A number of fighters who paved the way for the modern era were included in our ranking of the 30 greatest UFC fighters, but was it enough?
The UFC’s 30th anniversary date has come and gone, and in the build-up to the milestone date, MMA Junkie counted down its 30 greatest fighters of all time to compete for the promotion.
There was plenty of debate about the entire list from top to bottom, and one of our big talking points was the inclusion of pioneers.
The final list was tabulated through a points system after voting from MMA Junkie’s 12-person staff. Guys considered to be pioneers who made our list were [autotag]Randy Couture[/autotag] (No. 11), [autotag]B.J. Penn[/autotag] (No. 12), [autotag]Royce Gracie[/autotag] (No. 14), [autotag]Chuck Liddell[/autotag] (No. 18), [autotag]Matt Hughes[/autotag] (No. 21), and [autotag]Tito Ortiz[/autotag] (No. 25).
On a special edition of “Spinning Back Clique,” the majority of our staff members came together to discuss and debate the finer points of the list. Did enough fighters who paved the way for the modern era make our list?
Check out the discussion in the video above, or watch the entire 30 greatest UFC fighters of all time podcast below.
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.
In the Halloween spirit, The Blue Corner is duty-bound to report the lengths a former UFC champion went to for his costume this year.
In the Halloween spirit of playfulness and good fun, The Blue Corner is duty-bound to help ensure this itty-bitty corner of the sports entertainment world knows the lengths a former MMA champion went to for his costume this year.
[autotag]Tito Ortiz[/autotag] is a former UFC light heavyweight champion, a member of the UFC Hall of Fame and, it recently was announced, one of MMA Junkie’s 30 greatest UFC fighters of all time – a milestone that no doubt tops anything else on his list.
He’s been a grappler and a boxer and a pro wrestler outside MMA. He’s been an ace at acting – “Zombie Strippers,” anyone?! He’s been a wiz at writing with “This Is Gonna Hurt,” his 2008 autobiography that opens up with a story about him sniffing glue as a 9-year-old and hallucinating being famous with his name in lights.
He’s played at politics as a council member in Huntington Beach, Calif., and eventual mayor pro tempore, though he resigned after less than a half-year, not long after it came to light he fraudulently filed for unemployment benefits, allegedly, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic while also getting paid for being on the council.
With pesky politics in the past, perhaps his future lies in costume work. While his wife, former UFC octagon girl Amber Nichole Miller, went as Mia Wallace from “Pulp Fiction” for Halloween, it appeared Ortiz passed on an opportunity to dress up as John Travolta’s character, Vincent Vega, which would have set us up for the possibility to see him do The Twist in a dance contest. (Actually, maybe no Tito Twist is a good thing …)
Instead, Ortiz took his creativity a different direction. In an image he posted on his Instagram stories(tip o’ the proverbial hat to the reasonably legendary @FullContactMTWF from the cesspool formerly known as Twitter), Ortiz was out on the town in Cape Coral, Fla., dressed as … Tito Ortiz.
I mean, dude had a UFC championship belt and everything. The costume was super convincing – he looked just like vintage Tito Ortiz, minus the flag pole on his shoulder.
At The Blue Corner, we’re not entirely sure his costume is worthy of top-shelf treats like Reese’s cups or left-side Twix (never right-side Twix … ever), but we might toss him a stale popcorn ball. Or a box of raisins. Vincent Vega? We’d have gone full-size Reese’s or Snickers for that sh*t.
Missed opportunity, Tito. Missed opportunity.
He’ll have a chance for redemption Tuesday. The hottest newish restaurant in Cape Coral is Tito’s Cantina Tequila Bar & Grille. This place has everything: tacos, tequilas, tapas, Tito and angel wings on the bathroom wall in case you want to re-create a vintage Affliction shirt while you’re there. Tito’s has advertised a costume contest for Halloween. The winner gets dinner for four at the joint, which carries a current 3.7 out of 5 rating on Yelp.
But if Tito Ortiz shows up dressed as Tito Ortiz again and wins the damn thing, we’re calling shenanigans.
Tito Ortiz’s ability to attract heat and dominate in the early days make him a key figure in UFC history and one of the sport’s legends.
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. 25: [autotag]Tito Ortiz[/autotag].
You can watch King’s career retrospective on Ortiz above; video produced by Ken Hathaway.
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.
“Jake Paul thinks him being 47 is going to make a difference? He’s gonna be in for a rude awakening.”
UFC Hall of Famer [autotag]Tito Ortiz[/autotag] thinks [autotag]Anderson Silva[/autotag] will be too much for [autotag]Jake Paul[/autotag].
Paul meets Silva in the headliner of a Showtime pay-per-view event Oct. 29 at Gila River Arena in Glendale, Ariz. Silva, a former UFC middleweight champion, is 47, but the elite striker is expected to be Paul’s toughest test to date.
