To say that 2016 was a chaotic year at MMA's upper echelon would be
an understatement. In the
Ultimate Fighting Championship, there were 10 title changes,
and that doesn't even include the interim titles that former
pound-for-pound king
Jon Jones and
new P4P entrant
Max
Holloway won. And speaking of Holloway's curious 145-pound
interim title,
Conor
McGregor didn't even have to lose a bout in the Octagon in
order to drop his featherweight title, which was stripped off of
him by his promoter in late November.
Excluding our No. 2 entrant
Daniel
Cormier, who didn't actually defend his UFC title on the year,
there are only two UFC champions who started 2016 with their gold
and kept it: women's strawweight champion
Joanna
Jedrzejczyk, the queen of MMA, and naturally, the new consensus
No. 1 man in the sport, flyweight kingpin
Demetrious
Johnson.
How has this list changed over the last 12 months? Well, since UFC
195 kicked off 2016 with a bang courtesy of the “Fight of the Year”
between
Robbie
Lawler and
Carlos
Condit, half of our pound-for-pound list has been culled.
Former No. 2-ranked
Rafael dos
Anjos? Gone and reeling from back-to-back losses.
Luke
Rockhold? Victim of the “Upset of the Year” courtesy of
Michael
Bisping's left hand. The man Rockhold took the middleweight
title from,
Chris
Weidman?
Yoel Romero
handed the former champ his second straight loss with a brutal,
blistering flying knee.
Fabricio
Werdum? Courtesy of
Stipe
Miocic, he ate the canvas in less than three minutes in front
of over 45,000 Brazilians.
And of course, there's
Jon Jones, who
had been a part of our P4P list since taking the UFC light
heavyweight title in March 2011 and our No. 1 since
Anderson
Silva's first defeat to Chris Weidman in July 2013. You never
know what the future holds in this wild sport, but it doesn't seem
likely we'll have a P4P ruler removed from these rankings for
taking off-brand sexual-performance pills again any time soon. For
better and obviously in this case, for worse, Jon Jones is one of a
kind.
But in the absence of “Bones,” we welcome just the fourth man to
ever top the Sherdog.com pound-for-pound top 10, Demetrious
Johnson, joining Jones,
Fedor
Emelianenko, Anderson Silva and
Georges St.
Pierre. A constant fixture of the list since he made his P4P
debut in December 2012, Johnson's four-plus consecutive years in
this top 10 make him the second-longest serving P4P entrant on this
roster behind featherweight ace
Jose Aldo, who
first appeared in November 2009, giving him over seven years and
counting.
Even before
Jon Jones'
USADA test failure helped to handicap UFC 200 and nixed his
much-anticipated rematch with
Daniel
Cormier, many fans and media were already starting to entertain
the idea that the erratic Jones may not be in the best fighter in
the sport at this moment. At UFC 197 in April, Johnson destroyed
then-undefeated Olympic gold medal wrestler
Henry
Cejudo in less than three minutes on the undercard of Jones'
interim title bout against
Ovince St.
Preux. As Jones struggled to shake the cage rust over 25
minutes with St. Preux, Johnson simply blew a then-unbeaten fighter
out of the water, putting another high-quality W on his career
agenda. So profound is “Mighty Mouse's” dominance that the UFC
literally based a season of “The Ultimate Fighter” around finding
him a contender. When Johnson met TUF 24 winner
Tim Elliott
on Dec. 3, Johnson had to free himself from a sneaky early
guillotine before he really started to roll, but he swept the final
four rounds with increasing dominance. The win was Johnson's 9th
successful UFC title defense, leaving him just one defense short of
Anderson Silva's record of 10. That bout will likely come later
this year against Johnson's rival
Joseph
Benavidez. Admittedly, Johnson facing a man he's beat twice
already is not as appealing as a new challenger, however, Benavidez
remains a model of consistency with clearly the second-best most
impressive flyweight resume ever and has won six straight since
Johnson brutally knocked him out in their December 2013 rematch.
Repetitive or not, no potential Johnson challenger is more
accomplished than Benavidez and a third win over him would still be
an outstanding win for “Mighty Mouse.”
Poor Daniel Cormier; last year was not especially kind to the
American Kickboxing Academy team captain, who had multiple
varieties of bad luck. He was originally set to rematch Jon Jones,
the only man to ever defeat him, at UFC 197 in April but had to
pull out due to a foot injury. When the bout was remade for UFC
200, the revelation that Jones had blown a pre-fight drug test
resulted in Cormier facing a listless, disinterested Anderson Silva
on short notice instead. Knowing that the Jones rematch wasn't
going to happen any time soon, the UFC tried to run
Cormier-
Anthony
Johnson back for UFC 206 this past December, only for Cormier
to get injured and pull out of the bout again. Cormier has an
incredibly distinguished record at both heavyweight and light
heavyweight, one of the hallmarks of a P4P standout. His only
career blemish is to the man that should be on top of this list, if
not for his foolishness. Cormier will likely rematch Johnson later
this year and another victory over “Rumble” would be a legit
achievement, as Johnson has ripped off three destructive knockouts
over top-10 opposition since his first meeting with Cormier.
