Which fighter has the best 3 wins in MMA history?

[DanDragon Machi]

Ngannou:
Cain
Overeen
Miocic

 

[DanDragon Machi]

Liddell:
Vitor
Couture II and III

Lyoto:
Evans
Shogun I
Hendo

Rampage:
Arona
Liddell
Hendo

 

[eiyuu]

Sakuraba
Vitor Belfort
Royler Gracie
Royce Gracie

 

[Stump]

Dan Henderson

Fedor Emelianenko
Wanderlei Silva 2
Shogun 2

Came here to say this. Bravo.

Hendo might be the most underappreciated fighter in history. His resume is incredible, but he's never talked about in the GOAT discussions.

He's probably the best fighter who didn't have a long title defense streak. Claimed almost all of the belts available and beat almost all of the big names possible, even ones 1 and 2 weight divisions heavier than himself.

 

[Mike]

Dan started MMA before Fedor in 1997. And all the years of Greco (all the way to Olympic level) gave him more wear & tear than Fedor got from combat sambo. I realize it's hard to acknowledge, as cope is a helluva drug.

Not cope, that fight happened ages ago. I don't care about it anymore. But the fact that Fedor was exclusively a headhunter at that point when he used to be known for his grappling, yeah. He had declined significantly as evidenced by being on a losing streak for the first time in his career.

Like I said there was a reason Fedor fans were scared as hell going into it. We knew he was in decline and very well might lose.

 

[DanDragon Machi]

Nogueira had only been fighting for less than a year when he fought Dan Henderson, and beat him decisively a couple years later. Dan Henderson's win was questionable over Nogeuira in Kings in general given the scoring criteria also.

Most people usually say Wanderlei Silva was not in his prime in 2007. That is the same year he fought Chuck Liddell which nearly everyone said "happened too late".

Keep in mind, Silva had 40 fights by 2007 and had been knocked out in training many times during those years. He hadn't fought for a year after getting knocked out by Crocop and had already lost to Ricardo Arona.

Wandelrlei has defended his belt beating Arona around one year before and was only 31 in 2007. Losing by Crocop at HW don't shows anything, and he was doing a tough Hendo before the knockdown

He was out of his prime against Liddell because he would never be as good under UFC rules as he was under Prides rules. Wand knockout Jardine a few months later although

 

[Lee Danger]

Hendo might be the most underappreciated fighter in history. His resume is incredible, but he's never talked about in the GOAT discussions.

Because he was a trt abuser in the most exciting part of his career and, as you said, he lacks consistecy and title defences: HBomb Hendo was a fighter that could change the course of the match in every moment, making the match exciting to follow (see Shogun and Fedor) but also someone that none saw as champion material.

Fedor beating the best HW in the world of his era (CroCop and Nog BUT ALSO Sylvia and Arlowski) is still unmatched.

 

[joy2day]

This thread is a lot of people expressing fight finder knowledge, which is a really bad way to compare fighters because it misses context. Some of those lists in the OP aren't even the fighter's greatest competition. A list of three is not just names but it is the level of the fighters at the time of the fight. In other words, a fighter could have three great names, but they could have beaten them before or after their prime when they were a lesser fighter.

That would be a huge accomplishment for Ilia to go up in weight and beat Islam, but let's not get ahead of ourselves with fantasy scenarios- this one is quite unlikely.

 

[joy2day]

Not cope, that fight happened ages ago. I don't care about it anymore. But the fact that Fedor was exclusively a headhunter at that point when he used to be known for his grappling, yeah. He had declined significantly as evidenced by being on a losing streak for the first time in his career.

Like I said there was a reason Fedor fans were scared as hell going into it. We knew he was in decline and very well might lose.

Yes, those who want to put their guy over Fedor cling to that Hendo fight for dear life. The fact that he went undefeated for a decade against the best HWs in the world, then was on a long losing streak at the time of that loss would cue any non-biased person to what was happening to Fedor at the time; trends are meaningful. It feels good to them though, so I'll let them live in the fantasy that Hendo actually could defeat prime Fedor.

