With all the recent movement in the welterweight division - veterans losing their steam, prospects shining, huge size differences - there's been one question on every Sherdogger's mind: how tall are these guys exactly?
SEE BOTTOM OF THREAD FOR LIST OF HEIGHTS
REFERENCE
We will use Khabib and Conor as our initial points of reference, as their heights are the most documented among UFC fighters due to celebrity status (meaning we have more points of reference to compare them to in terms of celebrities). The consensus is that
Conor stands at 174cm, and
Khabib stands at 175.3cm. These heights are consistent with the marginal difference in height we can observe from their face offs (with similar shoe height) and in ring stature. This also lines up with how they faced up against 175cm Dustin Poirier.
I may also mention other fighters as references but I won't be providing pictures for all of them, you're free to google and use your intuition. More references are always better in finding accurate heights. I am using cm as it is more precise but in the summary I will list the feet/inches too.
(C) Islam Makhachev - 180cm / 5'11"
We'll start with Islam, this one is fairly easy since we have many pictures of him with Khabib. Both are in socks in the left picture, and since the other two pictures are in training I'm assuming they're barefoot. The height difference is most jarring in the left picture, this could be due to Khabib's posture being slightly slanted and the differences in camera angle. Typically, the length from someone's eye to the top of their head is roughly 11.4cm. If we use that for scaling pixels, it would put Islam at around 180cm - slightly higher than his billed height.
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#1 Jack Della Maddalena - 180cm / 5'11"
Jack seems to be equal in height to Islam. In the left pic we see their eyes are almost completely level, as are the top of their heads. To address any doubts regarding footwear, we can see that the top of their heads line up when they embrace at the end of the fight, I consider this a good reference as them being connected puts them at very similar angles/distance to the camera. This puts JDM at 180cm - in line with his billed height.
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#2 Ian Garry & #3 Shavkat Rakhmonov - Both 189cm / 6'2.5"
Shavkat and Ian are
maybe separated by 0.5cm in the picture below, but given Shavkat's slight forward head posture, I'm inclined to believe that they are essentially equals in height. Shavkat has met with Khabib, and through scaling the pixels I put him at around 188.7cm next to the 175cm Khabib, given Shavkat's slight lean I think rounding to 189cm is an acceptable height for Shavkat and thus Garry.
I think the footwear cancels out between Shav/Khabib because Shavkat similarly towered over Belal while barefoot, the difference in eye level was around 7cm, if we add 4cm for Belal's sneakers, that puts the height difference between Belal & Shav at 11cm. This is very close to the 10.7cm height difference I observed in the Garry/Belal face off. I place at Belal at 175cm like Khabib (see next section), so this would put Shav/Garry at 186cm, which somewhat lines up with the Shav/Khabib pic? Truthfully, I suspect Belal wears high shoes, as his face offs always seem to bridge any expected gaps in height between him and his opponent (such as against JDM), while barefoot pictures in training show the opposite, we will get into this next. It may also not be completely accurate to compare eye level for Belal/Shav due to Shav's huge skull, but since he is wearing a hat it's the best we can do. For these reasons, I will stand by the 189cm height for Shav/Garry, although 188cm is also acceptable. Shavkat exceeds his billed height of 185cm, Garry comes up short of his billed height of 191cm.
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#5 Michael Morales - 183cm / 6'0"
Morales looks very tall but comes a little short of Garry/Shavkat. His stature is accentuated by the fact his two biggest wins were against the division's shorter guys like Burns/Brady. He is 7/8cm taller than those guys respectively, putting him at 183cm, spot on with his billed height.
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#5 Belal Muhammad - 175cm / 5'9"
Belal being equal to Khabib in height seems like a safe bet to me, it certainly looks that way in their pictures together, either when both are barefoot or in footwear. Belal also gives up some height to Islam, it was also noticeable when they took photos together with their belts if you want to look for that online. Belal comes up short of his billed height of 180.5cm.
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#6 Carlos Prates - 186cm / 6'1"
In the Garry face off he appeared about 3cm shorter than Ian, he's very animated and thus upright in that pic, as opposed to his normal slouched posture. In the face off with Leon he is noticeably shrugged over, which I think makes him look a tiny bit shorter than he is, it puts his eye level slightly below Leon's though his crown remains level with Leon's. I think Prates with good posture stands at 186cm, just 1cm over Leon who I have 185cm, and 3cm below the 189cm Garry. Prates is just north of his billed height of 185cm.
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#7 Sean Brady - 174cm / 5'8.5"
I put Sean Brady at 174cm, he gives up around 1cm of height to both Belal and Burns who I both have at 175cm (you can see their face off for reference). The difference is slightly more pronounced than 1cm in the Belal pic but I think this is due to Brady defaulting to his hunchback posture, while he's more upright against Burns. The Brady/Leon difference was also just that tiny bit more jarring than the Leon/Belal difference if you want to look those up. Brady comes short of his billed height of 178cm.
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#8 Kamaru Usman - 180cm / 5'11"
I have Usman at 180cm. He looks like an equal to Islam in the image below, Khabib being an additional reference helps, with him coming up around 5cm short of both. Usman comes up 5.5 short of Leon, who I place at around 185cm, again verifying Usman at 180cm.
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#9 Leon Edwards - 185cm / 6'1"
Usman and Prates face offs put Leon at 185cm, I would say 185.5 but I am trying to use whole numbers for this thread for the results, and I think 185 is more reasonable. Belal/Brady face offs verify Leon at 185cm if you want to look those up.
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#10 Joaquin Buckley - 173cm / 5'8"
Ending the list we have the shortest guy in the top 10, Joaquin Buckley. Roughly 7cm shorter than the 180cm Usman, placing him at 173cm.
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- Islam Makhachev - 180cm / 5'11"
- Jack Della Maddalena - 180cm / 5'11"
- Ian Garry - 189cm / 6'2.5"
- Shavkat Rakhmonov - 189cm / 6'2.5"
- Michael Morales - 183cm / 6'0"
- Belal Muhammad - 175cm / 5'9"
- Carlos Prates - 186cm / 6'1"
- Sean Brady - 174cm / 5'8.5"
- Kamaru Usman - 180cm / 5'11"
- Leon Edwards - 185cm / 6'1"
- Joaquin Buckley - 173cm / 5'8"
