To commemorate the UFC’s 30th anniversary, this is our definitive list of the promotion’s 30 greatest fighters of all time.
To commemorate the UFC’s 30th anniversary, MMA Junkie has compiled its definitive list of the 30 greatest UFC fighters of all time. We revealed one every day until the anniversary of UFC 1, which took place Nov. 12, 1993.
Our complete rankings, along with videos for each fighter, can be viewed below.
About the list: All 12 members of our staff submitted their own individual 30 greatest UFC fighters list. Each fighter was assigned a corresponding numerical value based on where they were ranked on an individual’s list, i.e. No. 1 = 30, No. 2 = 29, etc. We took those numbers and added them up to get a total number for each fighter to determine the composite ranking of MMA Junkie’s 30 greatest UFC fighters of all time.
Our “Spinning Back Clique” crew discusses the fallout from the reshuffled UFC 295, looks ahead to Bellator 301 and much more.
Check out this week’s “Spinning Back Clique,” MMA Junkie’s weekly live show that takes a spin through the biggest topics in mixed martial arts.
This week, we welcome in guest panelist John Gooden, the UFC’s play-by-play voice for most of its shows in Europe and Asia and one of the promotion”s chief analysts. He’ll join Mike Bohn, Nolan King and Simon Samano with host “Gorgeous” George Garcia live at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) to discuss and debate:
The light heavyweight title continued its game of musical chairs Saturday when [autotag]Alex Pereira[/autotag] won it against former champ Jiri Prochazka in the UFC 295 main event. Jon Jones, Jan Blachowicz, Glover Teixeira, Prochazka, [autotag]Jamahal Hill[/autotag], and now Pereira – all since 2020. So what makes sense as the next move for Pereira? Is it Hill, or should an [autotag]Israel Adesanya[/autotag] MMA trilogy fight happen for him?
[autotag]Tom Aspinall[/autotag] became the interim heavyweight champion at UFC 295. In theory, now he’s supposed to wait for champ [autotag]Jon Jones[/autotag] to fight ex-titleholder [autotag]Stipe Miocic[/autotag], and then he’ll get the winner. But that’s a long ways off thanks to Jones’ injury. Should the UFC change its mind and keep Aspinall active? If so, how will that work with titles and interim belts and all the craziness?
Highly decorated grappler [autotag]Mackenzie Dern[/autotag] came to the UFC with tons of promise, but it hasn’t panned out the way she likely hoped. The up-and-down nature of her UFC career continued Saturday when she was knocked down four times by former women’s strawweight champ [autotag]Jessica Andrade[/autotag] and eventually was pounded out for a TKO setback. Has the ship sailed for her potential, or can she bounce back and live up to the expectations? And what of Andrade? Is she a gatekeeper now, or can she contend for a title again?
The UFC announced three big title fights for 2024: new champ Sean Strickland vs. Dricus Du Plessis at middleweight; long-reigning titleholder Alexander Volkanovski vs. Ilia Topuria at featherweight; and new champ Sean O’Malley vs. Marlon Vera at bantamweight. Did the UFC get those bookings right, and which one is the most intriguing?
Alex Pereira is the ninth fighter to win titles in two divisions in the UFC, and he did it faster than anyone else. Of the nine to do it, who did it best?
The fight was a last-minute replacement for the previously scheduled undisputed title fight between champion [autotag]Jon Jones[/autotag] and former champion [autotag]Stipe Miocic[/autotag].
Despite Aspinall’s thrilling performance on two weeks’ notice, UFC CEO [autotag]Dana White[/autotag] said the promotion’s plans will revert back to the Point A, even though Jones is on the shelf as he recovers from a torn pectoral muscle. Aspinall (14-3 MMA, 7-1 UFC) will have to wait.
“You do those two,” White said of Jones and Miocic. “Those two both deserve that fight. That’s the fight they want. What I love is that Jon Jones, as soon as he heard he was injured and he knew how bad it was, went right to LA, got the surgery, and he’s already in rehab – physical therapy, I should say.”
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While the next undisputed title fight will be Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) vs. Miocic (20-4 MMA, 14-4 UFC), White didn’t rule out Aspinall could defend the interim title in the meantime.
