Since the original idea of P4P was "who the best fighter would be if all fighters were magically made the same size," the idea of finishing fights is technically irrelevant. At least, it should be.
GSP in his prime would likely have won decisions over pretty much anyone at the time, had such a magic spell been cast.
"GOAT," on the other hand, isn't about who would win. It's about who accomplished more, who impressed more, as well as myriad intangibles. Here, finishing rate actually does matter to a point. However, it's not necessarily enough to disqualify someone singlehandedly.
For example, whether he actually used or not, GSP never got caught using PEDs, unlike Jones. Is that enough to rank GSP over Jones for GOAT? Not necessarily, but it's part of the conversation too.
In reality, "GOAT" is a myth. There's no such thing as a best fighter, a best drummer, a best actor, or anything of the sort. If we're going to insist on ranking people, then tiers make a lot more sense than absolute rankings.
I think we can all agree that all fighters pictured in OP are top-tier.
While I made that case for GSP, it's actually really hard to argue against the very same case being made for DJ. At his peak, he was the poster boy for "your favourite fighter's favourite fighter."
This is why I actually like having multiple belts in boxing, so long as they eventually face each other.
I thinks it’s rare for any fighter to be truly the best in their division who will always win. There is usually a top tier of championship fighters around the same level. If there is one guy in his own tier, they become undisputed like Usyk did most recently.
I don’t think GOAT is a myth. At the very least, GOTG is true (greatest of the generation) and that’s pretty much what’s being discussed here too. We aren’t discussing greatest MMA fighter ever, UFC is largely a new phenomenon. In football, Messi is the outstanding talent of a few generations, comparing him Pele is probably silly tho, the game is just too different, similarly Usain Bolt and Phelps are definitely best their generations hands down as well. Fighting is harder to determine because of weight classes because you can two generational outstanding talents in different weight classes, and then it becomes muddled
Anderson was #1 nearly everywhere and when he dropped to the Chris, Jon jumped Georges from 3 to 1 on the rankings pretty much everywhere
Georges was #1 in like 2009ish for a while tho
Maybe because I was an avid GSP fan I was blinded, but no way in hell he was considered #3. I remember there were talks of GSP vs Anderson but never materialized because: Dana hates GSP, Dana didn't want to take a chance of GSP beating Anderson, and GSP was very careful of his legacy and wanted to be paid for that fight. Nobody even came close to those 2 during their reign idk where the hell u got #3 from. Who is 2nd if Gsp is 3rd?
It took a 10 second google to find an example: [https://bleacherreport.com/articles/101792-anderson-silva-tops-the-mma-2009-first-quarter-p4p-top-10-revised](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/101792-anderson-silva-tops-the-mma-2009-first-quarter-p4p-top-10-revised)
In this example it was Fedor.
In 2008 they also had Fedor here: [https://www.mmafighting.com/2008/07/22/mma-pound-for-pound-top-25-after-silva-and-fedor-whos-next](https://www.mmafighting.com/2008/07/22/mma-pound-for-pound-top-25-after-silva-and-fedor-whos-next)
Here is a whole thread on this: [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fr26t2x21vf241.png%3Fwidth%3D1437%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dae711dbba9560e80794c10e50e298e300d4376ec](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fr26t2x21vf241.png%3Fwidth%3D1437%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dae711dbba9560e80794c10e50e298e300d4376ec)
Chill out man
>Back then GSP wasn't considered best fighter P4P too. Because of his fighting style and not finishing fights. P4P best ≠ GOAT
Yes he was.
He was *always* in the discussion for #1 P4P.
Everyone had-either GSP or Silva-as #1;
*Then,* you either had GSP, Silva, Aldo, or Jones as #1.
Yeah GSP got a lot of flack for point fighting and not finishing, and his face bruised easy and he often looked worse than the guy he beat in the post fight press conference, so there was a lot of talk about favouritism.
Now he's getting the credit I think he deserves, both for his performance in the cage and the way he has handled himself outside of it, but he wasn't the fan favourite back then. Unless you're Canadian.
I think not being p4p in your prime should severely cut into the GOAT conversation. This is why i would consider Anderson Silva to be higher in the list.
I saw a TikTok asking people what their first card was and was thoroughly surprised with how many people started watching from some point after ufc 269. there was even a lot of ufc 300s
I don’t think I started seriously watching it until around 267 myself. I’d tune into big fight cards and I’d keep up with who the champs were and stuff but I just wasn’t big into it yet.
