Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest MMA Grapplers

4. Georges St. Pierre

The French-Canadian living legend, taking top honors on Sherdog's welterweight list and No. 2 on the list of greatest fighters ever pound-for-pound, finishes a worthy fourth here, though that doesn't convey how crazy the voting was. He received three first-place votes, only one fewer than the fighter who came in first overall, while others left him off their lists altogether. I was a middle case, as I had him sixth, and can well understand the difficulty of both sides. On the one hand, St. Pierre is likely the greatest grappler in MMA history without a major background in any grappling art. Somehow, despite never wrestling in high school, he took opponents down at will, even outwrestling many former NCAA All-Americans and champions. His BJJ was great too, with beautiful technique combined with crushing power and quickness. As if that weren't enough, he also had excellent top control and the cardio to do it all for 25 minutes, making him perhaps the first really complete grappler MMA had seen.

The objection to St. Pierre being even higher is twofold. Firstly, there were talented grapplers who could neutralize him, and the second, hilariously enough, is how good his striking was. That opened up a lot of opportunities for him in the grappling but can't be counted as grappling ability per se. So, on the one hand, St. Pierre defeated excellent grapplers like Karo Parisyan, Dave Strasser, Jason Miller, Frank Trigg, B.J. Penn in the rematch, Josh Koscheck the first time, Matt Hughes in their rubber match, Matt Serra in the rematch and Nick Diaz, all by grappling. On the other hand, Jay Hieron, Sean Sherk, the second fight against Matt Hughes, Jon Fitch, Koscheck in the rematch, Jake Shields and Johny Hendricks (if one considers that at all) were beaten mostly with his striking. However, don't let that small gripe distract from one of the all-time greatest grapplers, prior credentials and pedigree be damned.

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