How would you rank these fighters in order - Jose Aldo, Khabib, Izzy, DC, Mighty Mouse, Alexander Volkanovski?

[Local Plata]

this, but Id say Khabib, then Volk, then Izzy.

Aldo slightly above MM, for his ferocity and longevity
MM also truly skilled and complete
DC, despite shorter and fatter (his fault) than everyone he fought, 2 div champ and tough as nails
Khabib/Volk/Izzy all 3 very good, but in a different way.
Khabib was maybe the most dominant of all the above during his run, perfect record, but he fought the elite for a very short time and retired and his peak. He can be mentioned for his skills/domination, but not resume/longevity. He could have been 'ranked' higher if he stayed longer but yeah, he didnt prove himself enough to earn a better spot
Volk is great ofc. Really like the guy. But yeah, hes below the above.
Izzy, well, I personally dislike his attitude. Hes very skilled tho, but yeah, below all the above.

That's fair. I kinda lumped the 3 of them together because Khabib, while dominant, didn't have the strength of schedule or longevity. Volk and Izzy are both still competing so it might be premature, like if Volk falls off completely now after getting KO'd by Topuria then his run won't be as impressive, kind of the same as Izzy losing to an absolute clown like Strickland.

 

[Sweater of AV]

MM
Aldo
DC
Volk
Israel
Khabib

 

[MindGamingMantis]

How would you rank these fighters in order - Jose Aldo, Khabib, Izzy, DC, Mighty Mouse, Alexander Volkanovski?

In terms of how great they are and based off their accomplishments etc

Mighty Mouse
DC
Aldo
Izzy
Volk
Khabib

 

[Fight Professor]

MM
Volk
Aldo
Khabib
Izzy
DC

 

[HavokHarmon]

MM
Aldo
Volk
DC
Izzy
Khabib

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

MM
DC
Khabib
Volk
Aldo
Izzy

You can swap round Volk, Khabib, and Aldo and I wouldn't care that much.

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

The MM disrespect in here is criminal. DJ has spent the majority of his career fighting at 135 despite the size disadvantage and is easily the most skilled and accomplished on this list.

Classic sherbro insecurity at work

 

[ForeverYoung]

DC
Aldo
Volk
DJ
Khabib
Izzy
People sleep on DC so much.
Strikeforce HW tourney winner
2 weight champ in the UFC
Guys also getting shot to the moon with the media stuff and ESPN. Hot take but if DC managed to win even one Jones fight he'd be in the running for GOAT.

 

[jeff7b9]

How would you rank these fighters in order - Jose Aldo, Khabib, Izzy, DC, Mighty Mouse, Alexander Volkanovski?

In terms of how great they are and based off their accomplishments etc

1- Mighty Mouse won 12 UFC title fights, won OneFC tournament, won and defended OneFC title.

2- Jose Aldo 11 or 12 total title fight wins, UFC and WEC champ, extremely dominant for about a decade.
26-1 start to his career. Continued to have success even without his best weapons.

3- Volk - champ in a tough competitive era. 26-1 start to his career.

4- Izzy - 6-3 in title fights, not too shabby, 2nd best MW of all time. He could climb higher if he gets the belt back.

5- Khabib. Had the tools to be #1 P4P goat but lacks the longevity and teats that go along with that. But was without question the best in the world in his prime, arguably one if the most dominant fighters in terms of his ability to dominant elite fighters.

6- DC great career but he was on the losing side of his 2 biggest rivalries leaving the argument open that he was never truly the best in the world at either weight class. There will always be a "what if" factor regarding IF he might have beaten Jon if Jon was clean.
We will never know.
Shameless UFC shill.

 

[markg171]

Mighty Mouse
Aldo
DC
Volk
Izzy
Khabib

 

[Fact Checker]

If he had fought anywhere near as many ranked opponents as everyone else has and did that, it’d mean a whole lot more. Of the 8 divisional GOATs, his resume is the weakest.

Very disingenuous statement… How’s his resume the weakest when he fought in the most stacked division?

MM was fighting gifts like Tim Elliot, Chris Cariosso, Ray Borg, Wilson Reis, etc in title fights… an absolute joke. Then he goes and gets knocked out cold in the minor leagues.

Conor, Dustin, Gaethje, Oliveira, RDA, Barboza all in their prime are far better wins than most the guys you just named.

You also have to detract the guys you just named all getting beat up in their respective divisions. It’s not close.

 

[d2s]

MM
Volk
Aldo
DC
Izzy
Khabib

 

[d2s]

Anyone that doesn’t have Khabib at the top needs to be purged from the sport… the man had a career that defines excellence.

Went undefeated in the premier MMA division and arguably never lost a round.


Khabib > Bunch of dudes who’ve been one tapped and embarrassed in the cage

Over half of Khabib's record is 2-round exhibition fights against nobodies. He should only be like 14-0. Divisional great, sure, but that's it. Also he lost rounds if not the fight vs Tibau.