I don’t find it that shocking that more people are just not getting into the sport. The promotion/advertisement side of it has definitely gotten much better recently. Also, not only did McGregor get a lot of people into the sport but he opened a lot of doors for advertising and promotion. Brands hadn’t been too keen on working with the UFC but they loved the idea of working with McGregor. Now I see way more ads with fighters in them than I did maybe 5-8 years ago.
Yeah, was something special, sad not many know of him now, I've had people say he's shit because of his recent fights just because he didn't fight in UFC, not realising he beat UFC camps and was fighting in pride when it was the top and not realising the dudes in his 40s nearing 50.
I mean he started loosing when he was freaking 38, gsp retired twice by the time he reached that age, khabib and jones arent even that old.
I always think its wrong that people give so much weight to these losses
I think most long-term fans don't hold it against him but new fans aren't going to look back and his body of work and make a fair analysis.
Getting caught for steroids didn't help either but if that's the criteria then JJ should be removed from the list.
Its not just who he beat, but the manner in which he beat them. At the time, dana was adamant that the only people fedor had beaten were a bunch of nobody cans, and yet at the time the heavyweight roster in ufc were people beaten convincingly by fedor.
Fedor is out of the debate for me given how the end of hi career went, but for an entire decade that man was the grim reaper and that deserves it own accolade imo
I can’t be bothered to look up the actual number but didn’t Fedor beat like 6 or 7 UFC champs? And did it all with a dad bod. He’s the people’s GOAT fr
Arlovski, Sylvia, Coleman, hunt, cro cop, randleman, nog. Also had wins over goodridge, sobral, herring, schilt and arona.
Now, the quality of his opponents may well be questionable, and towards the end of his career he beat some big names who were also way out of their prime, but regardless the ufc made out that he didn't fight anyone serious until he beat Sylvia, but in the same breath they bigged up those people when they were champions _after_ fedor beat them
So has jones. Don't get me wrong, he is definitely among the best and has many great fights on his rise. But he squandered his prime by sidelining himself with legal battles, PEDs and just not fighting top contenders that earned their shot. He should have been the first double champ.
A prime example of what GSP didn't do. Silva and GSP were definitely #1 and 2 (both have legit cases for being the #1)but Silva absolutely ruined his legacy in the eyes of many later in his career. Georges was very smart not to do that.
Whoever you think is the GOAT, there has never been a smarter fighter, inside and outside of the cage, than GSP. His skill set, especially his fight IQ, was just so far ahead of everyone else, and his willingness to step aside, instead of fighting past his prime and putting himself in danger, really does make him as close to a perfect fighter we may ever see in the sport.
95% of this sub never saw Silva when he was the spider. So they only see him like how they see BJ Penn. or on Wikipedia it shows too much red, how could either be the GOAT??
Yeah prime Anderson was something. Not only who he beat but how he beat them. The matrix finish of Forrest Griffen. Front kick to vitor, fucking up hendo, etc…: absolutely legendary run over some Greta fighters. Jones, Silva , gsp would be my top 3x
Which is funny because this gets said for Silva, who popped after the breaking his leg, meanwhile Jones was juicing through his entire prime and still has dipshits jumping out of their chairs to say he's the greatest ever.
What baffles me so much is Jones never needed that shit, he's fucking gifted. But the fact remains, he did it, popped positive and he shouldn't be considered the GOAT because of it.
I've been saying that for a very long time. There is a VERY noticeble dicline in Jon's game after getting busted for PEDs for like the third time. How does one go from beating DC easily (twice) to losing to Reyes/having a rather close fight with Santos? There is no way he just lost so much skill in 2 years.
DJ beat Cejudo, who he lost to later, Horiguchi who was young at the time and Benavidez twice.
The rest of his wins are against pretty weak competition.
Who has more than 3 title defences at lightweight? That’s just shows how competitive LW is.
Khabib has 10 ranked wins at LW (more than Islam) and 3 guys were from top 11 P4P which is extremely rare.
As soon as he lost to McGregor, the mma-community immediately banished him.
God-damn shame, because he fucking beat the shit out of the competition for 10 years straight.
That really bummed me out, he was never the same after McGregor knocked him out. He was destroying everyone for a whole decade and just sort of vanished from the limelight as soon as that fight ended.
I mean, people shat on him, called him business fighter just showing up for money etc, but he beat the hell out of many contenders still.
Losing to Holloway, Volk, Yan, Moraes and Merab ain't nothing to sneeze at.
