Eddie Alvarez as champ

[Poatan Power]

Nothing wrong with losing to Conor. People love to denigrate him but in his prime he was a slaughterer. Eddie was competitive with Dustin and beat Justin immediately after.

Aren't those 3, which he went 1-1-1 against, what Khabib's entire legacy is built on?

 

[MartinGibson86]

He had no answers for the speed. He had no answers for the counter. He had no answers at all for Conor. It was like he was an amateur. This is a guy who finished Justin Gaethje. That night was the end of his career.

Looked like he was pretty close to finishing the Dustin rematch until the foul. He was threatening with a neck crank.

 

[immyaxl]

Imagine having a fighting legacy like Eddie
And mostly being known as the guy who got tooled by Conor

That's basically what happened.

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

Hes a borderline ATG and one of the most entertaining fighters ever.

 

[RogerB08]

Champion of the minor leagues.

 

[immyaxl]

One of the only guys to win titles in basically all the major orgs including UFC.

For some reason UFC champs don't fair well outside ufc and champs from other major orgs dont fair well in ufc.

Eddie, Shogun and Big Nog are the only ones that come to mind that did it

Long list of great fighters that won belts in UFC or Pride or Bellator or Strikeforce and competed in both UFC and the other but didn't win both UFC and the other
Iceman
Hendo
Bendo
Busta
Vitor
Wand
Rampage
Overeem
Arlovski
Werdum
Rory Mcdonald
Mousasi
Bader
Phil Davis
Gilbert Melendez
Shields
Nick Diaz
Anderson
Gomi
Pulver
Machida

Hendo was a UFC tournament champ. That was highest honor you could have in the UFC for a non-heavyweight at the time. He also held two weight class titles in Pride and the Light Heavyweight title in Strikeforce as well as going 2-1 against two of the best Heavyweights of all time in Fedor & Big Nog. For all tense and purposes he's the most decorated fighter in MMA history.

 

[immyaxl]

If you haven't seen his fights in DREAM against Kawajiri and Hansen I highly recommend them. They are crazy.

That Tournament was one of the best ever. Probably the best Lightweight tournament of all time.

 

[Mammothman]

A joke of a champion, as bad as Michael Bisping.

 

[ilfirin]

I only remember his instagram eyebrows *shrug*

 

[Red_Negan]

A fit RDA would have destroyed him

Based on what? RDA is aggressive but he’s sloppy, that would play into Conor’s game.

 

[SherdogFan23]

He got lucky in getting the belt fight. He had two split decision wins after losing to Cerrone to get the belt fight opportunity.

He got lucky and got RDA in trouble early. He would have lost a defense versus RDA just like he lost to McGregor. I wish RDA could have fought McGregor. It would have been far more interesting.

 

[Mike]

Champion of the minor leagues.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

He's one of the best lws ever. He looked bad in that fight, but styles make fights. A bad fight doesn't invalidate an entire career. Its crazy how much disrespect he gets from casuals on here. He has a very impressive resume, better than most ufc lw champs.

Definitely a very good fighter. He never hit a super high peak or separated himself from the pack at any point, but he was probably one of the ten best LW in the world for a sustained 7-8 year period.

It’s very interesting to review his record against top opponents….

Chandler: two tough, competitive fights, lost late and then won a split decision

Cerrone: lost a highly competitive 29-28 unanimous decision

Melendez: won a highly competitive 29-28 split decision

Pettis: won a highly competitive 29-28 split decision

Poirier: loss and a NC late in the second round of two back and forth wars

Gaethje: KO win late in the third round of a back and forth war (probably the best he ever looked FWIW)

RDA/Conor: ironically his two title fights were the only real wipeouts in either direction

That’s a who’s who at LW across all relevant organizations other than Tony and Khabib (who were in the middle of their failed attempt to face off while he was in the UFC). He fought other big names on his way up outside the organization and beat most of them.

Where you rank him overall depends on how much you care about winning the RDA fight I suppose. I have Tony higher, he beat RDA around the same time and did much better against Cowboy and Showtime (worse against Justin in fairness). But that’s around his level — at the absolute worst he should be remembered in the tier that includes Poirier, Gaethje, etc.