UFC/Pride Lightweight Champions with least-to-most Top 10 ranked wins at Lightweight.

[JKS]

depending on which specific point in time you are talking about I would say that you could argue that WEC or Strikeforce had better LWs than Pride.

I suppose it would also come down to how you label certain fighters as there were a lot more free agent/ cross promotion situations where guys fought in one org then another in that era.


Anyway, I think pride having the “Vast majority” is at the very least, debatable.

Interesting take. I recall I looked into this months ago around the 2005-2007 era just before Pride ended to see if WEC had a better division and tried to make an argument. But it wasn't even close, Pride had the better guys. A lot of the best WEC LWs came after 2008.

 

[acannxr]

Interesting take. I recall I looked into this months ago around the 2005-2007 era just before Pride ended to see if WEC had a better division and tried to make an argument. But it wasn't even close, Pride had the better guys. A lot of the best WEC LWs came after 2008.

I replied to that post and broke down the rankings across all organizations in the following page during that time period.

These are the Lightweights that WEC and Strikeforce had when Pride's Lightweights existed:

Alfonso was 4-2 when he fought for the WEC title.
Ruediger was 5-1 when he fought for the inaugural WEC Lightweight Championship.
Franca lost twice to Edwards (who was fighting in Pride).
Diaz was 5-1 when he fought for the title.
Maxwell, Wells, and Olsen don't even have Wikipedia pages.

Guida got a shot at the inaugural Strikeforce Lightweight title coming off a loss, while Thomson was only one fight removed from getting knocked out by Edwards (who was fighting in Pride).

While Melendez had defeated Kawajiri in Pride, he'd later lose to Ishida at Yarennoka!

The TLDR portion below:

So really when you look at it, the overwhelming majority of the Lightweights in those companies at the time were most certainly not better than Pride's Lightweights.

I'd break it down as follows:
2005-2006 | Pride > UFC
2008-2010 | UFC = Dream > Strikeforce = WEC
2011-2012 | UFC > Strikeforce > Dream
2012-present | UFC

 

[OldBoy91]

People laugh at me when I say Gomi is the LW GOAT. But I tell no lies.

Takanori GOATmi reigns supreme.

 

[Dionysian]

Why is Conor not counted for Khabib? FightMatrix DQ’s people from the ranked list for a certain amount of inactivity?

 

[WoozyFailGuy]

Why is Conor not counted for Khabib? FightMatrix DQ’s people from the ranked list for a certain amount of inactivity?

Rightfully so, which is weird since he was champion coming in.

 

[kingmob6]

Rightfully so, which is weird since he was champion coming in.

he is khabib lol, anything to discount him.

 

[Hdfi]

Update!
Add Gamrot (#7 LW) for Oliveira.

https://www.fightmatrix.com/fighter-profile/Charles Oliveira/16466/