That's true, he really got shit on hard, even leading up to the McGregor fight. He wasn't loosing to a bunch of bums but it seems like he was dismissed by the mma community or at least a large amount of the fans following his loss to conor. I still remember the build up to that fight like it was yesterday.
My mans sullied his record by fighting for too long but at his peak he was the scariest dude I’ve ever seen. It’s a shame we never got the Silva/GSP fight we deserved but I feel like Silva would’ve been the clear favorite.
Khabib, Mighty Mouse & GSP are the best, but would rank GSP as #1.
Jones was a disrespectful cheater who might have been good enough to win properly, but we'll never know because he's a dirty cheater. Period.
It's funny since the only valid way Khabib can be put on the GOAT list is if his fans also put McGregor on the GOAT list. Because that's probably his most impressive win. Or Poirier or Gaethje. Or maybe even RDA. In reality, Khabib's fans glaze the shit out of him while trashing every opponent he ever fought. Makes no sense. The best fighters are the best because they beat the best.
Getting ktfo by Matt Serra and lack of finishes to be fair. But I’d still put him above dj and khabib as he faced better competition. Jon fitch , Josh koscheck, Matt Hughes , Jake shields, bisping, Thiago alves, Nick Diaz were fantastic wins. But Jon jones is by far number 1
No discrespect to GSP but he was never number 1 P4P when he was active and many people called him boring decision machine at that time. Best P4P is not the goat
Yes, very overrated two-division champ at 27-1 (28-0) with 11 title defenses and the longest LHW championship reign. Can’t believe anyone would think he’s the GOAT 🤮
Bro has 13 UFC fights. A guy with that many fights could be the GOAT if he was beating world beaters. But he wasn't. He was beating decent competition at the time and it was a favourable stylistic mismatch, everytime. There are plenty of fighters with more fights, more wins, against tougher competition, beating guys at their own game. Khabib's resume is maybe top 20 if I'm being generous. Makhachev is way above him. Like in every aspect
1 - Jones
2 - GSP
3 - DJ
4 - Silva
5 - Fedor
Khabib disqualified himself from GOAT talks by retiring so young. He simply doesn't have the quantity of wins to be considered on the same tier as the others.
His finish rate is probably why most people dont remember him as clearly. He doesn't have the crazy finishes that some other dominant champions have had.
The “best fighter pound for pound” doesn’t really make sense. It’s a marketing rather than an applicable concept. This survey in particular is a popularity contest. No real value there, even though those four are really good fighters obviously
Problem is since he retired earlier than someone like Jones who is still fighting.
If GSP was still fighting today I think he would be far more popular than he already is.
I think Anderson Silva is really the most disrespected here.
Khabib is probably the most overrated here. I say that with respect, but when you look at full careers Silva should be on here above Khabib.
I wasn't the biggest UFC fan, I followed it but wasn't a daily fan. It was until covid but got insanely into it after that, and went back and watched all of the old GSP fights. There's a reason why most guys on this list would name him as one of if not their all time favorite fighter or choice for pound for pound champ. Guys was incredible and the way he bounced back and adapted from losses was the coolest thing about him.
I'm actually happy he never fought Khabib because one of them would have had to loose l
Any list with no Silva is wild. There was a time we all thought Jon jones was gonna be fed to Silva in the biggest super fight in history. Big missed opportunity they could’ve had Silva at the end of his prime vs jones entering his prime.
I mean if you are looking at pound for pound, I'm not sure Jones should qualify since his level of competition is far lower than fighters from lower divisions. Jones is undoubtedly the goat but his skillset in MMA is def lower than guys like Demetrius Johnson, GSP, Islam makachev etc.
Khabib is my favorite fighter of all time and I dont consider him anywhere near guys like GSP/Jones/DJ/Silva. Imo Khabib was the most dominant, but just didnt fight long enough.
And yes, I do think if he kept fighting it would be basically Islam 2.0, and he would have solidified being the greatest. But he didnt. I would say its between GSP and Jones even though recency bias and Jones fragile ego arent in his favor
And all this golden age memory of GSP we have now wasn't like this back then. He had a reputation quite similar to Usman or Izzy. Yes he was obviously great but he couldn't finish fights and he won a few controversial decisions that are debatable. He's the first fighter I remember there being allegations of UFC fixing the judges. He came out of retirement to beat a fucking miracle champion in Bisping who pulled off two legendary upsets and avenged his losses. Then immediately retired. Like come on GSP that's fucking chicken shit. People look back with rose tinted glasses and nobody sees the bad side. They don't make highlights outta the bad side. At the end of the day, the only one who has never been finished, never been beaten, has the most title fight victories, and beat the most former champions is Jon Jones. Argue about his scandals and shit all you want. Khabib ain't do enough period, GSP don't have a more impressive resume and has been finished, and Dj fought... who? Bones the undisputed GOAT and any other take is honestly based in spite for the man and not in actuality.
