Tag: Rankings/List

At UFC 179, Chad Mendes will attempt to become Team Alpha Male’s second active UFC champion.

Five consecutive wins, with four coming via knockout, have earned Mendes a rematch with 145-pound titleholder Jose Aldo. In his first meeting with the Brazilian, Mendes was knocked out in the opening round, but the finish was preceded by a blatant fence grab that went unpenalized.

Whether he dethrones Aldo or not on October 25, Mendes has proven he’s one of the best in the featherweight class.

A group once carried by Urijah Faber, Team Alpha Male has become a training camp with really solid depth. Faber is still among the team’s leaders, but a strong argument can be made that multiple teammates have surpassed the former WEC champion.

Here are the five best Team Alpha Male competitors as things stand right now.

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What is it about athletes and the nightlife? Something about the siren song of hedonism seems very difficult to resist for young men who find themselves famous, in elite physical shape and with perhaps a little extra change in their pockets.

Your guess is as good as mine. But it continues unabated, and it goes across all sports. No, it’s not just MMA. It’s all sports. Imagine what would happen if a fighter at the club shot himself in the foot or rode an inflatable swan? Bedlam.

The issue for cage fighters recently resurfaced when a young fighter by the name of Cody Gibson advised a larger club patron to “Google” him after a night of being taunted, then called said patron a female dog. Shockingly, an altercation ensued. And here’s the weirdest part: The antagonist there didn’t get a lot of publicity! Gibson was the lucky one in that regard.

So anyway, on a relative scale, MMA really is not so bad, I suppose, at least as far as the stuff that makes the headlines. And yet, it has its moments. These are cage fighters, after all.

Here are the top five that come to mind from across the history of the sport. They are ranked based on the notoriety of each incident. Indulge yourself.

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The light heavyweight division has given fans plenty of thrills over the years, but what used to be the UFC’s premier division is in shambles. 

Part of it is because of the rise of other promotions, with organizations like Bellator MMA and One FC having the gumption to develop, retain and pursue talented fighters. Part of it is just plain mismanagement by the UFC. Ultimately, what that means is there is more light heavyweight talent outside the UFC today than at any point since the death of Pride.

So who are some of the best light heavyweights outside the UFC? Where are they fighting? Could we see them compete in the Octagon? 

Find out right here!

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Popularity is a double-edged sword in today’s mixed martial arts.

It has the power to launch a fighter’s career in the presence of masterful win streaks and memorable finishes, but also unfairly bury deserving contenders in favor of sexier ticket sales and jaw-dropping matchups.

That’s why it’s important for the people in charge—in this case, the UFC—to manage their roster accordingly, book the sensible fights and actually play by their own ranking system.

If they can do that, then these five fighters gaining vast popularity will fall into their rightful places. 

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The term “gatekeeper” is so often used pejoratively. I beg to differ.

How else do you know who is truly befitting of the VIP section without someone manning the velvet ropes? What is a bar without a bouncer? Just a bunch of drunken chaos is what. 

We can’t have the UFC being in chaos, so we must have gatekeepers. It’s a vital role. And in these slides, we salute the gatekeeper in every weight class—that man or woman who separates the contenders from the masses.

This salute is a job that often falls to me, and it’s a task I relish. I’m like the gatekeeper of the gatekeepers. That’s my role. Anyway, here goes.

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