 

[GOATtalks]

You’re making 2 subtle shifts of the argument.

A minute ago you wanted to use that metric to compare a FW and a MW, and I told you I consider that metric relative to weight class. Now, you’re comparing two FWs—so, same weight class.

Secondly, you shifted from this being “the most important and irreplaceable criteria” to “the deciding factor.” That’s two totally different things. When comparing two fighters of the same weight class, it could certainly be a deciding factor, maybe even *the* deciding factor, I suppose.

• Aldo has more ranked FW wins than Volk
• Aldo has more title wins than Volk
• Aldo has more title defenses than Volk
• Aldo has a longer FW win streak than Volk
• Aldo was on top of the FW division longer than Volk

I mean, there’s no significant metric at all that Volk beats Aldo. None.

Well, I don’t talk about that lol. I think P4P is silly and I don’t really discuss rankings in that context.

I agree that Khabib can be surpassed; both Benson and BJ Penn (my #2 and #3 LWs all time, respectively) also had 3 defenses, and Benson actually has more when you include WEC. Islam certainly has potential, but his two defenses don’t mean much to me when they’re against the same dude from a weight class below.

I mean, people can be surpassed, even Jones. You and I agree that Khabib is LW GOAT, but he wasn’t always. He surpassed BJ in most people’s opinion at a certain point in time. Jones can be surpassed too—but if his name was in the mix here, I’d be ranking him above MM, Aldo, Khabib, DC, Volk, and Izzy anyhow, so I don’t really see the point there.

Now you’re straight up lying. There’s no significant metric were Volk beats Aldo? Lol

How about Volk beating Aldo? How about beating Max 3 times and Max beating Aldo twice? How about the level of competition? It’s already 3 points where Volk beats Aldo.

Aldo beat Cub to get a title shot. Volk beat Aldo, Mendes and Elkins to get a title shot. Aldo defended his belt against guys like Gamburyan and Hominick who wouldn’t even be ranked fighters today. Aldo defended his title against subpar competition for half of the time, while Volk was fighting killers like Max and Ortega. The level of competition that they faced is incomparable. Best wins of Aldo are like mediocre wins for Volk.

This is a quantity over quality type of discussion. And all the points you wrote is basically the same point written many times. Like, common you wrote title defences, title wins and time at the top. It’s all the same.

I’m actually not even sure that Aldo has a longer win streak at FW than Volk. Judging by data at Tapology Volk’s streak is 17 wins and Aldo’s is 15 wins. Volk’s MMA win streak is also longer at 22 while Aldo’s is 18.

It’s actually incredibly easy to make an argument that Volk is the GOAT in front of Aldo. There are even arguments for Max to be in front of Aldo

 

[BFoe]

Now you’re straight up lying. There’s no significant metric were Volk beats Aldo? Lol

How about Volk beating Aldo? How about beating Max 3 times and Max beating Aldo twice? How about the level of competition? It’s already 3 points where Volk beats Aldo.

Aldo beat Cub to get a title shot. Volk beat Aldo, Mendes and Elkins to get a title shot. Aldo defended his belt against guys like Gamburyan and Hominick who wouldn’t even be ranked fighters today. Aldo defended his title against subpar competition for half of the time, while Volk was fighting killers like Max and Ortega. The level of competition that they faced is incomparable. Best wins of Aldo are like mediocre wins for Volk.

This is a quantity over quality type of discussion. And all the points you wrote is basically the same point written many times. Like, common you wrote title defences, title wins and time at the top. It’s all the same.

I’m actually not even sure that Aldo has a longer win streak at FW than Volk. Judging by data at Tapology Volk’s streak is 17 wins and Aldo’s is 15 wins. Volk’s MMA win streak is also longer at 22 while Aldo’s is 18.

It’s actually incredibly easy to make an argument that Volk is the GOAT in front of Aldo. There are even arguments for Max to be in front of Aldo

Aldo does have a longer FW win streak. The loss he suffered in his 8th pro fight happened at 155 lbs. Aldo didn’t lose at FW until Conor, a 25-fight FW win streak.

No, Volk beating Aldo isn’t particularly significant in terms of ranking the two of them, just like Weidman didn’t magically become GOAT when he beat Silva, nor did Werdum for beating Fedor. Aldo was champ from 2009-2015; after 2015, he was no loner FW king. Volk fought him in 2019 FFS, how much stock do you think we should put it that win? And this whole “common opponents” thing you and some others do when ranking, is literally meaningless.

Title wins, title defenses, and time at the top is not all the same. Sure there can be overlap, but also differences. Depends on the fighter.

It always comes back to the same thing with you: every fighter that fought before you were a fan must be subpar since you weren’t watching, and wins over fighters you do watch must be wins over “killers.”

Aldo’s resume and accomplishments are significantly better than Volk. And don’t even get me started on the idea of ranking Max ahead of Aldo, JFC. Anyone who thinks that should be IP banned and go find a different sport to watch.

