#condit

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1- Georges St. Pierre Record in the 10s (Jan 1st 2010 to December 31st 2019)- 6-0 Record in title fights- 6-0 Record against other fighters on the list- 2-0

So in hindsight, GSP's resume is not exactly all that hot. Dan Hardy, Jake Shields and Josh Koscheck all pretty much faded out of relevancy shortly after their title fights although GSP probably ended Koscheck's career. GSP's record is a mere 6-0 and he pretty much sat out the Woodley/Lawler/Hendricks era of MMA minus a cameo to claim the UFC's middleweight crown. Ignore that part of his resume and instead remember that GSP tore his ACL on TWO separate occasions and there were genuine questions about his ability to come back and fight. Not only did he come back but he came back with basically the same style that made him a legend slightly tweaked and amplified to overcome his lack of explosiveness. GSP will always be viewed differently because he didn't finish fights but again, he was pretty much cooked physically well into his early 30s due to repeated knee injuries. What's more? GSP should be #1 overall if only because he is one of the few guys in MMA who was able to continually dictate his own terms. He was able to pick who he fought because for years he fought EVERYBODY there was to fight. He was able to choose where he fought because he was the UFC's biggest draw before the rise of Conor McGregor. He beat Hendricks in a close fight, realized his health took priority and retired. He started a media war with the UFC and won that too. Then he returns, coaxes the UFC into giving him a middleweight title fight, wins that and then realizes that he doesn't have to fight anymore against what was at the time a rising crop of genuinely bad ass middleweight contenders like Robert Whittaker, Yoel Romero and the likes of Weidman, Jacare, Gastelum, Rockhold and so on so forth. GSP got in, got titles, got paid and then got out when the situation didn't seem right to him. That's #1 shit.

2- Tyron Woodley Record in the 10s (Jan 1st 2010 to December 31st 2019)- 9-3-1 Record in title fights- 4-1-1 Record against other fighters on the list- 4-2-1

To quote the always esteemed "Tyron Woodley is just going to continue to piss people off." Woodley's UFC reign began with him bombing out Jay Heiron on short notice and then he followed that up by smelting Jay Heiron and then sort of stumbled over his feet to the tune of a 2-2 record. After his loss to Rory MacDonald in June of 2014, Woodley went on one of the welterweight divisions more impressive tears with wins over Dong Hyun Kim, Robbie Lawler, Stephen Thompson and Darren Till to name a few. Woodley's fights were either really great (Thompson I, Till) or really awful  (Thompson II, Gastelum) with very little in between space. His 4-1-1 record in title fights and 4-2-1 record against competition on this ledger paint the picture of one of MMA's best neutralizers and one of the greatest resumes of the 2010s. Woodley's 2019 pretty much hit the skids as he lost to Kamaru Usman in a blow out and then pretty much disappeared with hand and shoulder issues. Woodley's probably approaching the back 9 of his career but I would be stunned if he wasn't in the top 3 welterweights all time even when the NEXT decade ended. All hail MMA's greatest nuisance.

3-  Robbie Lawler Record in the 10s (Jan 1st 2010 to December 31st 2019)- 9-5 Record in title fights- 3-2 Record against other fighters on the list- 4-2

I remain a sentimentalist I suppose. The latter days of the Lawler era are painful in large part because years of wars and a style that willingly sacrificed rounds 2 to 4 finally caught up with Robbie Lawler. He just sort of fell apart which isn't too surprising since from December 2013 to Jan 2016 he fought NINE times with FIVE of those fights going a full five rounds. From that period of time Lawler has  win over Rory MacDonald (twice), Carlos Condit, Jake Ellenberger, Matt Brown, Johny Hendricks with FOUR fight of the nights and FOUR UFC title fights. Robbie Lawler spoiled us to believe welterweight fights were always awesome because every fight he was in WAS awesome. The latter era of Lawler is pretty sad. Woodley beat IMO the last image of a prime Robbie Lawler but after that I think it's fair to say the fire was gone. He probably deserved to lose to Donald Cerrone as well if we're being honest. The one brief flicker of light was against Ben Asken in a fight I thought he won prior to Askren pulling out a sub in a rally come from behind 1st round "win" dare I say. Lawler has had a lot of injuries, a lot of inactivity (he fought the same number of fights in 2014 alone than he has since the start of 2017) and sometimes the magic just runs out.