However, Cormier's legacy will largely be defined by whether or not
he can secure a rematch with “Jonny Bones” and defeat him, not
whether he can rack up multiple wins over Anthony Johnson.
Unfortunately for Cormier, Jones is gone for a year and Cormier
turns 38 in March, with years of wrestling and fighting injuries
starting to pile up. Being a pound-for-pound No. 2 is a major feat,
but no doubt it's not exactly the achievement Cormier wants.
Sherdog.com's 2016 “Fighter of the Year,”
Conor
McGregor remains a testament to what we seek to reward with
this list. He may never fight at 145 pounds again, but the
Irishman's featherweight exploits since joining the UFC in April
2013 remain outstanding, going 7-0 at 145 in the Octagon, having
knocked out the greatest featherweight ever in a mere 13 seconds,
and even beat now-interim champ and new pound-for-pound entrant
Max
Holloway with an injured knee. McGregor's position is mitigated
by his March loss to
Nate Diaz at
welterweight; if not for that, he may have
Demetrious
Johnson's spot here. However, McGregor prevailed over Diaz in a
thrilling rematch and then parlayed it into a lightweight title
shot at UFC 205, where he completely destroyed another one of our
pound-for-pounders,
Eddie
Alvarez, to become the first-ever simultaneous two-division UFC
champion. This list rewards great fighters who beat other great
fighters, who actively seek out those elite challenges regardless
of weight and are able to prevail in style; simply put, that's
McGregor. While the UFC stripped him of his 145-pound crown, “The
Notorious” one now lords over lightweight, the best division in
MMA, and is staring down the barrel of challengers like
Tony
Ferguson and
Khabib
Nurmagomedov, which are the sorts of wins that could eventually
put “Mystic Mac” on top of this list sooner rather than later.
Getting lamped by Conor McGregor in 13 seconds at UFC 194 ensured
that 2015 ended on a bitter note for Jose Aldo, and in 2016, he
fought only once and beat a man he'd already defeated three and a
half years prior. That doesn't sound that impressive, but Aldo's
performance in his rematch with
Frankie
Edgar was masterful, more consummate and dominant than his
February 2013 win over “The Answer.” On top of that, the first
Aldo-Edgar encounter was Edgar's UFC featherweight debut; in the
rematch, Edgar entered with five straight blowout wins over great
opposition and even worked his way back on this P4P list. On top of
that, Aldo even got his UFC featherweight title back, after he was
promoted from interim to undisputed champion when the UFC stripped
Conor McGregor in November. Now, Aldo will prepare to face the
new-new interim champ at 145, Max Holloway. A win over the surging
Hawaiian would certainly constitute one of the very best in Aldo's
distinguished career, with Holloway having rattled off 10 straight
victories in impressive fashion.
A pair of victories over
Dong Hyun
Kim and
Kelvin
Gastelum -- in 2014 and 2015, mind you -- earned Tyron Woodley
a UFC welterweight title shot after 18 months on the sideline. With
a thunderous right hand, Woodley evaporated
Robbie
Lawler, who since returning to the UFC in February 2013, had
completely re-defined his career, his place in MMA history, and put
together one of the very best records in the sport. In his first
title defense, Woodley ended up fighting to a 25-minute majority
draw with
Stephen
Thompson and while it's hardly as meritorious as a victory,
Woodley dominated for stretches of the bout against “Wonderboy,”
who had won seven straight in the UFC welterweight shark tank,
including blowouts of
Jake
Ellenberger,
Johny
Hendricks,
Rory
MacDonald and
Robert
Whittaker. Woodley, 34, dreams of getting a Conor
McGregor-style big money bout but first, will likely need to
rematch Thompson. The welterweight division remains, year after
year, one of MMA's very best and if Woodley can get the W over
karate exponent this time around and reign, he would be doing so
against some of the best fighters in the whole sport. This is the
kind of dynamic that made
Matt Hughes,
then
Georges St.
Pierre, then, yes, Robbie Lawler too, into all-time great
fighters.
As we begin 2017, it's hard to get a handle on where Robbie Lawler
is at. Prior to his February 2013 UFC return, Lawler was already an
achieved welterweight and an even more achieved middleweight. But,
since he returned to the Octagon that night in Anaheim, Calif., and
blew away
Josh
Koscheck in less than four minutes, Lawler redefined his career
and had one of the most exceptional runs in MMA history over three
years and nine fights. However, since he was brutally clobbered by
Tyron Woodley at UFC 201 in July, Lawler has become an afterthought
for many. When he signed on to fight
Donald
Cerrone at UFC 205 in New York, MMA fans salivated, but Lawler
ultimately decided he wanted more time to prepare following his
knockout loss to Woodley. No one could hold this against Lawler:
with 2016 now in the books, “Ruthless” has authored three straight
unanimous (or near unanimous) “Fight of the Year” winners and we're
only 12 months removed from his thrilling split-decision win over
Carlos
Condit. That said, the fact that Lawler signed on to face a
fighter like “Cowboy” in his return bout in the first place
suggests that the 34-year-old is still keenly interested in taking
on challenging, dangerous and elite opponents. And, at the end of
the day, in the last three years or so, Lawler has major wins over
Condit,
Rory
MacDonald twice,
Jake
Ellenberger,
Matt Brown
and
Johny
Hendricks (when Hendricks could make weight and beat elite
opponents).
