Conor McGregor recently unveiled the five fighters he considers to be the greatest of all time. Shockingly, he wasn’t one of them.
‘Mystic Mac’ was recently featured on a live stream hosted by online gambling site Duelbits where he was asked a series of questions, one of them being who he considers as the five GOATS of mixed martial arts. With the snap of a finger, McGregor rattled off four notable names, though he needed a moment or two to come up with a fifth pick.
“Top-5 MMA GOATS,” McGregor said. “Rickson Gracie, Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, Chuck Liddell… how many is that? Three, four? Four? The OGs… Bas Rutten. Bas Rutten, yeah. Europe’s own. Europe’s first is Bas Rutten. What a man Bas Rutten is.
“Serious shape he’s in now. Bas, I’m right behind you, bro. I see you, Bas. I see you, Bas. I’m right behind you” (h/t MMA Fighting).
Inspired to train in martial arts after seeing the Bruce Lee classic Enter the Dragon, Bas Rutten established himself as a world-class kickboxer before becoming the first UFC champion from the Netherlands following a split decision win against Kevin Randleman at UFC 20 in May 1999 to claim a heavyweight title.
Rutten never defended the title due to injuries, but went on to cap off his iconic fighting career with an impressive 28-4-1 record with noteworthy wins over Frank Shamrock, Maurice Smith, Guy Mezger, and Tsuyoshi Kohsaka.
Rutten was inducted into the UFC Hall Fame Pioneer Wing in 2015.
Breaking down Conor McGregor’s GOAT List
The other four names on McGregor’s list were all prominent figures in mixed martial arts who, in one way or another, helped to bring MMA out of the shadows and into the spotlight.
Perhaps the most famous of which was Royce Gracie. Winning the inaugural UFC tournament in 1993, Gracie quickly became the de facto face of the promotion’s early days. Then there was his half-brother, Rickson Gracie, whose accomplishments have been touted as something straight out of mythology.
Ken Shamrock helped bring the UFC to another level during the promotion’s developmental years and Chuck Liddell is often credited as being MMA’s first true superstar, capturing the hearts of fight fans with his high-octane style of fighting before crossing over into the world of film and television.
With McGregor himself accounting for eight of the 10 highest-grossing pay-per-views in UFC history and becoming the first-ever simultaneous two-division champion in the promotion’s history, it’s a little surprising he didn’t include himself.
Do you agree with McGregor’s list?
Two-weight UFC champion, Georges St-Pierre has a unique take on the forever raging ‘GOAT’ discussion. Whatever the sport may be, the argument of who is the greatest of all time, or ‘GOAT’, is something that has and will forever be argued. MMA is no different, and whether you’re on the side of Jon Jones, Demetrious […]
Former middleweight title challenger turned podcaster and pundit Chael Sonnnen has compared the Nurmagomedov family to ju jitsu and mixed martial arts pioneers the Gracies. Lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov has recently been joined in the UFC by two of his relatives. Cousins Abubakar and Umar Nurmagomedov have both signed with the promotion bringing even more […]