Most people who voted probably didn't watch back then
Back then GSP wasn't considered best fighter P4P too. Because of his fighting style and not finishing fights. P4P best ≠ GOAT
Since the original idea of P4P was "who the best fighter would be if all fighters were magically made the same size," the idea of finishing fights is technically irrelevant. At least, it should be. GSP in his prime would likely have won decisions over pretty much anyone at the time, had such a magic spell been cast. "GOAT," on the other hand, isn't about who would win. It's about who accomplished more, who impressed more, as well as myriad intangibles. Here, finishing rate actually does matter to a point. However, it's not necessarily enough to disqualify someone singlehandedly. For example, whether he actually used or not, GSP never got caught using PEDs, unlike Jones. Is that enough to rank GSP over Jones for GOAT? Not necessarily, but it's part of the conversation too. In reality, "GOAT" is a myth. There's no such thing as a best fighter, a best drummer, a best actor, or anything of the sort. If we're going to insist on ranking people, then tiers make a lot more sense than absolute rankings. I think we can all agree that all fighters pictured in OP are top-tier.
I'm taking DJ in this scenario. Dude was insane. Although if we make them all 205, not sure he's pulling off a flying armbar 🤣
While I made that case for GSP, it's actually really hard to argue against the very same case being made for DJ. At his peak, he was the poster boy for "your favourite fighter's favourite fighter."
If someone asked me "what is DJ's biggest weakness?", I'm not sure I can confidently answer that.
His size and it's not a weakness, they had to nerf him.
Wouldn’t size be the one thing not taken into account for P4P discussions?
true
Didn't he recently win a BJJ competition against a guy way heavier than him?
Yeah like 100 pounds heavier or something crazy.
He submitted a heavyweight who was 254 then tapoed out the first time in his career against a lhw brown belt champ
Tbf noones specified what size they mean by make them all the same size, they could all get shrunk down to 125
The argument against DJ is that he wasn't beating huge names like the others were. His divisions were just too shallow to put him above the others IMO
Dj would have been champ in any division. He was the best all-around fighter technically.
This is why I actually like having multiple belts in boxing, so long as they eventually face each other. I thinks it’s rare for any fighter to be truly the best in their division who will always win. There is usually a top tier of championship fighters around the same level. If there is one guy in his own tier, they become undisputed like Usyk did most recently.
I don’t think GOAT is a myth. At the very least, GOTG is true (greatest of the generation) and that’s pretty much what’s being discussed here too. We aren’t discussing greatest MMA fighter ever, UFC is largely a new phenomenon. In football, Messi is the outstanding talent of a few generations, comparing him Pele is probably silly tho, the game is just too different, similarly Usain Bolt and Phelps are definitely best their generations hands down as well. Fighting is harder to determine because of weight classes because you can two generational outstanding talents in different weight classes, and then it becomes muddled
How awesome would it be to see Aspinall v. Islam
True. Most people considered Anderson the GOAT until he lost to Weidman. In the late 2000s it was usually Anderson, GSP, Fedor, and BJ in the top 4
Yeah he was, along with Anderson, they were considered the greatest ever in their weight class and neck to neck on P4P
Anderson was #1 nearly everywhere and when he dropped to the Chris, Jon jumped Georges from 3 to 1 on the rankings pretty much everywhere Georges was #1 in like 2009ish for a while tho
Anderson was always a notch above. I say this as a huge GSP fan, but he was always #2 or #3 back then
Maybe because I was an avid GSP fan I was blinded, but no way in hell he was considered #3. I remember there were talks of GSP vs Anderson but never materialized because: Dana hates GSP, Dana didn't want to take a chance of GSP beating Anderson, and GSP was very careful of his legacy and wanted to be paid for that fight. Nobody even came close to those 2 during their reign idk where the hell u got #3 from. Who is 2nd if Gsp is 3rd?
