The Kingpin: The Best Fighters in MMA History

Some will quibble with your choices (other will rabidly call you names, but hey, it’s the internet), but I can’t see a lot to dispute here.

Anderson Silva is only an honorable mention? Baffled. Severely.

My only nitpick is only an honorable mention for Hughes. Hughes is one of the few to defeat GSP and he also defeated B.J. Penn.

Nice rundown, would of thought to see Matt Hughes in there as more than an honerable mention but it was a good article.

This makes your last article make SOOO much more sense. Thanks.

You should do a full write up of Sakuraba.

Interesting breakdown and I enjoy the historical perspective of the whole thing.

You will probably catch a little flack for the fact that Pride dominates the list, for 11 years and there is some wiggle room there, but largely I like your selections.

…but its your article, so whatever. =D

the man won belts in 2 different weight classes.. surely he deserves a mention here hes MMA’s living legend!!

I don’t get why some of of you are already complaining about the honorable mentions. He’s picking ONE person for a certain amount of time. They are either the kingpin or they’re not. The honorable mentions are the people that were right there, but not quite at the level. Everyone already debated the Anderson/GSP one in the last article he wrote, so if you’re not understanding why he picked GSP, go read that.

This discussion is gonna go downhill quickly.

Nice read

We call the present the modern era, but 10 years from now what will it be called?

im baffled at the honorable mention of matt hughes.

I wouldn’t label his ‘reign’ to 06/10

Jonathan, I love that you listed Nogueira over Hughes. I disagree, but I like it all the same.

For those wondering about Couture’s exclusion, he was never the best in any era but was among the best across several eras. It is a “whole greater than the sum of the parts” circumstance.

Oh, and I think you’re just hating on Anderson Silva, to which I am largely sympathetic.

All those guys were beat brutally, or left.

Except for Fedor.

He lost due to a technical mistake, not because he looked really slow and old like Coleman, or has no chin like Couture.

Fedor is younger than Carwin by two years, and Brock is only one year older.
Sorry, but he’s not done yet, and as much as pundits want to write his demise to make up blog posts and get traffic, his story isn’t finished… yet.

Also, Silva is much more dominate than GSP, mostly because he can finish a fight, but also because he can dominate guys above his weight class, and not below it.

just ask Big Nog,

The Pre UFC era dominated by the world’s first death fighter, James Toney’s father

whenever someone won a tournament, much less two, I always came away thinking “Man that guy is the best EVAR! Nobody will ever beat this guy!” I only say that because it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around an era, per se. Things were evolving and changing so fast, I could only ever pick a guy as the best from one moment to the next.

should have at least been mentioned.

Let’s not forget about the first man to ever beat Royce Gracie. He invented the idea of cross-training by incorporating Karate aspects back to Ju Jitsu.

but i can’t believe Randy Couture is not even mentioned!?

Anyone can dispute a fighter on that list but on a whole the list is pretty close to perfect. It brought back memories.

I have a hard time feeling he was “Kingpin” over Igor or Kerr. What’s the thinking for having Frank about either of those men?

I have little to disagree with here.

Too bad I didn’t get into the sport till 3 years ago, seeing people like Coleman or Sakuraba in their prime must have really been amazing.

BROCKLESNARRRRRRRR

The real problem, I think, is in trying to crown somebody to be “the Kingpin” in the post-Fedor period. GSP, Silva, etc., have all been “right there” (or ahead of Fedor, depending on your point of view) for the last couple of years — but neither has even fought once since Fedor lost. So if Fedor’s era is really “over,” what good does it do to try to crown a successor before the candidates even fight anyone? What if Silva was crowned and loses to Sonnen? Would the Silva era then be considered 06/10 – 08/10, a time period in which he didn’t even fight? Same thing for GSP. What if he loses his next fight? His “era” would be a brief period during which he didn’t compete.

I think overall this is a pretty good list, and a good platform for some discussion of the historical greats. Maybe instead of “honorable mention” you should just say “also considered” to avoid the negative connotation of “honorable mention” — usually the top spot and the second (sometimes even the third spot) are all pretty close and subject debate, so no need for that negative connotation. I just think it would be more effective long-term to stop with Fedor and leave the post-Fedor “era” open until we see what is going to happen and how these guys are going to perform in the near future.

I know you love Fedor but there is definitely a gap between when he started fighting irrelevant guys to the heavyweight division and his loss to Werdum when Anderson was crushing everyone that the Spider was the “kingpin” of the sport.

I also think Chuck should have a period in the middle of Fedor era until he got KO’d by Rampage – at which point the second Fedor kingpin era occurs.

Other than that I think you did an excellent job.

And I applaud you— I’m not here to say bad things about the more controversial ‘current events’ opinion pieces, but this is top notch: introspective editorial that regards the storied history of MMA as a whole. I don’t think fans of the sport are treated often to ‘sports writing’ that feels educational past recapping what happened this week.

This right here is your Koscheckian ace-in-the-hole. Sure you like to stand and trade with angry community members about the hot-button issues, but every once in a while don’t forget to play the “Jonathan Snowden, published MMA historian” card with one of these. Anyway, great work.

I understand it isn’t all about wins and losses, but it has to factor in some. You can argue honorable mentions and so on, but you lost me at Mark Kerr.

I agree with some of the above posters. In the case of Fedor’s era, I think it ends not with his loss but Pride’s demise. You can’t compare what he did over the last few years to GSP or Silva. Once there is a clear number one promotion in Zuffa, the landscape changes. Otherwise guys like Aoki, Kid Yamamoto and Urijah Faber would have to be in the mix as well just because their records were as good as anyone else’s at certain points.

Goood read. Really enjoyed the reminder of great times and fights. An “MMA where are they now?” ever been done?

As much as I disagreed with some of the post 116 chatter, it was wildly entertaining to read and discuss.

This article was the same; interesting, thought provoking, and just a real fun read!

I think at times many people (myself included) are much quicker to just bag on an article and try to pick it apart because we disagree, than we are to praise an article as interesting as this one.

After all, that’s what we’re her for… news and discussion.

Very good piece, one of the countless reasons why BE is the shiiiiiz!

after Fedor signed to fight HMC and Anderson beat Rich for the 2nd time.

GSP gained it when he beat BJ Penn at UFC 94.

I would be accused of bias if I said who I think will take it from GSP (if it hasn’t already been taken) in the next few months.

has already begun, but few realize it yet.

You should turn the comments off on your article’s and just let people respond via fanposts. Pretty sure that’s the next step of this comment section anyhow.