5. Cain Velasquez
Velasquez was a divisive candidate, as a few Sherdog staffers—myself included—ranked him significantly higher than this, but others had him at sixth or even lower. Personally, I was surprised at how far he had fallen in terms of popular perception. It shows that what a fighter does when past their prime still counts very heavily for or against them. In Velasquez’s case, after losing the title to Fabricio Werdum, he came back and dominated Travis Browne in 2016, stopping him late in Round 1. After a long injury layoff, he returned in 2019 and was knocked out in 26 seconds by Ngannou, in a fight in which Velasquez had been a nearly 3-to-1 favorite, and promptly retired.
Still, Velasquez had an amazing run from 2009 to 2013 and showed an incredible combination of skills we had never seen before in a heavyweight, with skilled, powerful striking, great wrestling combined with good BJJ, vicious ground-and-pound and seemingly limitless cardio. Cain defeated prime versions of Cheick Kongo and Ben Rothwell, a significantly past his prime but still dangerous version of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, a prime Brock Lesnar, twice stopped a prime Antonio Silva, and won the last two fights of a trilogy against Junior dos Santos with a pair of brutal beatings that likely took years off the Brazilian's career and were responsible for his earlier than expected decline.
Too many people likely remember the withered, washed-up versions of many of those fighters and thus don't give Velasquez the credit he deserves. That's especially true of dos Santos, who was utterly amazing in his prime. He definitely lost a piece of himself in their trilogy, but even after that, narrowly defeated Stipe Miocic, yet Velasquez utterly decimated him in the 2nd and 3rd fights. It was an amazing run, even if it all ended far sooner than anyone expected.
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