 

[filthybliss]

100% agree with this order. MM is the most underrated fighter and Khabib is the most overrated.

Khabib is below Izzy p4p. Izzy got an insane amount of Title defenses and fought frequently for them in a short time span.

 

[filthybliss]

ALDO- Champ for a decade and was Dominant
If He beat Connor then retired hed be GOAT

DC- Double champ and was a legitimate threat in both of the toughest weight classes
Hes the GOAT if Jon jones doesnt exist

IZZY- 2nd best MW of ALL TIME
HES THE GOAT IF ANDERSON DOESNT EXIST

MIGHTY MOUSE- He could easily be number 1 but kinda bland plus opponents were small...
Hes the GOAT IF HE FOUGHT IN WELTERWEIGHT

VOLK- A beast but kinda bland i think max beat him twice.

KHABIB- Meh should of went up

Mighty Mouse is on the tier of Bones, GSP, Fedor and Silva. he's too well rounded to not be, he was never ragdolled nor does he have a thin resume like some of the other fighters mentioned here.

 

[HHJ]

No one new to the sport will know who Khabib is, they will know who DC is. His popularity will grow, while Khabib will only decline.

Of course they will.

He was only in the biggest fight in MMA history. Thats like sayin Jon anik will be more popular than Conor in 10 yrs

 

[BFoe]

Very disingenuous statement… How’s his resume the weakest when he fought in the most stacked division?

MM was fighting gifts like Tim Elliot, Chris Cariosso, Ray Borg, Wilson Reis, etc in title fights… an absolute joke. Then he goes and gets knocked out cold in the minor leagues.

Conor, Dustin, Gaethje, Oliveira, RDA, Barboza all in their prime are far better wins than most the guys you just named.

You also have to detract the guys you just named all getting beat up in their respective divisions. It’s not close.

If we’re talking about disingenuous statements, saying MM “got knocked out cold in the minor leagues” fits nicely.
He got stopped by a strike that’s legal in ONE but not any other org he’d ever fought in. Re-training yourself for new rulesets isn’t easy. MM won both of their rematches as well.

I can agree that MM has some weak names on his resume, no doubt. But he’s also got McCall, Miguel Torres, Benavidez x 2, Horiguchi, Cejudo, even Kid Yamamoto and John Dodson, in addition to all of those other guys. Comparing resumes isn’t even close. MM’s resume > Khabib’s by a country mile. And so do the other divisional GOATs for that matter: Fedor, Jones, Silva, GSP, Aldo, and Cruz all have better resumes than Khabib. And I’m not a hater btw, I’m a fan of Khabib. But his resume is thin, that’s just the truth.

 

[GOATtalks]

Aldo does have a longer FW win streak. The loss he suffered in his 8th pro fight happened at 155 lbs. Aldo didn’t lose at FW until Conor, a 25-fight FW win streak.

No, Volk beating Aldo isn’t particularly significant in terms of ranking the two of them, just like Weidman didn’t magically become GOAT when he beat Silva, nor did Werdum for beating Fedor. Aldo was champ from 2009-2015; after 2015, he was no loner FW king. Volk fought him in 2019 FFS, how much stock do you think we should put it that win? And this whole “common opponents” thing you and some others do when ranking, is literally meaningless.

Title wins, title defenses, and time at the top is not all the same. Sure there can be overlap, but also differences. Depends on the fighter.

It always comes back to the same thing with you: every fighter that fought before you were a fan must be subpar since you weren’t watching, and wins over fighters you do watch must be wins over “killers.”

Aldo’s resume and accomplishments are significantly better than Volk. And don’t even get me started on the idea of ranking Max ahead of Aldo, JFC. Anyone who thinks that should be IP banned and go find a different sport to watch.

You’re wrong again. Aldo’s 10th fight against Maryama was at LW and we don’t at what weight most of his early fights were. I counted only 15 fights that were verified to be at FW.

Who you beat is the most important thing and denying it makes you look stupid. That’s why only UFC titles matter and not any other organisations.
Imagine a fighter A a LHW fighting around 2015 and beating Jones and defending like 3 times against DC, Gus and Rumble. And then compare him to fighter B getting the LHW title beating Jan and then defending 5 times against Glover, Smith, Reyes, Hill and Walker. By your logic fighter B should be the GOAT because he has more defences, more title wins and longer time at the top. But that simply ain’t true and deep down you know it.

And stop acting like Aldo was some old washed up fighter when he lost the title. He was still very much at his prime. Your logic is as simplistic as “lost a fight= not prime anymore”. Aldo was at his peak years and still performed the same when Conor, Max and Volk beat him. During that time Aldo beat Frankie, Stephens and Moicano in spectacular fashion and those are actually some of the best wins on his FW resume. Definitely better wins than Cub, Hominick and Gamburyan. And to push your dumb “out of prime” narrative you must assume that everyone that Aldo ever beat fell out of prime the same day, because all of them lost to the next generation of fighters like Conor, Max, Volk and Ortega.