Most evolved mma fighter ever

[Franklin U.]

Gegard Mousasi is mmas only paradox. Its 2021 and hes still one of the top fighters in world.18 + years and still 35 years young .

No fighter has 2 primes as khabib says but theres an exception to just about every rule. Mousasi is that exception.

 

[Sad Dad]

Cordeiro era rda, werdum, and Charles. Wittman with Usman and Justin and Rose. Bobby knucks from tuf era to now.

 

[chaos_36]

No love for Jacare? He was pretty much a one trick pony when he debuted and now he has decent striking with pretty good power.

 

[Epicman1324]

GSP learned a discipline which he had no background in, and became the best in the world at it and predominantly used it in his 2nd title reign.

 

[ChickenBrother]

i am a loler fan. in fact he is my favorite fighter. but his run really came down to 3 things: 1. weaker competition (gsp retired, no fitch), 2. stupidity (his best opponents chose to stupidly stand and trade, lolers specialty), and 3. luck (he got a couple close decisions gifted). he did improve some, but i wouldn’t say he “evolved” the way some others did. he was just a man who answered the door when opportunity knocked at the right exact moment, and had just enough determination to seize the day.

all that being said, i am very happy he got to be champ. i wish more fighters actually fought like he does.

Lol at "loler." It's fair to say he was always a sprawl and brawl fighter - his base game didn't change but he leveled up within that game.

The Lawler that fought Diaz would have gone out guns blazing vs. Manhoef. Instead, he weathered the storm to pick his shot. In the locker room interview, he said plan A had been to shoot for the TD but he quickly realized he couldn't force the TD. So plan B was to cover and wait for Melvin to drop his guard charging in for the kill which they noticed watching tape. Lawler doesn't strike me as a guy to lie about something like that. Must have been hard as shit to be patient while taking bombs from f'ing Manhoef.



Re. weaker competition, agreed GSP leaving was big. But Fitch was there and the reason Robbie never fought him was because pre-USADA Hendricks had just KTFO'ed him in 12 seconds. Lawler arguably beat that version of Hendricks twice (the guy who had just arguably beaten GSP). All those decisions were razor thin but showed how close the top guys were to GSP at the time.

Also notable that Lawler left MFS for ATT in 2013 same time as his UFC return. Whatever he was doing there elevated his game from longtime journeyman to defending champ.

 

[HerpDerp]

Kelvin Gastelum comes to mind. Went from being a chubby baby faced kid that was picked last on TUF to winning the season with an extremely raw set of skills while being horribly undersized.

Just take a look back at some of his TUF fights and damn, it's difficult to even recognize him as the same guy if you were to exclusively judge his fighting style. Guy basically had absolutely zero striking technique back then and was called mini-Cain due to his high output wrestling based pressuring style, and now all of a sudden he's one of the slickest counter-punchers in the sport.

 

[IndyCovaHart]

This.

-Left the UFC in 2005 after losing 3 of last 4
-Wins and defends EliteXC belt against... Scott Smith
-Goes 3-5 in Strikeforce without winning the belt

Then he returns to the UFC in 2013 and no one including me expected him to make waves. Came into his title win vs. Hendricks at 24-10-1 which has to be the most losses of any 1st time UFC champ ever.

Not to mention he didn’t deserve the decision

 

[Hall90]

Usman went from a one dimensional wrestler going the distance almost every single fight now knocking everyone out.

 

[Lucas Motta]

Demian Maia or Usman

 

[Kratos94]

Whittaker - evolved into perhaps the most well-rounded fighter in mma right now. He has the second-best striking at MW, and has incredible takedown defense and the footwork to go with it

Adesanya - many people thought he would get out-wrestled by Brunson, Gastelum and Tavares (lol) and he has improved his grappling so much.

 

[randumo24]

Rose. Just go back and watch how she fought on TUF to how she is now. Very aggro with lots of kicks and constantly going for submissions, to now being arguably the best striker & boxer in women's MMA today.

 

[Joseph_McBride]

A lot of good answers so far, I'll give a shout out to Beneil Dariush. Seeing him losing to Ramsey Nijem, to perhaps junping into the top 5 this weekend is quite the progression. Props to Raphael GOATdeiro.

Max Holloway is a great answer, maybe the right one. From winning a bit of a gift decision against Leonard Garcia to all that he's accomplished now is pretty wild. And a tremendous example as to why fans shouldn't write developing fighters off.

 

[CashMoney1991]

GSP deserves credit for becoming one of the best wrestlers in the sport without a high-level background in it. Relatively speaking, it's much easier to build striking from a wrestling base.

that's one of the most impressive things about GSP and he fought a shit on of wrestlers, Koscheck, Fitch, Hendricks, Hughes, etc

 

[CashMoney1991]

i am a loler fan. in fact he is my favorite fighter. but his run really came down to 3 things: 1. weaker competition (gsp retired, no fitch), 2. stupidity (his best opponents chose to stupidly stand and trade, lolers specialty), and 3. luck (he got a couple close decisions gifted). he did improve some, but i wouldn’t say he “evolved” the way some others did. he was just a man who answered the door when opportunity knocked at the right exact moment, and had just enough determination to seize the day.

all that being said, i am very happy he got to be champ. i wish more fighters actually fought like he does.

that's a fair argument but also fighters were forced to trade with him cus he had solid TDD, the decisions of course were lucky on his part, the Hendricks fight was very close and could of gone either way and the Condit fight, I thought Condit won, to this day I'm shocked the UFC didn't run that back

 

[CashMoney1991]

Rose. Just go back and watch how she fought on TUF to how she is now. Very aggro with lots of kicks and constantly going for submissions, to now being arguably the best striker & boxer in women's MMA today.

for females it's easily Rose, she lost to fucking Carla, Rose would wax her now if they fought

 

[ejazahmednit]

im gonna go with overeem. he literally evolved.

That last picture is the most confusing body I ve seen in a long time, he has abs but looks bloated with a fat face and belly button fat

 

[IMPmmath]

Chad Mendes became a dangerous striker,light on his feet.Also have to see what tricks Ryan Hall brings out next fight..that tkd wow!!

 

[Bouboumaster]

GSP singlehandly killed the "specialists era" so all-time, it's him.

Currently, I would have to say Usman, but Khabib would have been the answer a couple of months ago. This is were the sport is going, I think

 

[JustOnce]

Who is it in your opinion? What fighter has gone from water to wine in the most impressive way ever? Im gonna go with jan, it might be recency bias because of his last victories but i just can't think of another guy that changed his carrer that much. People talk a lot about porier and although its true he has evolved leaps and bounds he was always a promisse as a fighter so its not a schock to see him doing so well, jan on the other hand was on the cutting board and although he had a long carrer lets be fair here, most people was just expecting him to be the average fighter trading wins and losses, than all of a sudden he becomes a destroyer of worlds with no apparent weakness in his game, talk about a late bloomer

Jorge

 

[Orochimaru 大蛇丸]

Gegard Mousasi is mmas only paradox. Its 2021 and hes still one of the top fighters in world.18 + years and still 35 years young .

No fighter has 2 primes as khabib says but theres an exception to just about every rule. Mousasi is that exception.