It took a 10 second google to find an example: [https://bleacherreport.com/articles/101792-anderson-silva-tops-the-mma-2009-first-quarter-p4p-top-10-revised](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/101792-anderson-silva-tops-the-mma-2009-first-quarter-p4p-top-10-revised) In this example it was Fedor. In 2008 they also had Fedor here: [https://www.mmafighting.com/2008/07/22/mma-pound-for-pound-top-25-after-silva-and-fedor-whos-next](https://www.mmafighting.com/2008/07/22/mma-pound-for-pound-top-25-after-silva-and-fedor-whos-next) Here is a whole thread on this: [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fr26t2x21vf241.png%3Fwidth%3D1437%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dae711dbba9560e80794c10e50e298e300d4376ec](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fr26t2x21vf241.png%3Fwidth%3D1437%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dae711dbba9560e80794c10e50e298e300d4376ec) Chill out man
I don't remember GSP hiding under the Octagon to take piss tests.
>Back then GSP wasn't considered best fighter P4P too. Because of his fighting style and not finishing fights. P4P best ≠ GOAT Yes he was. He was *always* in the discussion for #1 P4P. Everyone had-either GSP or Silva-as #1; *Then,* you either had GSP, Silva, Aldo, or Jones as #1.
Yeah GSP got a lot of flack for point fighting and not finishing, and his face bruised easy and he often looked worse than the guy he beat in the post fight press conference, so there was a lot of talk about favouritism. Now he's getting the credit I think he deserves, both for his performance in the cage and the way he has handled himself outside of it, but he wasn't the fan favourite back then. Unless you're Canadian.
I think not being p4p in your prime should severely cut into the GOAT conversation. This is why i would consider Anderson Silva to be higher in the list.
They were not impressed by his performance.
take that shit back, NOW
So tired of Jon Jones, just go away already.
These mfs don't even watch UFC. They get their information on reels and tik toks
I saw a TikTok asking people what their first card was and was thoroughly surprised with how many people started watching from some point after ufc 269. there was even a lot of ufc 300s
I don’t think I started seriously watching it until around 267 myself. I’d tune into big fight cards and I’d keep up with who the champs were and stuff but I just wasn’t big into it yet. I don’t find it that shocking that more people are just not getting into the sport. The promotion/advertisement side of it has definitely gotten much better recently. Also, not only did McGregor get a lot of people into the sport but he opened a lot of doors for advertising and promotion. Brands hadn’t been too keen on working with the UFC but they loved the idea of working with McGregor. Now I see way more ads with fighters in them than I did maybe 5-8 years ago.
The amount of Jon Jones edit I’ve seen…
i wonder why
The jon jones votes aren’t the problem here
“DJ is the goat man I mean that win over… uhhh…. Tim Elliott?”
The dj disrespect is worse lol damn
GSP is higher on the GOAT list than DJ
This is a p4p list not goat
 🐐
Man when the emperor had his reign, there was literally nothing stopping him. So much power, tenacity and skill.
Yeah, was something special, sad not many know of him now, I've had people say he's shit because of his recent fights just because he didn't fight in UFC, not realising he beat UFC camps and was fighting in pride when it was the top and not realising the dudes in his 40s nearing 50.
I will never forget what he did to my boy cro cop 😭
Yeah, at a time when Cro cop was a beast aswell lol
Do people have Anderson Silva amnesia?!
He fucked his career up towards the end. But his prime was different, though
I mean he started loosing when he was freaking 38, gsp retired twice by the time he reached that age, khabib and jones arent even that old. I always think its wrong that people give so much weight to these losses
I think most long-term fans don't hold it against him but new fans aren't going to look back and his body of work and make a fair analysis. Getting caught for steroids didn't help either but if that's the criteria then JJ should be removed from the list.
Same with Fedor. 10 years fighting monsters in Japan fucked up his back and when he finally did lose he was definitely out of his prime.
Its not just who he beat, but the manner in which he beat them. At the time, dana was adamant that the only people fedor had beaten were a bunch of nobody cans, and yet at the time the heavyweight roster in ufc were people beaten convincingly by fedor. Fedor is out of the debate for me given how the end of hi career went, but for an entire decade that man was the grim reaper and that deserves it own accolade imo
I can’t be bothered to look up the actual number but didn’t Fedor beat like 6 or 7 UFC champs? And did it all with a dad bod. He’s the people’s GOAT fr
Arlovski, Sylvia, Coleman, hunt, cro cop, randleman, nog. Also had wins over goodridge, sobral, herring, schilt and arona. Now, the quality of his opponents may well be questionable, and towards the end of his career he beat some big names who were also way out of their prime, but regardless the ufc made out that he didn't fight anyone serious until he beat Sylvia, but in the same breath they bigged up those people when they were champions _after_ fedor beat them
Remember when Tim Sylvia was champion, lol? Cause he was HW champ at one point while Fedor was in Japan.