That's actually (again) a lot of the reason many of these lists are not nearly as good as they look. Beating a fighter in decline is obviously not like beating them when they are still great.

 

[jitzmonkey]

Through the 2nd page hasn’t been mentioned.
And everyone’s gonna hate me; but Conor at his “natural” weight classes took out
Aldo
Mendes
Alvarez

All still very much in their primes (prime?)

 

[GordonMMARamsey]

Jones

Cormier
Reyes
Santos

 

[Lawrence]

Obviously all the usual GOAT contenders are up there but I think if Ilia beats Islam, he'd take the cake.

1. Makhachev
2. Volkanovski
3. Holloway

Compared to other ATGs:

GSP
1. Penn II
2. Hughes II
3. Hughes III

Jones
1. Cormier I
2. Rua
3. Teixeira

DJ
1. Cejudo I
2. Benavidez II
3. Dodson II

Fedor
1. Cro Cop
2. Nogueira I
3. Nogueira III

Silva
1. Henderson
2. Franklin I
3. Griffin

Might want to put Dan Henderson on the top of that list Bro.

 

[GordonMMARamsey]

Through the 2nd page hasn’t been mentioned.
And everyone’s gonna hate me; but Conor at his “natural” weight classes took out
Aldo
Mendes
Alvarez

All still very much in their primes (prime?)

Natural weigh class Conor has been born.

 

[gentel]

DJ:

• Benavidez
• Horiguchi
• Cejudo

Volk:

• Aldo
• Holloway
• Ortega

 

[Pierced7681]

I don't think either is, there top level HW's all time but not GOAT contenders.

Who’s better? Fedor and Nog fought primarily under JMMA rules in a ring, when they fought under the unified rules in the cage they didn’t look anywhere near as good as Stipe and Werdum did. Cain or JDS? Werdum beat Cain and Stipe is 1-1 against JDS with a stoppage victory in the rematch.

 

[Mike]

Yes, those who want to put their guy over Fedor cling to that Hendo fight for dear life. The fact that he went undefeated for a decade against the best HWs in the world, then was on a long losing streak at the time of that loss would cue any non-biased person to what was happening to Fedor at the time; trends are meaningful. It feels good to them though, so I'll let them live in the fantasy that Hendo actually could defeat prime Fedor.

That's actually (again) a lot of the reason many of these lists are not nearly as good as they look. Beating a fighter in decline is obviously not like beating them when they are still great.

Fedor sort of proves that no matter how long you win for or who you beat, as soon as you lose people will be waiting to tear you down.

The guy went undefeated for a decade and fought absolutely everyone he could. Even when he went to strike force instead of the UFC, he was going where the better hws were.

But for years now it's these circular arguments that somehow the entire hw division then sucked, even though it's been worse ever since. Or trying to individually tear down every guy he beat by using their past prime losses. Or trying to go back and find decisions to score against him without even understanding the scoring criteria in use at the time.

It's silly and kind of sad that people can't appreciate greatness. Like I was on the gsp side of the gsp/Anderson debate but you'll never see my calling Anderson a can crusher or saying he isn't the goat mw.

 

[Mike]

Because he was a trt abuser in the most exciting part of his career and, as you said, he lacks consistecy and title defences: HBomb Hendo was a fighter that could change the course of the match in every moment, making the match exciting to follow (see Shogun and Fedor) but also someone that none saw as champion material.

Fedor beating the best HW in the world of his era (CroCop and Nog BUT ALSO Sylvia and Arlowski) is still unmatched.

People forget that after pride folded there were rumblings that Fedor might not be the best anymore. Arlovski and Sylvia were still highly ranked and Arlovski was on a five fight win streak going into their fight.


Those were great wins at the time, especially getting them both out of there in the first round like that.

 

[Rationality]

There are a lot of Stipe haters here, but he has one of the greatest trios:

• Werdum
• Overeem
• Cormier 2 or 3

Actually Ngannou, Werdum and Cormier

 

[Rationality]

GSP's top 3 needs to be clarified to beating freight train Hendricks along with Hughes and either Shields, Fitch or Penn II. Even Alves was a monster when GSP made him cry.