The heavyweight division being what it is, it is often hard for
MMA's big men to crack this list. Moreover, it's even harder for
those heavyweights to remain among the pound-for-pound elite; not
everyone can be
Fedor
Emelianenko. Witness the man knocked that knocked Emelianenko
off of his perch,
Fabricio
Werdum, who is at the very worst one of the five best
heavyweights ever, but wound up on the business end of
Stipe
Miocic's hands in front of 45,000 Brazilian fans in Curitiba.
Over the last 16 months or so, Miocic has beat down Werdum,
Andrei
Arlovski,
Mark Hunt and
most recently at UFC 203 in September, spectacularly knocked out
Alistair
Overeem in front of a partisan Cleveland crowd in his first UFC
title defense. That run ain't too shabby. In 20 years, no
heavyweight has successfully defended the UFC heavyweight title
more than twice in a single reign. The 34-year-old Miocic is
hitting his stride in his seventh year as a pro, so he may have a
chance, however, he'll still have to contend with the likes of
Werdum,
Cain
Velasquez if he can get healthy, and a potentially resurgent
Junior dos
Santos, the last man to defeat Miocic, earning a five-round
unanimous decision two years ago. Any of those names would
significantly bolster Miocic's current and historical heavyweight
credentials, but again, we know how the heavyweight division
goes.
The last three years have been instrumental in the development of
the 145-pound division. For years, Jose Aldo lorded over the
featherweight class with impunity and during his reign, outside of
Chad
Mendes, he struggled to find truly accomplished and outstanding
title challengers; keep in mind, Frankie Edgar's first crack at
Aldo was his UFC debut at 145. This has changed dramatically and
Max Holloway is both proof of featherweight's breakout, as well as
a benefactor: Holloway's last five opponents --
Cub Swanson,
Charles
Oliveira,
Jeremy
Stephens,
Ricardo
Lamas and
Anthony
Pettis -- are all top 10-featherweights and Holloway has looked
increasingly dominant, on top of his thrilling, offensive style.
Holloway's 10 consecutive victories are also the sixth-longest
streak in UFC history. Holloway just turned 25 years old last
December and now headed into a likely UFC title unification clash
with fellow pound-for-pounder Jose Aldo, Holloway has already
established himself among MMA's finest in this moment, but he will
soon have the chance to leap into its most rarefied air if he can
make it 11 wins in a row when he meets “Scarface.”
Even with Michael Bisping authoring two of the biggest upsets of
2016 by conquering the greatest middleweight ever Anderson Silva
and then taking the UFC title from Luke Rockhold on short notice,
it didn't seem likely the current No. 1 middleweight would emerge
as any kind of pound-for-pound threat. Yet, with so many elite
fighters falling by the wayside and Bisping managing to hang onto
his title against undeserving-but-exciting title challenger
Dan
Henderson, here he is. Bisping might not have the recent ledger
that some other P4P contemporaries have, but it may not be as soft
as some anti-Bispingites may want to depict: Bisping's win over
Silva will likely be the last time in history that a win over “The
Spider” matters and his knockout win over Rockhold, who has a truly
exceptional record and was a top-five entrant on this list when it
happened, is a truly meritorious achievement. Bisping turns 38 in
February and has been fighting nearly 14 years, so with
intenisfying conversations about when “The Count” will hang up his
gloves, his days here may be numbered. Nonetheless, Bisping's next
challenge figures to be
Yoel Romero,
who has recently put the likes of former champ
Chris
Weidman and “Jacare”
Ronaldo
Souza on his record. If Bisping could retain his UFC strap
against the Olympic silver medalist, it would represent the second
best win of his career after Rockhold and offer him some
surprisingly stability in these rankings, at least temporarily.
Unlike most folks on this list, Donald Cerrone has never won a UFC
title and he's not particularly close to a second chance at one.
Nonetheless, after years of creeping just on the periphery of this
list, “Cowboy” joins the mix and it's not hard to see why. While
“pound-for-pound” might be an idea that MMA folks like to argue
over its particulars, Cerrone is the fighting embodiment of what
the concept is all about. Yes, in his first UFC title challenge in
December 2015, he was destroyed in just 66 seconds by
then-lightweight champ
Rafael dos
Anjos. However, outside of that loss, Cerrone has gone 12-1 in
just over three years and has finished nine of those opponents,
with wins over
Eddie
Alvarez,
Edson
Barboza,
Matt Brown,
Evan
Dunham,
Benson
Henderson and
Rick Story.
More than that, Cerrone is staking his P4P claim by beating elite
opposition in MMA's two greatest weight classes, 155 and 170.
Outside of some truly extraordinary circumstances, a fighter that
is an established top-five lightweight and now a top-10
welterweight -- one who fights and beats three to five quality
opponents a year -- is certainly one of the sport's best and most
accomplished.
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