“I don’t know,” White said. “We’ll see how that plays out. We’ll see what happens. (Aspinall) took this fight on short notice. Obviously he looked great. He’s got plenty of money to chill out for a minute. We’ll see.”
The targeted timeline for Jones’ return is June 2024. He’s hinted the fight will likely be his last. As for Miocic, the future is a bit more clouded. White said he recently ate lunch with Miocic, who told him he wasn’t sure whether or not the fight would be his last.
“‘I don’t even know,'” White said Miocic told him. “‘All I care about right now is Jon Jones. It’s the only thing I’m focused on. I want this fight really bad.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 295.
Our “Spinning Back Clique” discusses how the promotion handled UFC 295 after Jon Jones’ injury prompted an interim heavyweight title bout.
[autotag]Jon Jones[/autotag] was the source of another UFC pay-per-view overhaul.
The heavyweight champion suffered a torn pectoral muscle while in camp for his massive showdown against Stipe Miocic in New York, prompting the promotion to create an interim title fight between Sergei Pavlovich and Tom Aspinall.
Jones could be out for another year, which leaves Miocic on the sidelines as a healthy scratch. Both parties seem to only want that fight next, but Miocic said the UFC never reached out to him to offer the interim title fight.
How did the promotion handle this situation? Should Miocic have been given the opportunity to fight Aspinall or Pavlovich? Is attempting to keep Jones vs. Miocic together the right play?
We asked our “Spinning Back Clique” panel of Mike Bohn, Danny Segura and Brian “Goze” Garcia to look at the heavyweight title picture with host “Gorgeous” George Garcia.
You can watch their discussion in the video above and check out this week’s full episode on YouTube or in podcast form below.
One of Cleveland’s favorite sons, Stipe Miocic holds a number of UFC heavyweight records, which places him high on our list of all-time greats.
The UFC is celebrating its 30th year and to commemorate the milestone, MMA Junkie has compiled its 30 greatest UFC fighters of all time. Every day until the anniversary of UFC 1 on Nov. 12 (1993), we will reveal one fighter on our list.
Today, MMA Junkie reporter Nolan King brings you No. 10: [autotag]Stipe Miocic[/autotag].
You can watch King’s career retrospective on Miocic above; video produced by Abbey Subhan.
About the list: All 12 members of our staff submitted their own individual 30 greatest UFC fighters list. Each fighter was assigned a corresponding numerical value based on where they were ranked on an individual’s list, i.e. No. 1 = 30, No. 2 = 29, etc. We took those numbers and added them up to get a total number for each fighter to determine the composite ranking of MMA Junkie’s 30 greatest UFC fighters of all time.
The idea of Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic sounds great, but does Tom Aspinall vs. Sergei Pavlovich actually make UFC 295 better?
[autotag]Daniel Cormier[/autotag] thinks UFC 295 might’ve ended up with a better heavyweight title fight.
The original title fight was scrapped after a torn pectoral muscle forced heavyweight champion [autotag]Jon Jones[/autotag] out of his first title defense against [autotag]Stipe Miocic[/autotag] on Nov. 11 at Madison Square Garden in New York. As a result, the promotion decided to book [autotag]Sergei Pavlovich[/autotag] (18-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) vs. [autotag]Tom Aspinall[/autotag] (13-3 MMA, 6-1 UFC) for the interim belt.
With both Aspinall and Pavlovich showing tons of promise and championship potential to this point in their careers, Cormier believes their fight could end up delivering more than Jones vs. Miocic would have.
“We might have fallen in love with the idea of Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic for what they’ve been to the game, and we may overestimate the value of the fight,” Cormier said on his ESPN show “DC & RC.” “Because Pavlovich vs. Tom Aspinall may be a better fight.”
Cormier argues that former champion Miocic’s long layoff leaves a lot of question marks on how his fight with Jones could pan out, whereas Pavlovich and Aspinall are very much in their primes.
