Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest MMA Strikers

Welcome again folks, this time to Sherdog's list of the 10 greatest strikers in MMA history. This was compiled as an average of many different Sherdog contributors' lists, and I will note where my own views deviated considerably. Personally though, the appeal of any such lists isn't the exact ordering, or who was included versus excluded, but the actual discussion below each entry. Anyone can come up with a list with no further commentary and it's no more “right” than another. However, the best such lists have entertaining and informative explanations, which is a goal I hope to accomplish.

A word about criteria: My main measure for this list was greatness for one’s era and how long that era lasted. I believe the majority of other contributors used a similar rubric. Ranking historical fighters based on who would beat whom doesn’t make sense, since the sport as a whole keeps improving and evolving. Nevertheless, fighters from earlier eras may be penalized for competitive their division was or was not. There were fewer skilled grapplers in 1990s MMA when compared to even the 00s, let alone today. The criteria for this particular list were especially open-ended. For instance, it was left up to the individual voter whether defense should factor into an evaluation of striking or not. While I considered it myself, some of the other voters did not.

By way of honorable mention, there were many fighters who received at least one vote, but not quite enough to crack the top 10, including Dustin Poirier, Francis Ngannou, Michael Page, Patricio Freire and Petr Yan.

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