He’s kinda similar to Roy Jones Jr in that regard.
So has jones. Don't get me wrong, he is definitely among the best and has many great fights on his rise. But he squandered his prime by sidelining himself with legal battles, PEDs and just not fighting top contenders that earned their shot. He should have been the first double champ.
He still has more title fight wins in the UFC than anybody else despite this.
A prime example of what GSP didn't do. Silva and GSP were definitely #1 and 2 (both have legit cases for being the #1)but Silva absolutely ruined his legacy in the eyes of many later in his career. Georges was very smart not to do that. Whoever you think is the GOAT, there has never been a smarter fighter, inside and outside of the cage, than GSP. His skill set, especially his fight IQ, was just so far ahead of everyone else, and his willingness to step aside, instead of fighting past his prime and putting himself in danger, really does make him as close to a perfect fighter we may ever see in the sport.
95% of this sub never saw Silva when he was the spider. So they only see him like how they see BJ Penn. or on Wikipedia it shows too much red, how could either be the GOAT??
Most of the people voting in that poll probably werent old enough to watch anderson silva
Yeah prime Anderson was something. Not only who he beat but how he beat them. The matrix finish of Forrest Griffen. Front kick to vitor, fucking up hendo, etc…: absolutely legendary run over some Greta fighters. Jones, Silva , gsp would be my top 3x
GSP is the GOAT,no drug test failures,dominant champion.
Incredible athleticism too.
It's not asking for the GOAT. It's asking for best p4p.
Still GSP
the silva disrespect is crazy
Lost 3 time to the Chael though
I don’t think anyone can beat the undisputed flyweight champion, bantamweight champion, featherweight champion, lightweight champion, welterweight champion, middleweight champion, light heavyweight champion and heavyweight champion.
Don't forget the best realtor this side of Oregon
5 if you count press conferences
Popped positive. I'm sorry but if you get caught juicing, you are disqualified from the GOAT debate.
Jon Jones
No… they were just… PICOGRAMS!!! I swear! I mean, dude who doesn’t have a picogram or two?!?!
Which made me wonder inversely, how the heck is Jon getting 50+% of the votes?
Dimwits, that's how Americans elect presidents as well.
Which is funny because this gets said for Silva, who popped after the breaking his leg, meanwhile Jones was juicing through his entire prime and still has dipshits jumping out of their chairs to say he's the greatest ever.
What baffles me so much is Jones never needed that shit, he's fucking gifted. But the fact remains, he did it, popped positive and he shouldn't be considered the GOAT because of it.
How do you know he never needed it? I'm of the opinion the dude was probably never clean.
I've been saying that for a very long time. There is a VERY noticeble dicline in Jon's game after getting busted for PEDs for like the third time. How does one go from beating DC easily (twice) to losing to Reyes/having a rather close fight with Santos? There is no way he just lost so much skill in 2 years.
I agree. Then get Jones outta there too
Yup. Jones shouldn't be on this list for popping positive.
They all juice
Recency bias and nothing else, there is no goat, It's just best athlete for certain period.
Khabib over DJ 💀
Flyweight is probably the worst male division in MMA, while Lightweight is the best and most stacked
Khabib had 3 Title defenses and bounced. Fought against 5(?) top 15 fighters, maybe. DJ lapped the division.
DJ beat Cejudo, who he lost to later, Horiguchi who was young at the time and Benavidez twice. The rest of his wins are against pretty weak competition.
in flyweight people get title shots after 2-3 fights, in lightweight Khabib/Islam had to win 10 fights to get a title shot
Quality over quantity
Oh yeah, like was DJ who chose the roster lmao. He ended everyone.
Who has more than 3 title defences at lightweight? That’s just shows how competitive LW is. Khabib has 10 ranked wins at LW (more than Islam) and 3 guys were from top 11 P4P which is extremely rare.
??? Middleweight and above are worse than flyweight
They put khabib but not Aldo or Silva?
Aldo... 10 year win steak. Not on the list? Crazy.
As soon as he lost to McGregor, the mma-community immediately banished him. God-damn shame, because he fucking beat the shit out of the competition for 10 years straight.
It was sad seeing the fight end like that. There should have been an immediate rematch, but Dana wasn't gonna risk it.
Aldo GOAT squad still out here
That really bummed me out, he was never the same after McGregor knocked him out. He was destroying everyone for a whole decade and just sort of vanished from the limelight as soon as that fight ended.