“You’re getting Pavlovich vs. Aspinall, two of the best heavyweights in the world,” Cormier said. “What I am implying to you is that we don’t know who Stipe is today at 41 when we haven’t seen him since 39. I’m not saying he’s not going to be the same guy. I’m just saying that now, we have two young, hungry lions fighting for a portion of the heavyweight championship.
“… Right now, I don’t know if the world is looking at the Miocic-Jones fight and thinking, ‘Boy, this is going to be amazing.’ But was it going to be amazing in 2015, 2016, or is it going to be amazing today? That’s all I’m saying. What I do know is the new (co)-main event at UFC 295 is going to be amazing today because these two young heavyweights are unbelievable heavyweights. It’s going to be an amazing fight, and it might be a better, more competitive fight than Jones vs. Miocic is.”
If the UFC has healthy undisputed and interim heavyweight champions who don’t fight each other, Chael Sonnen won’t be OK with it.
[autotag]Chael Sonnen[/autotag] doesn’t think the winner of [autotag]Jon Jones[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Stipe Miocic[/autotag] determines the real champion.
Chael Sonnen believes heavyweight champion Jon Jones’ injury creates a potentially awkward scenario for the UFC.
Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) withdrew from his first title defense against Miocic (20-4 MMA, 14-4 UFC) at UFC 295 after he sustained a torn pectoral tendon that required surgery. The UFC plans to reschedule Jones vs. Miocic once Jones is healthy.
In the meantime, the promotion opted to book an interim title fight between Sergei Pavlovich (17-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) and Tom Aspinall (13-3 MMA, 6-1 UFC) to co-headline UFC 295 on Nov. 11 card at Madison Square Garden in New York. That means the interim champ will have to wait until Jones and Miocic fight before they can even book a title-unification bout, and Sonnen doesn’t see how that makes sense.
“Your problem comes tomorrow; your problem doesn’t come today,” Sonnen told MMA Junkie. “You’re going to Madison Square Garden, you have an event that’s not sold out, you have a few problems with your headlining act, and now it’s not your headlining act. Stipe and Jones wasn’t some great night of business. Now you have less than that. You’ve got to put the belt up. If you promised fans and it’s close, you’ve got to put the belt up.
When I tell you the problem comes tomorrow, there’s never been a time in the sport, and I fully understand we’re going to fiercely adhere to whatever rules we make up on the spot in the space, but we’ve never had a healthy and willing interim champion – it’s just never happened – and then you have the return of the undisputed champion, and they don’t fight each other. They always fight each other. At a minimum, if you’re looking for a precedence and history, we can all agree the interim belt makes you the No. 1 contender. What we’re talking about now is you have a healthy interim champion who sits in the front row and watches somebody else fight for the undisputed belt. Well, what happens then?
“If we stick to the script that’s out there, that (Jones vs. Miocic) is a retirement fight, which I’m here to let you know it’s not – but if we stick to the script, it’s a retirement fight. So now this guy in the front row (interim champ) isn’t getting ready to come into the ring and do a faceoff to have the undisputed belt. He instantly, as soon as the words ‘I’m retiring’ come out of this guy’s mouth, this guy is now the undisputed champion. That’s weird. That’s going to be problematic for me.”
UFC CEO Dana White said Jones is expected to be out eight months. Miocic could be 42 by the time Jones is healthy and ready to fight, which Sonnen believes naturally puts that fight in jeopardy.
With that in mind, Sonnen shared a scenario that he believes is more logical.
“You’ve got to have a belt up. It’s MSG,” Sonnen said. “You’ve got to find your interim champion, then you come out with something along the lines of, ‘We just talked to a doctor, (and) it’s worse than we thought. We’re actually going to elevate this belt to an undisputed belt, but when Jon comes back it’ll be his choice. We’ll let him fight Stipe, or we’ll let him fight the interim champion. We’ll see what he wants to do.’
“It has to be that. We can’t just have an interim champion and an undisputed champion both willing and ready and not have them fight. It just can’t happen. I’m good at storytelling. I can’t tell that story.”
Stipe Miocic opens up about the cancellation of his fight against Jon Jones at UFC 295 in New York.
[autotag]Stipe Miocic[/autotag] opened up about missing out on arguably his biggest career fight to this day.