“I know he’s coming up on a fight now against Jake Paul,” Ortiz said on Paddy Pimblett’s “Chattin Pony Podcast.” “I don’t think Jake Paul’s going to make it out of three rounds, and that’s my opinion, but I think it’s going to be a great fight, because I know Jake Paul puts in great work.”
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Paul often has been criticized by the likes of Floyd Mayweather for fighting MMA guys like Ben Askren and Tyron Woodley, who are past their primes, but Ortiz thinks the YouTube star would be gravely mistaken to think Silva’s age is reflective of his ability.
“Jake Paul thinks him being 47 is going to make a difference? He’s gonna be in for a rude awakening,” Ortiz added. “One thing about Anderson, he takes this sport very seriously. He takes it as a martial arts.”
“Big” John McCarthy and Bruce Buffer share their memories from filming the “Friends” episode that featured the UFC in 1997.
1996 was the year Sen. John McCain infamously called mixed martial arts “human cockfighting” when he sought to have the sport banned in all 50 states before it could really take off in the U.S.
UFC 1 had taken place just three years prior on Nov. 12, 1993, marking the birth of MMA, and from the start there was curiosity as to what this “ultimate fighting” was. There were no weight classes, no gloves or uniforms, and essentially no rules. It wasn’t sanctioned in every state. It wasn’t even called mixed martial arts yet.
Meanwhile, also in 1996, “Friends” wrapped up a successful second season on NBC just before the summer. The show – starring Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer – already was a smash hit as the third-most watched prime time television series (at a time when a lot of people watched regular TV) behind only No. 1 “ER” and No. 2 “Seinfeld.”
Certainly being featured on a show like “Friends” would be massive exposure for the sport and more specifically the UFC. But why would that have happened back then? What did a sitcom about six young adults living in New York City have in common with brutal fights taking place inside of the octagon?
Not a thing.
And yet, the creative team behind “Friends” drummed up an idea for an episode in which Monica (played by Cox) has a boyfriend named Pete (Jon Favreau), who dreams of becoming an ultimate fighter. They even leaned right into the UFC storyline by titling the penultimate Season 3 episode “The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion,” which premiered 25 years ago this month on May 8, 1997.
Considering McCain’s crusade against MMA and his “human cockfighting” remark just a year earlier, John McCarthy couldn’t believe the opportunity for a “Friends”-UFC crossover somehow, some way presented itself when he was approached to be featured on the show.
“Honestly, I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,'” McCarthy recently told MMA Junkie. “‘They want to put us on ‘Friends’?”
Jon Favreau, Courney Cox and David Schwimmer on “Friends.”
In addition to McCarthy, famed announcer Bruce Buffer, former fighter Tank Abbott, and eventual UFC champion and Hall of Famer Tito Ortiz made appearances as themselves.
The episode begins with Monica meeting all the friends at Central Perk cafe to share the disappointment that Pete didn’t ask her to marry him like she’d hoped. Instead, what happened?
“He wanted to tell me he’s going to compete in some ultimate fighting competition thingy,” Monica says. The guys can’t believe it. The girls have never heard of it, so they ask Monica, who describes MMA as “sort of like wrestling but without the costumes.” She obviously meant pro wrestling.
Joey (LeBlanc) chimes in that “it’s not fake” and “totally brutal.” Chandler (Perry) lays out that ultimate fighting is “two guys in the ring, and the rules are … [pauses for dramatic effect] … there are no rules.” Ross (Schwimmer) adds that “anything goes except eye gouging and fish-hooking.” Hearing all of that worries Monica, so she visits Pete in training to express her concern, but Pete assures her he’ll be careful in his upcoming fight.
Monica and Ross attend Pete’s fight against Abbott, with Buffer announcing their intros and “Big” John serving as referee. When Pete and Abbott meet in the center, Abbott picks up Pete and runs him across the cage and slams him into the fence. That’s all of the fight scene. Afterward, Pete lets Monica know that, despite getting his ass kicked, he’s not done trying to become the ultimate fighting champion. And so she breaks up with him.
The fight scene lasted all of 2 minutes, but filming took two days to complete. McCarthy and Buffer recalled a fun process filming.
“They were trying to come up with different ideas of how they were going to make Jon Favreau look viable in it,” McCarthy said. “They wanted Tank to do certain things, and Tank is like, ‘I’ll pick him up and run him across the damn cage. I’ll slam him into the wall.’ Right? Jon Favreau’s going, ‘I’m 200-and-something (pounds). I don’t think you can just pick me up.’ Tank picks him up, carries him around – so it was kind of funny the whole time. We had a good time.”
Added Buffer: “It was just really cool, and all of us were just tickled pink and felt very honored to be on the show.”
Read on to hear more from Buffer and McCarthy on other aspects of filming “Friends,” what it meant for them and what it meant for the UFC.
First-round stoppage losses resulted in matching suspensions for the two combat sports legends.
Triller Fight Club returned this past Saturday when boxing and MMA stars of the past collided inside the ring.
The main event featured former UFC champion [autotag]Vitor Belfort[/autotag] as he battled all-time boxing great [autotag]Evander Holyfield[/autotag]. The exhibition match was a quick one as Belfort stopped the 58-year-old Holyfield in 109 seconds.
Also on the card, former UFC champions [autotag]Anderson Silva[/autotag] and [autotag]Tito Ortiz[/autotag] squared off in a professional boxing match that was over in even less time than the main event. After he ducked and dodged some of Ortiz’s attempts, Silva knocked “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” out cold in 88 seconds.
On Wednesday, MMA Junkie acquired a list of medical suspensions from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, the commissioning body that oversaw the event. Scroll below to see the suspensions (or lack thereof) handed out to the four fighters.
Check out this week’s episode of “Spinning Back Clique” covering the biggest topics in MMA.
Check out this week’s “Spinning Back Clique,” MMA Junkie’s weekly show that takes a spin through the biggest topics in mixed martial arts.
This week, we cover the aftermath of [autotag]Evander Holyfield[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Vitor Belfort[/autotag] and [autotag]Anderson Silva[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Tito Ortiz[/autotag], as well as talk Dana White’s Contender Series’ apparently new approach and more.
Our “Spinning Back Clique” panel of Mike Bohn, Danny Segura and George Garcia debates and discusses these topics with host John Morgan:
Back in the world of MMA, the UFC has been handing out contracts with increasing regularity on this season of Dana White’s Contender Series, with 10 fighters getting deals after just 9 fights on the show. It seems the standard for earning a deal has dropped this year. Should that be concerning?
It’s a dual-event Saturday this weekend, with both the UFC and Bellator going head to head, but the most intriguing name on both cards may very well be [autotag]Yoel Romero[/autotag]. At 44 years old, Romero is ready to make his Bellator debut, and he’s got a top contender right off the bat in Phil Davis. Romero was never quite able to claim UFC gold, but will he be able to capture the Bellator belt before he’s done? What’s the projection for Romero at Bellator?
Speaking of Bellator, they made a major announcement this week in the signing of [autotag]Kyoji Horiguchi[/autotag]. Love it, hate it or simply lukewarm?
Lastly this week, Olympic wrestling gold medalist [autotag]Gable Steveson[/autotag] announced that he is taking his talents to the world of professional wrestling, signing with the WWE rather than pursuing an MMA career. Think he made the right call?
“Spinning Back Clique” is released each Tuesday on MMA Junkie’s YouTube channel.
Anderson Silva does a classy gesture for Tito Ortiz in their flight home following Triller event.
[autotag]Anderson Silva[/autotag] continues to be a class act in and out of the ring.
According to [autotag]Tito Ortiz[/autotag], the former UFC middleweight champion gave up his first-class seat to his recent opponent’s girlfriend, Amber Nicole Miller, in their flight back to California following their fight at Saturday’s Triller Fight Club Legends II event in Hollywood, Fla.
Silva knocked out Ortiz in the first round of their boxing contest in the co-main event of the card.
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In a video posted on Ortiz’s Instagram stories, “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” thanked Silva for giving his first-class seat to Miller after the airline JetBlue made a mistake on the tickets only giving Ortiz one first-class ticket.
“He just actually gave up his first-class ticket for Amber to sit here,” Ortiz said. “The airline messed up and Anderson Silva gave up his seat for Amber to sit next to me. Anderson Silva, you’re the man, dude. I appreciate it, thank you very much. Amazing man, nothing but respect. Even after the fight, he gave it up and let Amber sit here. Thank you, Anderson, I appreciate it. Mad respect dude.”
Check out Ortiz speaking about Silva’s generosity in the video below:
The Blue Corner is MMA Junkie’s blog space. We don’t take it overly serious, and neither should you. If you come complaining to us that something you read here is not hard-hitting news, expect to have the previous sentence repeated in ALL CAPS.
Monday’s edition of MMA Junkie Radio with hosts “Gorgeous” George and “Goze” is here.
Monday’s edition of MMA Junkie Radio with hosts “Gorgeous” George and “Goze” is here.
On Episode 3,192, the guys react to [autotag]Conor McGregor[/autotag]’s latest outside-the-cage incident: a near-scuffle with rapper Machine Gun Kelly at the MTV Video Music Awards. Plus, they look back at the Triller Fight Club event and discuss [autotag]Vitor Belfort[/autotag], [autotag]Anderson Silva[/autotag] and [autotag]Tito Ortiz[/autotag]. They’ll also hit on Gable Steveson going to the WWE, Jason “Mayhem” Miller’s latest arrest, [autotag]Houston Alexander[/autotag] and more. Tune in!
Stream or download this and all episodes of MMA Junkie Radio over at OmnyStudio. You can also catch it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and more. A new episode of the podcast is released every Monday and Thursday.
