4. Jose Aldo
Aldo was my pick for the greatest fighter in MMA history, but sadly, mine was the only first-place vote for the Brazilian. To me, he is the perfect storm of consistently unbeatable magnificence, destroying great opponent after great opponent, and unlike many other inclusions, he did so in an extraordinarily high-skill weight class where champions become washed up at a very early age. His career is truly unprecedented and might never be matched again. In terms of ability, he was an all-time great striker who could completely nullify even the best grappling, while also being a very good wrestler with fantastic BJJ himself. He was ahead of his time with his striking style and how well he blended his legendary leg and body kicks with outstanding boxing. From his debut in 2004 to December of 2015, Aldo went 25-1, with an early loss in 2005 to Luciano Azevedo the lone blemish. That included an astonishing 15-0 mark against elite competition in the WEC and UFC, and an eye-popping nine straight title defenses. His legendary wins include a stoppage of Shooto legend Alexandre Franca Nogueira, an eight-second destruction of Cub Swanson, a knockout of Mike Thomas Brown to claim the featherweight throne, a five-round beating of fellow legend Urijah Faber, a knockout of Manny Gamburyan, dominant decisions over Mark Hominick and Kenny Florian, badly beating recent lightweight champion Frankie Edgar, who had been robbed of the 155 pound belt just one fight earlier, a beating of Ricardo Lamas, a late knockout of Chan Sung Jung and two wins over the ultra-talented Chad Mendes: one by a famous first-round knockout, and the second in one of the greatest fights ever. None of these fights were even close, so far ahead of his competition was Aldo. Eventually, fighting fellow legends yielded losses. Aldo was caught early by Conor McGregor and, after beating Edgar again, was knocked out twice by Max Holloway.
However, Aldo showed he was far from done, recording knockouts of Jeremy Stephens and Renato Carneiro before dropping another decision to an all-time legend in Alexander Volkanovski. Then, at 33 years old, with 33 fights on his odometer, a time when even the greatest of featherweights and lightweights are badly washed up, Aldo made the decision to go down to 135 pounds, an even faster and arguably more talented weight class. It seemed like suicide, but Aldo once again showed why he is possibly the greatest ever, establishing himself as a top 5 bantamweight, including fantastic victories over Marlon Vera, Pedro Munhoz and Rob Font. To me, Aldo's 15-0 run at 145 pounds in the WEC and UFC is the best the sport has ever seen, and isn't considered the UFC record solely due to a silly technicality.
Continue Reading » Number 3