8. Gegard Mousasi
Sherdog's third greatest middleweight finishes eighth on this list, though I had him third personally. A lot of Mousasi's greatest achievements occurred in other major organizations, including Bellator MMA, Dream and Strikeforce, all promotions where he attained championship gold. Yet he was arguably in his prime during his years in the UFC and despite destroying a bevy of title contenders and even champions, never got a crack at the crown. One reason for this is that the UFC held up the division while Georges St. Pierre came out of retirement to challenge Michael Bisping for the title and then waffled on whether he would fight again. Mousasi was so frustrated by the situation that he jumped ship to Bellator. Mousasi has some of the best stand-up in MMA history as well as some of its very best ground-and-pound, decimating countless foes with strikes from the top. However, he always had a relative weakness to elite grapplers with at least decent striking and solid defense.
Mousasi's UFC tenure was up-and-down initially, dominating future light heavyweight contender Ilir Latifi for 15 minutes, submitting Mark Munoz in the first round and needing just 70 seconds to knock out Dan Henderson, whom we will discuss much later, but also losing a decision to former light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida, being submitted in the third round by previous entry Ronaldo Souza, and suffering a shocking knockout via spinning back kick at the hands of Uriah Hall. However, Mousasi responded with a five-fight winning streak that included four stoppages and is as impressive a five-fight run as the UFC middleweight division has ever seen. First, he defeated elite grappler and former title challenger Thales Leites in a clear three round verdict, then knocked out future light heavyweight title challenger Thiago Santos in the first round, unheard of at the time, finished former champion Vitor Belfort in the second with ground-and-pound, got revenge against Uriah Hall with first-round ground-and-pound, and finally, defeated then recent UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman with knees in the second. Seen as perhaps the best middleweight in the world, Mousasi grew tired of waiting for lame-duck middleweight champion St. Pierre, as noted earlier, and made the shocking jump to Bellator. He goes down as one of the greatest UFC fighters to never win the belt.
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