The former UFC heavyweight champion was disappointed to see his title fight with Jon Jones fall through, just a couple of weeks away from the event. Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) and Miocic (20-4 MMA, 14-4 UFC) were supposed to headline UFC 295 at Madison Square Garden in New York on Nov. 11 – a card that celebrates the UFC’s 30th anniversary. Unfortunately, Jones suffered a torn pectoral muscle in training and is expected to be out for eight months.
The news was a low blow for Miocic.
“How did I feel when I woke up today? Like I got kicked in the nuts,” Miocic said on his OnlyFans account. “In the morning, I woke up to my phone vibrating. It was dark, I had my son on top of me, trying to move and get my phone. I finally got my phone and had a text message from my manager saying my fight was off.
“I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night. I was supposed to fight Jon Jones in about two weeks in New York, UFC 295, Madison Square Garden. I was pretty excited about that. Actually really excited. I guess he tore something in his chest. Unfortunately, that happens. It’s part of the game. Hopefully he gets better and feels better, but what happens now? Do I fight somebody else? I don’t know.”
In response to the fight falling through, the UFC implemented an interim title fight between Sergei Pavlovich and Tom Aspinall. Miocic says the UFC didn’t offer him the opportunity to fight for the interim belt to stay on UFC 295 despite being ready for the event.
“I don’t know why I didn’t get picked, which is fine,” Miocic said. “I understand they have a direction they want to go. I’m okay with that. Every guy in the division is tough. I definitely want to fight the biggest fish, which is Jon Jones.
“It wasn’t my choice, it was theirs. Listen, everything happens for a reason. The fight being canceled, it sucks. No question about it. Unfortunately, that’s just the game we’re in. It happens. Like I said, I hope he’s okay. You want to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best. I want that belt back. It’s my belt. It’s going to happen.”
Check out the latest episode of MMA Junkie Radio with “Gorgeous” George and “Goze” right here.
Thursday’s edition of MMA Junkie Radio with “Gorgeous” George and “Goze” is here.
On Episode 3,407, the guys had a lot of big news to discuss. UFC 295 saw massive changes as the original main event between [autotag]Jon Jones[/autotag] and [autotag]Stipe Miocic[/autotag] is off. Jones suffered an injury in training, and the promotion announced [autotag]Tom Aspinall[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Sergei Pavlovich[/autotag] for the interim heavyweight title. Tune in!
Dana White intends on rebooking Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic, and he’d like to see the winner put off retirement for at least one more fight.
LAS VEGAS – UFC CEO [autotag]Dana White[/autotag] intends on rebooking UFC heavyweight champion [autotag]Jon Jones[/autotag] against [autotag]Stipe Miocic[/autotag].
Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) vs. Miocic (20-4 MMA, 14-4 UFC) was scrapped from UFC 295 after Jones sustained a torn pectoral tendon that requires surgery. As a result, the UFC booked an interim title fight between [autotag]Sergei Pavlovich[/autotag] (17-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) and [autotag]Tom Aspinall[/autotag] (13-3 MMA, 6-1 UFC), which co-headlines the Nov. 11 card at Madison Square Garden in New York.
“It’s one of those ones where if you know you know,” White told MMA Junkie and other reporters. “It’s a badass fight with two young studs, and that’s going to be a fun one.”
“One hundred percent (the winner will have to wait for Jones vs. Miocic to happen),” White said. “So here’s the deal: Jones and Stipe were supposed to fight. Jones gets hurt, right? Eight, nine months he’s going to be out. You don’t strip him or take him out of the rankings after a year, right?
“So, if you’re Sergei and Aspinall, you’re getting the opportunity to fight for the interim title anyway now. So, yeah, they’re going to have to wait until this fight happens. This fight was set up; this fight needs to happen. Two of the biggest legends in the sport want the fight, (and) the fans want the fight.”
When asked what happens if Jones and Miocic decide to retire after fighting each other, White said he’d like it if the winner unified their belt with the interim champ.
“To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man. So whoever wins that fight, it would be nice to see them stick around and defend it,” White said. “That we can’t determine until it happens.”
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 295.
