Which fighter evolved the most over their UFC career?

[EGarrett]

Who learned or changed the most between their first UFC fight and their most recent.

 

[kabanos]

Eric Silva. Came in as a puppy, evolved into a true beast.

 

[Hotora86]

GSP

 

[ralphus1]

Vitor, aided by PEDs.

 

[FrontNakedChoke]

TJ Dillashaw

 

[Mr hanky]

BJ Penn went from BJ Penn to "tippy toes" Penn

 

[Foolish]

Max Holloway is my pick.

From being submitted round 1 by Poirier to definitively stopping Aldo twice.

 

[Frankie Baby!]

Whittaker, Sergio Pettis, Ngannou, Mark Hunt, Gus, Kelvin, Poirier, Jeremy Stephens has been showing that he has evolved.

 

[sirmorbach]

TJ Dillashaw

Whittaker, Kelvin, Poirier.

Great picks.

I'd throw Rafael dos Anjos in there as well.

 

[BRaVo cHoKe]

RDA off the top of my head.

Werdum if you look at the entirety of his career.

 

[llperez22]

Anthony Johnson, started as a ww now probably have hard time making the hw cut off

Dillashaw’s standup

Tito went from just ground and pound to showing really good bjj late in career. Subbed bader and Chael, damn near subbed machida. He turned into real threat off his back

I remember Rafael dos Anjos not looking like anything special early on, started ufc 0-2. He was outworked pretty decisively by Tyson griffin. But he has come super long way.

 

[Workaholic]

Holloway used to throw nothing but flying knees, get outgrappled pretty often and almost lost to Leonard Garcia

He just KO'd Aldo twice in a row

He's gotta be up there

 

[Mr. Keenan]

Robbie Lawler...from his first UFC fights...to coming back and becoming champ

 

[jpadilla295]

Don Frye is the father of Mieshas baby?

 

[JackSchtotll]

Anderson went from having no ground game to submitting elite fighters.

Even his learning curve is GOAT.

 

[Verace]

CM Punk

Considering he came in at 0 knowledge of martial arts.

At least he is going to leave with some.

So proportionally, it was a huge growth

 

[wompuscatwilly]

Jon Jones

 

[Credo]

Johny Hendricks, like 50 pounds

 

[Goon Dog]

GSP is the answer. He had zero wrestling but went to the Canadian Olympic team to train and the rest is MMA history. Second for me is Kenny Florian. Dude had no striking whatsoever when on TUF and with DellaGrotte developed legit MT skills.

 

[fallable]

As others have said, RDA and Dillashaw are both completely different fighters than when they first came in.

I'll say Couture is a guy that was able to tailor his approach and fighting style to his opponents very well over his career and develope the game plan he needed to win the fight.