Who would you consider an “Elite Striker” in the UFC?

[NoSmilez]

I think he's the first real Lethwei fighter (you know, the bareknuckle sport so violent it isn't regulated outside of Myanmar and includes headbutts into it's techniques) I can recall being signed, guy will bring the violence.
He matches up well with a ton of guys in the division, and throws with horriffic intentions. Will be a fun one to watch.

jesus christ. I never noticed it before but he has terrible gyno.

 

[doggo]

Yeah many are great at mma striking level but not elite at pure striking level. Whittaker vs Izzy just shows how different the striking skill difference was and Pereira vs Izzy shows the striking skill difference gap as well.

True that, Izzy was easily outlanding and outstriking Pereira for 4.3 rounds. He's clearly the better striker until he wilts.

 

[Squintz]

I’ve only seen him name mentioned a few times… prob cause people dislike/hate him but Yair Rodriguez is elite AF. He’s fast, accurate, hits hard and he’s got the deepest bag on the entire roster in terms of striking diversity. Not only does he have all the kicks but in addition he utilizes knees, punches and elbows and they come from weird angles mixed with spinning shit. You can hate him all you want but dude is a savage when it comes to striking.

 

[Royce's Gi]

Cindy Dandois

Matt Riddle

Allev Makhmud

Yuki Nakai

Scott "Ninja" Morris

Art Jimmerson

Telia Tuli

Chael Sonnen

Ben Askren

Jacob Volkmann

Demian Maia

 

[Tyler Durden]

A lot of the boxers on ShoBox are around that ranking and they have fighters around that ranking as the undercards for many fight cards. For example Hasim Rahman Jr. was ranked around 250 in Heavyweight division around the time he was going to fight Jake Paul and right before he boxed Greg Hardy.

My bad… I thought we were talking real boxing.

 

[Tyler Durden]

wtf are you talking about lmfao yes, they’d make more money in the ufc, and that’s exactly why they’re there. who was denying that? i was simply talking about where they’d fall, as far as skill level. even journeymen like clay collard and ryan ford have made a nice career out of beating up young guys and getting their ass kicked by real talent.

Was the Original Topic “getting their asses kicked” or having success?

 

[Doughie99]

The term gets thrown around quite a bit. Which UFC strikers are on par with strikers from all sports?

IMO there aren’t to many in the UFC, Adesanya, Pereira and Volkanovski immediately come to mind. Throw in the woman if you like.

Reason I ask is striking battles in the UFC can get ugly quick, really bad technique when compared to kickboxers and boxers alike.

Love to see where the level of striking is in 50 years

I'd say (in no particular order) Fiziev, Wonderboy, Pereira, Adesanya, Volkanovski (maybe not elite), Anderson Silva, Nunes probably too.
Edson Barboza (for kicking).

Max Holloway probably up there too.

bound to have missed some off.

 

[theTKDguy]

I don't find his style particularly attractive but pereira has dominated both kb and mma, so he's the absolute best striker in mma. Facts.

 

[wwkirk]

Obligatory

Spoiler

 

[Colemanstove]

You think these guys fair well in striking sports? I watch boxing and kickboxing and a fair few of these guys are a couple pegs below

No. Obviously a few of them would(Izzy, Potan, Gane)
More so these are the "elite"(best) strikers in the UFC that quickly came to my mind.

 

[LNwolf87]

Cindy Dandois

Matt Riddle

Allev Makhmud

Yuki Nakai

Scott "Ninja" Morris

Art Jimmerson

Telia Tuli

Chael Sonnen

Ben Askren

Jacob Volkmann

Demian Maia

Amazing List

 

[LNwolf87]

I don't find his style particularly attractive but pereira has dominated both kb and mma, so he's the absolute best striker in mma. Facts.

Pereira dominated? He's had favorable match ups set up by the UFC which to his credit he's won in order to fight Izzy for the title.

 

[LNwolf87]

Have you seen mma fighters try to fight boxing rounds? They can't hang. Volume/pace/intensity is different. MMA fighters are just used to a slower pace or using grappling to stall moments of the fight to rest. In boxing you can't do that. Just look at all the mma fighters that tried to fight in boxing or the ones that tried sparring elite level boxers. You'll see that boxers have the best cardio/conditioning. Boxing also has the longest actual fight time, it was even more before when they had 15 rounds.

Lets see grapplers conditioning if all they can do is strike, you'll see how different striking and grappling conditioning is. Many fighters that look like they have great conditioning will be completely gassed quickly.

I hear a variable that effects conditioning for fighters is the efficiency in their technique.

