King Mo
- A former Strikeforce champion and runner-up in the first RIZIN Grand Prix, King Mo was an elite wrestler whose transition to MMA was anticipated by many people. He lived up to much of that hype, as a year-and-a-half later he was the Strikeforce champion and unanimously ranked in the top-10 after he defeated Gegard Mousasi. He fell in his first title-defense against Rafael Feijao, and a failed drug test two fights later damaged him even more, but he's been ranked in the top-15/20 consistently for the past 7 years. He holds victories over Roger Gracie, Mikhail Zayats, Cheick Kongo, Linton Vassell, Satoshi Ishii, Rampage Jackson, and won the 2013 Bellator "Summer Series" light-heavyweight tournament. He's currently scheduled to face top-5 light-heavyweight and defending Bellator light-heavyweight champion Ryan Bader in the opening round of the 2018 Strikeforce-- I mean Bellator heavyweight Grand Prix.
Ricardo Arona
- Easily the 2nd or 3rd greatest fighter to never fight in the UFC, depending on who you talk to (either he or Aoki take the second spot behind Fedor), Ricardo Arona, a very high-level Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt who won three gold medals at the Abu Dhabi Combat Club, currently has a 14-5 record. He's much like Joe Warren in that he's been fighting tough guys for his entire career, though. He fought Jeremy Horn, Hiromitsu Kanehara and Fedor Emelianenko in 4 of his first 5 fights (Horn twice), Fedor being the only one to beat him. He holds victories over Guy Mezger, Marvin Eastman, Dan Henderson, Ninja Rua, Kazushi Sakuraba, Wanderlei Silva, and Alistair Overeem in his career as well-- Wanderlei was the #1 light-heavyweight in the world when he beat him. He also has some ridiculously-hard low-round kicks; you'll see some really bad bruising on his opponents after only handing one kick, like an imprint of his shin, and they change the shape of his fights right away.
He hasn't fought in 10 years, but rumors of him making a comeback occasionally surface. In the meantime, he's hanging out in Brazil, practicing his grappling, working on opening a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu studio, and riding the waves.
Kiyoshi Tamura
- One of the most influential and high-level fighters to enter into MMA from Japan, Tamura was a pro wrestler who transitioned to MMA through the RINGS organization in the 90s and developed a lot of skill in catch wrestling, becoming a high-level grappler. He ended his career in 2008 with a 32-13-3 pro record and victories over Kazushi Sakuraba, Masakatsu Funaki, Hideo Tokoro, Minowaman, Jeremy Horn, Pat Miletich, Renzo Gracie, Dave Menne, Hiromitsu Kanehara, Valentijn Overeem, Volk Han, TK Kohsakha, and Maurice Smith.
Emanuel Newton
- A guy who's probably gonna go down as the most underrated light-heavyweight ever, Emanuel Newton is another in the series of fighters who will always be denigrated for his accomplishments no matter what he does. A competitor in the 2012 Bellator light-heavyweight tournament, he lost in the semi-finals against eventual winner and Bellator champion Atila Vegh, and despite holding a very solid 19-7-1 record with some nice wins, heading into the semi-finals against King Mo during next year's light-heavyweight tournament, he was completely written off. Newton shocked the world when he knocked out King Mo out cold with a backfist strike (Newton loves the spinning stuff) and advanced to the finals. After winning that tournament by decisioning Mikhail Zayats, he was matched up with King Mo in a rematch as most people had felt the first fight was a fluke, but Newton proved he was legitimate an unanimously beat King Mo over 5 rounds, winning the interim Bellator light-heavyweight championship in the process. He unified the belt by avenging his loss against then-top-15 light-heavyweight Atila Vegh, and then went on to defend his belt twice against Joey Beltran and Linton Vassell.
Unfortunately, some poor choices in those fights led to some inconsistent performances compared to what people had seen against King Mo, as he hadn't eaten anything for three days going into the fight with Beltran to prove he could win just by using his spirit, and he refused to do anything but grapple with Linton Vassell despite the fact that he had a significant striking advantage (and Vassell, being British, didn't exactly have the wrestling to take down an American wrestler) and that every grappling exchange in the first two rounds had gone horrible for Newton. He made comebacks and finished both of those fighters in very impressive fashion, though.
A third poor choice-- this one taking a two-week training camp, getting high and fucking his wife just a couple hours before the fight (the time when you're supposed to be focusing on mental preparation and trying to keep yourself alive as a fighter)-- led to another unspectacular performance against Liam Mcgeary, though Newton still took him to a split decision that could've just as easily gone his way.
Unfortunately, Newton's career hasn't gone too great since then, as he's 1-6 since 2015 and two of his losses have been pretty uncompetitive. Four of the losses have been very competitive, though, with two of them having very conceivably been hometown decisions (they were in Russia against Russians and his opponents hadn't exactly proven themselves in their fights against him). Newton's Bellator championship run and his victories against King Mo will live on in infamy, though, even should he decide to go through with retiring at 33 like he said a few years ago (he turns 34 in two weeks.) And his personality and faux-Karaté striking style made many people fans of him, including myself.
Hidehiko Yoshida
- An Olympic Jūdōka gold medalist, his debut in the sport was highly anticipated, and he lived up to it, defeating the 15-1 UFC tournament champion Don Frye in his debut. Just one year after that, with only a 3-0 record, he was matched up with the top light-heavyweight in the world in Wanderlei Silva and gave him an extremely competitive, very close fight that was considered not only the fight of the year for 2003, but one of the best fights ever. He heads the legendary Yoshida Dojo, a concentration of some of the best Jūdōka to ever enter into MMA that's still a solid training destination for the art of throwing people. He holds victories over Mark Hunt, Kiyoshi Tamura, Tank Abbot, Olympic Jūdō silver medalist Naoya Ogawa, UFC champ Maurice Smith, K-1 Grand Prix runner-up, and Satoshi Ishii. He ended his career in a retirement match against his student Kazuhiro Nakamura, losing a decision.
Others: Liam Mcgeary, Ninja Rua, Linton Vassel, Enson Inoue, Mikhail Zayats
