4. Rich Franklin
It has become easy to lose sight of Franklin from a historical perspective, the Cincinnati native forever stuck in the immense shadow of two-time nemesis Anderson Silva. “Ace” started his outstanding career 22-1, his only loss coming to Lyoto Machida at a 214-pound catchweight. Franklin was for a time the class of the middleweight division. He blew away Evan Tanner in less than three minutes in his Ultimate Fighting Championship debut in April 2003 and then took home the 185-pound crown by beating Tanner again in their rematch at UFC 53 in 2005. Successful title defenses against Nate Quarry and David Loiseau followed, the latter a five-round drubbing that saw Franklin land a remarkable 211 of his 339 attempted strikes, per FightMetric. His stay atop the middleweight mountain was brief, as he was dethroned by Silva at UFC 64 on Oct. 14, 2006 and fell short again in their rematch a year later. While Franklin will largely be defined by his two defeats to “The Spider,” he owns victories over Ken Shamrock, Yushin Okami and Chuck Liddell, and he remains the only man to ever beat Wanderlei Silva twice.
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