 

[Dirty Frank]

When is Bullet fighting in the UFC? He's been signed for a while now. Can't wait

 

[ineverpost]

Cyril Gane although I think the TDs are going to get into his head and we may see him get KTFO in one of his next few

 

[Dirty Frank]

Wonderboy, Sandhagen, Gane, Adesanya, Poatan, Adrian Yanez, Pyotr Yan, Max Holloway, Yair, Volk, Zabit.

Poatan the most accomplished as a pure striker, methinks.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

When is Bullet fighting in the UFC? He's been signed for a while now. Can't wait

After ramadan I think.

 

[NicholasJBasile]

This is a topic that I will never get sick of discussing, as striking, wrestling and grappling as it relates to MMA is possibly my favorite subgenre of MMA to discuss. Similar to wrestling or grappling, I don't feel that pure striking mechanics translate 100% to MMA striking. I feel they need to be optimized and reformatted to accomodate 4 oz gloves, clinches, level changes, and cages. We have seen Olympic wrestlers get taken downn, world champion grapplers get submitted, and world champion strikers get knocked out.

Clean striking technique is oftentimes very effective, but I also feel that there is something to be said about effective sloppy striking. 2 fighters that come to mind whenever I think about this are Derrick Brunson and Carla Esparza -- both fighters have never exactly displayed very technical mechanics in my opinion, but both are prime examples of "effective VS technical" in my opinion. The threat of their takedowns alone provide them with opporunities to land shots that other fighters wouldn't have a chance to land. They are excellent at level changes, whether they're faking a takedown and throwing an overhand, going for a takedown and failing before following up with strikes, or actually getting the takedown.

Then I feel there are fighters that have very technical striking and wrestling but are a bit more refined, such as GSP and Dominick Cruz. With GSP and Crus, their level changes and/or takedown attempts have always been so seemless -- the double leg shots and knee taps would come with such excellent anticipation, while also maintaining fairly clean technique and clean straight punches (more so from GSPa in my opinion).

With this said, I feel we have seen some great results (albeit mixed results) from some high level strikers in MMA. Pereira and Adesanya are 2 great examples whose striking has translated excellently to MMA. Another fighter that I wish gave more of an effort is Gokhan Saki -- sure, he got flatlined by Khalil Rountree and went 1-2 in th e sport (possibly due to the 4 oz gloves), but I feel he showed so much promise against Henrique Da Silva (surprisingly decent takedown defense) and I would have loved to see what he had to offer.

In a nutshell, I have always felt that MMA is a ridiculously complex matrix of skillsets that muddy the waters of pure technical styles, making it difficult to project how athletes from pure combat sports would do in the sport. I do get excited any time we see a high level striker go into the sport though. A lot of times we see them bring new themes to the table that you don't see from seasoned MMA veterans.

 

[MartinBrowntree]

The term gets thrown around quite a bit. Which UFC strikers are on par with strikers from all sports?

IMO there aren’t to many in the UFC, Adesanya, Pereira and Volkanovski immediately come to mind. Throw in the woman if you like.

Reason I ask is striking battles in the UFC can get ugly quick, really bad technique when compared to kickboxers and boxers alike.

Love to see where the level of striking is in 50 years

Poatan, Izzy, Wonderboy, and that's about it. None of the rest are elite 'pure strikers'.

 

[wolffanghameha]

A lot of fighters didn't do well and K1 always won in the end minus Overeem. Well even Overeem lost to K1 fighters but he did get to win the Grand Prix.

Yeh but if KID could be competitive with Zambidis/Masato and Paul Daley could beat ranked guys I think many more today could do so. Not that I expect them to clean up shop, in pure striking.

The point of this thread is which mma fighters can actually compete with the best fighters in striking combat sports. There really isn't many and that's why a lot of fighters don't try to cross over into other combat sports.

The opening post asked which fighters are on par with strikers from other sports, not which would compete well in those striking sports. I think if you put high-level guys from boxing, K1 or Muay Thai into the UFC, in many cases their ability to adapt their striking to the wrestling threat won't be as good as some of the UFC guys. Eg they won't be able to strike so well while thinking about needing to dig underhooks, get their hips back or not square the hips. It's like comparing MT to K1 - Petrosyan and Buakaw might be the best in K1 rules, but maybe not in MT - but does it make them worse strikers? If a K1 champ goes to boxing and gets lit up, does it make him a bad striker? Or if a MT champ goes to Lethwei and loses due to struggling with the headbutting threat, does it make him a bad striker? Same for the Lethwei guy going into MT. I think the best MMA striking will be its own legitimate striking form in the same way and to an extent already is (but it'll get better).