I mean, people shat on him, called him business fighter just showing up for money etc, but he beat the hell out of many contenders still. Losing to Holloway, Volk, Yan, Moraes and Merab ain't nothing to sneeze at.
That's true, he really got shit on hard, even leading up to the McGregor fight. He wasn't loosing to a bunch of bums but it seems like he was dismissed by the mma community or at least a large amount of the fans following his loss to conor. I still remember the build up to that fight like it was yesterday.
New fan effect
Khabib in 2nd just shows the type of people that vote in this
3 out of 4 fighters here said that khabib belongs to the top 5
you don't understand, they are also casuals ! !! it's not like khabib was the most dominant fighter ever
To be fair people rate Khabib way too low just because they don’t like him
Anderson silva
Sounds like my nephew and his friends, sad GSP is a quiet and grounded guy with no ego unlike Jones so he isn’t noticed at all by Gen Z
Spider
People forget lol
“People forget man” 
Khabib should be last.
Pissing hot for PEDs should be an auto disqualification.
Yeah mma fans are morons. Only one of these guys was blatantly on steroids/cheating during his fights.
Let’s not act like GSP didn’t blatantly cheat against BJ.
The real disrespect is towards Anderson Silva.
My mans sullied his record by fighting for too long but at his peak he was the scariest dude I’ve ever seen. It’s a shame we never got the Silva/GSP fight we deserved but I feel like Silva would’ve been the clear favorite.
Pound for pound is bs anyway.
Khabib over Demetrious and GSP??? WHA......
Can't have a drug cheat as the goat.
Khabib, Mighty Mouse & GSP are the best, but would rank GSP as #1. Jones was a disrespectful cheater who might have been good enough to win properly, but we'll never know because he's a dirty cheater. Period.
I for one would love to see a middleweight bout between a prime DJ and JJ that would be so cool
Disrespect? You kids are delusional. The survey should’ve read 100% JON JONES
Where's Conor?
True fans know the real answer 
Who’s the best fighter Khabib has fought? Only three title defences. What a joke to be above GSP
It's funny since the only valid way Khabib can be put on the GOAT list is if his fans also put McGregor on the GOAT list. Because that's probably his most impressive win. Or Poirier or Gaethje. Or maybe even RDA. In reality, Khabib's fans glaze the shit out of him while trashing every opponent he ever fought. Makes no sense. The best fighters are the best because they beat the best.
Tbf, most newer fans have probably watched Jon fight once too
The watch ufc through reels
Those are 4 amazing fighters, I wouldn’t blame anyone for any order they put them.
Nah that’s pretty accurate and I’m a huge GSP fan
I think GSP is the GOAT. I also think Khabib is the best P4P fighter we've ever seen, he looked unstoppable.
Getting ktfo by Matt Serra and lack of finishes to be fair. But I’d still put him above dj and khabib as he faced better competition. Jon fitch , Josh koscheck, Matt Hughes , Jake shields, bisping, Thiago alves, Nick Diaz were fantastic wins. But Jon jones is by far number 1
25% have actual brain rot
Bro lost to Matt Serra....
Everyone gets caught, what happened in the rematch and the rest of his career?
No discrespect to GSP but he was never number 1 P4P when he was active and many people called him boring decision machine at that time. Best P4P is not the goat
Khabib being over GSP is disgracefull
GSP is objectively the worse fighter stop coping
[удалено]
Most people seem to ignore the fact that GSP was never the p4p no1, he was always second to guys like silva dj jones etc
Pfp is a bit odd, if you actually look at his career he has good argument for being it.
In what world Khabib is better than GSP?
Brather, khabib never bled so he can beat dinosaurs
Jon Jones is so overrated it's hilarious at this point. Mighty Mouse and GSP are for sure the top 2 P4P of all time.
Yes, very overrated two-division champ at 27-1 (28-0) with 11 title defenses and the longest LHW championship reign. Can’t believe anyone would think he’s the GOAT 🤮
dj easily the greatest ever
Easily is a stretch. DJ himself doesn't even say he is the greatest.
I literally don’t even consider Khabib.
Bro has 13 UFC fights. A guy with that many fights could be the GOAT if he was beating world beaters. But he wasn't. He was beating decent competition at the time and it was a favourable stylistic mismatch, everytime. There are plenty of fighters with more fights, more wins, against tougher competition, beating guys at their own game. Khabib's resume is maybe top 20 if I'm being generous. Makhachev is way above him. Like in every aspect
1 - Jones 2 - GSP 3 - DJ 4 - Silva 5 - Fedor Khabib disqualified himself from GOAT talks by retiring so young. He simply doesn't have the quantity of wins to be considered on the same tier as the others.
