Serra in his first title defence. After these two losses how can GSP be considered the best? Well, let me tell. In both rematches GSP demolished them. At the time, Matt Hughes was one of the best the sport had ever seen and in the rematch, GSP completely outclassed him. The fight wasn’t even close. GSP put on a clinic with striking, wrestling and BJJ to get a submission victory. Then the rematch against Serra, GSP again put on a clinic. GSP was keeping range with striking until he went for the takedown, once down Serra had no chance. It was interesting to see GSP (the taller fighter) opt for the takedown as Serra is a very good grappler in his own right. However, Serra looked completely out of depth on the mat. GSP got the finish via strikes on the ground. In both of these rematches, GSP was never in trouble – hardly even got hit and they were both just so dominant. This means that GSP is one of the rare fighters to have beaten everyone he has faced. After all these achievements and 4 years off, he came back and won the title in the weight division above his usual welterweight.

GSP would do what he had to do win the fight and would use his skill set to perfection. GSP would keep the fight in your worst area and beat your ass.

Anderson Silva:

One of the best strikers in UFC history. A very long and lean fighter with power of a more muscled man, Silva created havoc in the cage during his title reign, which is the longest in UFC history 2457 at days. Silva’s knockout highlights are stuff of legend. But as people became wary of his strikes they would hang back, and as Silva is a counter striker this caused some problems. The main problem being boring fights. Silva would not push the pace but instead he would try to bait his opponent with clowning around. Hands down calling the opponent in, back against the fence, kneeling, you name it Silva would try it to get his opponent to attack him. However, it wasn’t just his striking that made Silva dangerous. He had very good takedown defence and was a BJJ black belt with multiple submission victories.

One of those submission victories came against Sonnen. Silva was taken down controlled and continually punched for 4 rounds of a 5-round fight. Then in the last round, the status quo continued. Silva was on his back getting hit. This continued until Silva isolated an arm and threw up a triangle to win the fight via submission after getting his ass kicked in the fight right up until that point.

The downside with Silva is that he clowned around one too many times. While defending the title, Silva dropped his hands and called his opponent Weidman in. Weidman obliged and landed a left hook (after more clowning) and knocked Silva out. Since then Silva has only won one out of seven fights, so including that title fight loss, Silva is 6 losses, 1win and 1 no contest. That has to have some play in people’s consideration of his goat status.

Jon Jones:

The guy that believes he is the undisputed best ever. Jones is one of the youngest fighters signed by the UFC, as well as being the youngest champion in MMA history. With only two blemishes on his record, 1 loss and 1 no contest Jones has a great record. Jones’ only loss came when he was disqualified for illegal strikes in a fight that he was dominating (12 to 6 elbow on Matt Hamill). The other blemish is a result being over turned due to Jones testing positive for a performance enhancing drug. Outside of these, Jones has been undefeated in the cage. However, there are some unanswered question as when Jones has fought taller opponents (Gustafsson) he has struggled big time. It looked like he had no plan B, this means that if the fight was not going well it looked like he had nothing to fall back on. Jones has dangerous striking and very good Greco wrestling, and a very solid ground game. He is a very well-rounded fighter.

As good as Jones is in the cage the thing that really stuffs him up is what he has down outside the cage. You may not think that matters, but when people are talking about the best to ever do it, they are the ones who define success in the sport. This means it is not just fighting that is measured, how they conduct themselves matters as well. Jones struggles here with issues of performance enhancing drugs, a hit-and-run on a pregnant woman while high on cocaine, hiding under a ring from a drug tester to name a few. These are not small issues, and for me these actions affect if I call him the best of all time

Khabib Nurmagomedov:

Yes, I am a big fan of Khabib. For me, he does it better than anyone else before him and has set a new standard. Therefore, I will try to make an argument of why Khabib is not the pound-for-pound best of all time. Khabib’s dominance is his problem, having lost only one round in his UFC career.

Khabib would go in and do the same thing against every opponent. The formula includes putting pressure on the opponent with striking until the takedown opens up, get the opponent down, tie them up and punch them and get the submission or beat them to a TKO. More or less that is every Khabib fight, do the greats need “that opponent” to make them great like Ali vs. Frazier for example? There is no doubt of Khabib’s dominance but with only 3 title defences, compared to 10 for Silva, 9 for GSP and 8 for Jones, does that put Khabib out of the conversation?

After thinking about this for few days, I can tell you that I think that Khabib is the best to have set foot in the UFC, while GSP is a very close second. But the key is it is just an opinion and that is all pound-for-pound rankings are. To measure between weight divisions and eras is great for a pub or training mat debate. These debates will go on forever as people have their favourite fighters which take many metrics into consideration, most of which are not agreed upon. People who like a bit of flash and knockouts will like Silva and Jones as they are great at both. Then discipline is GSP all day. Khabib puts pressure on fighters like I have never seen before and does moves that look really simple against the best fighters on the planet and not only do they work, they go right through an opponents defences like I have not seen before. So, I could argue over the order of this list against anyone and would not come to a finite conclusion. But since there is no one arguing against me I will give you my order.

1: Khabib, 2: GSP, 3: Jones, 4: Silva

The order of GSP and Jones would be a good debate as it is down to behaviour out of the cage vs 2 losses in the cage. It is all just opinion at the end of day.

Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor