For those unaware, “southpaw” is a term in combat sports that references the opposite of an orthodox stance, where a person operates with their right foot forward – thereby making their left side the power side by default.
The term originated in 19th-century baseball, where the word ‘southpaw’ was used to cite everyone from left-handed pitchers to first basemen alike. It would soon be applied to other sports like boxing, where it was used sparsely up until the 1950s to describe lefties.
Aside from the fact that orthodox fighters would and could outright refuse to fight southpaws in boxing’s earlier days (which, in turn, forced more fighters to adopt orthodox stances), the world – in general – was much less flexible toward left-handed people back then.
It wasn’t until the 1970s to where southpaws started to become more of a common occurrence in boxing communities, but there are still prejudices about the stance that are held to this day.
MMA, which notably fast-forwarded martial arts and combat sports progression during its eruption in the 1990s, didn’t take as long to populate its sphere with southpaw stances.
Left-handed sensibilities aside, there are plenty of reasons why fighters, even right-handed ones, may end up operating out of a southpaw stance.
With “mixed” being the operative word in MMA, fighters who come from wrestling or traditional martial arts backgrounds will often find themselves fighting from southpaw regardless of which side they deem dominant.
Wrestlers often prefer to shoot with their strong leg in the lead position, while traditional martial artists tend to be trained from both stances but favor their strong sides forward (e.g. Anthony Pettis and Stephen Thompson).
I won’t be mentioning fighters like Pettis or Thompson on this list due to the fact that they officially list themselves as “switch-stance fighters.” Instead, I’ll be limiting this list to my favorite officially-listed southpaws who fought in the UFC.
As per usual, these lists reflect my personal tastes and biases and are not meant to serve as some ultimate authority. That said, I did my best within the given parameters to spread the love to some of this sport’s most impactful southpaw strikers.
So, without further ado…
