MMA’s flagship franchise has become the subject of much debate when it comes to which fighter can be crowned the greatest of all time. In all honesty, GOAT status is given to a handful of fighters, and depending on who you ask, you may hear different answers. Three fighters tend to always enter the conversation: Jon Jones, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Georges St. Pierre. But which fighter is the outright GOAT, and what does it take to be an outright UFC GOAT?
Different people weigh different aspects of GOAT status differently. Some people may believe that all you need to consider is a fighter’s record, and that’s fair enough. But should the true value of a fighter be based on the number of different styles they’ve shown mastery in? What about a fighter’s ability to win big fights, or pull out a win out of nowhere?
Clearly there’s too much to consider, but these factors will serve as the foundation for the analysis in this article.
Professional Record
A fighter’s record is a fighter’s resume. They wear each win and each loss, which can inform the value of their contracts, future matchups, and whether or not they’re worthy of GOAT status.
If we’re looking at records alone, Khabib is the undisputed GOAT. The Eagle has amassed 29 professional wins, and as is well known, has never lost a bout. In fact, Khabib has only ever lost two rounds in his fighting career that was spread over more than a decade.
Talk about dominance.
Jones has technically also never lost a bout, although he does have a 1 in the loss column of his record, after he was disqualified in a fight against Matt Hamill back in 2009. The ref called a stop to the fight because Bones had used his elbows illegally, which will forever taint what could’ve been a perfect record.
While this is technically not a loss, Jon Jones has amassed 26 wins, which is 3 short of Khabib’s 29, meaning the Dagestani edges the American in this regard.
Lastly, GSP’s record is least impressive in this list of fighters, but by regular standards, the Canadian’s resume is more than exceptional, racking up 26 wins, and suffering defeats only twice.
Khabib wins the record round by unanimous decision.
Fight Style
If a more idealistic martial arts perspective is taken, the greatest of all time should technically show mastery in a number of martial arts formats. Usually in MMA, the more tools a fighter has at their disposal, the better they’ll do.
Of course, this isn’t always the case, as the age old saying rings true, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, and time and again we’ve seen some of the most technically proficient fighters getting slept by a well timed shot.
While 8 of Khabib’s 29 victories came from knockouts, Khabib is by all means a grappler, who has shown some proficiency in striking when needed to. No one can forget the time he floored Conor McGregor, but over his career, the main areas he has shown his proficiency have been wrestling and submissions.
If we take a look at Jon Jones however, it was clear throughout his career that he had mastered multiple fighting styles, from boxing and kickboxing, to Muay Thai, as well as having a solid wrestling and grappling game, giving him the edge over Khabib.
GSP finally also showed an all rounded skill set – having the ability to knock his opponents out, as well as submit them.
While it’s tight, we feel that the style round goes to Jon Bones Jones.
Big Fight Temperament
Last on the list of classification factors is the ability of these three fighters to close tight fights, scrape wins from nowhere, and how they performed in some of the biggest fights of their careers.
It could be argued that there’s no point in including this section because of the fact that Khabib has never lost a fight. Whatever the occasion, the Eagle always performed and won convincingly.
While Bones has the one blemish on his record, he too had the ability to close out his fights. One that comes to mind in particular was when he beat Thiago Santos and looked like he needed crutches as he left the cage.
Lastly, GSP is probably the fighter that comes up short the most in this regard. Despite being the favorite on all betting sites in Canada and beyond, his losses came to two underdogs, raising questions around whether or not the French Canadian had what it took to close out the big fights. These questions were largely silenced after his win against Mike Bisping, but those two losses on his records speak a thousand words.
While this round was well contested, we scored it 10 – 9 Khabib.
Overall
The judges scorecards are in, and it’s the Eagle that adds another win to his phenomenal career. Out of the top three that we’ve mentioned here no one can boast the same all round statistics that Khabib can. While this outcome may be heavily disputed, the Eagle’s record speaks for itself, and at the end of the day, if no one else can beat you, doesn’t that make you the best?