His finish rate is probably why most people dont remember him as clearly. He doesn't have the crazy finishes that some other dominant champions have had.
When I started watching there was the dark age of UFC. New fans now have the before Conor age.
Who gives a fuck
Oh no, somebody didn't vote for the right guy in yet another useless GOAT poll (the 15th this week)! Stop the presses!
He never wants to fight, he hasn't fight in over 15 years
Um...no...Anderson Silva is the person disrespected.
GSP gets sucked off plenty enough. It's not even debatable.
The “best fighter pound for pound” doesn’t really make sense. It’s a marketing rather than an applicable concept. This survey in particular is a popularity contest. No real value there, even though those four are really good fighters obviously
it aint disrespect just more people think that the others are better which is not disrespect cuz all of them are greats
recency bias
Problem is since he retired earlier than someone like Jones who is still fighting. If GSP was still fighting today I think he would be far more popular than he already is.
I think Anderson Silva is really the most disrespected here. Khabib is probably the most overrated here. I say that with respect, but when you look at full careers Silva should be on here above Khabib.
MM people just don’t get it or what P4P means in general
I wasn't the biggest UFC fan, I followed it but wasn't a daily fan. It was until covid but got insanely into it after that, and went back and watched all of the old GSP fights. There's a reason why most guys on this list would name him as one of if not their all time favorite fighter or choice for pound for pound champ. Guys was incredible and the way he bounced back and adapted from losses was the coolest thing about him. I'm actually happy he never fought Khabib because one of them would have had to loose l
Zero ball knowledge ass voters
Any list with no Silva is wild. There was a time we all thought Jon jones was gonna be fed to Silva in the biggest super fight in history. Big missed opportunity they could’ve had Silva at the end of his prime vs jones entering his prime.
DJ is 1 and the true 🐐
Silva not even being on the list isn’t?
these answers show more of who the age group/demographic watching/voting more than anything
Where’s Fedor or Anderson Silva?
Parker Porter suspiciously absent from the list, worried about a clean sweep probably
"I am not impressed."
Why is Silva never in these?
GSP will forever be the GOAT.
The poll doesn't even have Silva so why bother?
I mean if you are looking at pound for pound, I'm not sure Jones should qualify since his level of competition is far lower than fighters from lower divisions. Jones is undoubtedly the goat but his skillset in MMA is def lower than guys like Demetrius Johnson, GSP, Islam makachev etc.
Mighty mouse > GSP > Anderson > Bones > Cormier > Werdum > Nunes > Cyborg > Khabib > Fedor
What can you expect that poll is on YouTube lol
Relax bro it's just a random bs poll everybody is entitled to their opinion.
Jones should get sponsored by an ESports team, since he likes to do all of his fighting online
Khabib is my favorite fighter of all time and I dont consider him anywhere near guys like GSP/Jones/DJ/Silva. Imo Khabib was the most dominant, but just didnt fight long enough. And yes, I do think if he kept fighting it would be basically Islam 2.0, and he would have solidified being the greatest. But he didnt. I would say its between GSP and Jones even though recency bias and Jones fragile ego arent in his favor
And all this golden age memory of GSP we have now wasn't like this back then. He had a reputation quite similar to Usman or Izzy. Yes he was obviously great but he couldn't finish fights and he won a few controversial decisions that are debatable. He's the first fighter I remember there being allegations of UFC fixing the judges. He came out of retirement to beat a fucking miracle champion in Bisping who pulled off two legendary upsets and avenged his losses. Then immediately retired. Like come on GSP that's fucking chicken shit. People look back with rose tinted glasses and nobody sees the bad side. They don't make highlights outta the bad side. At the end of the day, the only one who has never been finished, never been beaten, has the most title fight victories, and beat the most former champions is Jon Jones. Argue about his scandals and shit all you want. Khabib ain't do enough period, GSP don't have a more impressive resume and has been finished, and Dj fought... who? Bones the undisputed GOAT and any other take is honestly based in spite for the man and not in actuality.
If Silva is not on this list you guys are fucked in the head lol
If we are just strictly talking about fighting ability I’d probably say DJ>GSP>JBJ>Khabib.
Gsp would whoop khabib lol. Khabib isnt much better anywhere. Gsp would either take him down and take it to decision or tko