4- Kamaru Usman Record in the 10s (Jan 1st 2010 to December 31st 2019)- 11-0 Record in title fights- 2-0 Record against other fighters on the list- 2-0

Next to Wonderboy vs Rory MacDonald, Lawler vs Usman was a tremendous struggle for me. Kamaru Usman's steadier and had more of a balance to his career. Even if he had slipped up once or twice prior to this, Usman's overall dominance is stupendous. Wins over RDA and a bunch of good welterweights like Leon Edwards, Sergio Moraes and Colby Covington are good enough to get you on the list but getting into the top 5 requires you to scalp Tyron Woodley in a blowout. Usman's here because for most of the early portions of his UFC career, he was borderline brutal to watch and his competition was pretty blegh/eh/meh. Usman's rise really took off in after the Emil Meek fight and the Woodley/Covington back to back performances vaulted him up the rankings big time. The fun part with Usman is seeing how high he'll go when this list is re-done in 2030 or so. By the time we hit 2022 or so, Usman could have wins over Masvidal, Edwards (again), Covington (again) and potentially a whole new banner crop of welters.

5- Stephen Thompson Record in the 10s (Jan 1st 2010 to December 31st 2019)- 10-4-1 Record in title fights- 0-1-1 Record against other fighters on the list- 3-1-1

If we decided to rank these dudes in order of politeness, Thompson and Maia would be fighting for the #1 spot. Sometimes I wonder if Wonderboy is forgotten when we discuss the best UFC fighters to never win a title. On this list alone, he beat Johny Hendricks, Jorge Masvidal and Rory MacDonald. He gave two tough title fights to Tyron Woodley while holding the title of having arguably the biggest disparity in title fight quality in said title fights. He'll probably never live down getting smelted by a pudgy lightweight in Anthony Pettis and that alone could've been enough to knock him down the charts I suppose. I wonder how the WW division would've changed if Wonderboy arrives in, say, 2010 or so as opposed to 2012. He's just never had the gear to go out and take a tough fight away from the other guy which is why he lost twice to Woodley and suffered that kind of brutal decision loss to Darren Till.

6- Rory MacDonald Record in the 10s (Jan 1st 2010 to December 31st 2019)- 9-4 Record in title fights- 0-1 Record against other fighters on the list- 2-4

Rory entered the UFC in 2010 and was gone before 2016 was over. In six years, he has one of MMA's most impressive resumes with a whose who of fights against the elite of the elites. He fought Robbie Lawler twice, Carlos Condit, Demian Maia, Stephen Thompson, BJ Penn, Jake Ellenberger and Tyron Woodley and that's all without looking it up. He'll always be defined by the war vs Robbie Lawler that basically broke him beyond repair. Rory may not be a top 3 WW but of the ten names on this list, he's arguably among the more culturally significant to the MMA landscape. Rory is without question one of the best welterweights of his era and I also think he's one of the few dudes who did it while almost certainly without steroids. My hat is off to him.

7- Demian Maia Record in the 10s (Jan 1st 2010 to December 31st 2019)- 12-5 Record in title fights- 0-1 Record against other fighters on the list- 2-3

So when I originally did this list, I had Demian Maia MUCH higher up. Like above Rory higher. Maia being ranked above Rory Mac sounds like a bit of a crock given how MacDonald beat Maia BUT I'm also accounting for long term career relevance in a sense. Maia's still having competitive fights at WW (pause on that Burns fight) and beating up on dudes sometimes 15 years younger than him while Rory is 3-2-1 since leaving the UFC and 3-4-1 since 2015 ended. That said when you factor in the Woodley performances for each guy plus Rory's prime being so magnetic (and the win in the H-2-H matchup, I made a switch). When you consider how utterly one dimension Demian Maia is, it's a testament to how insane that dimension is that he's up this high.  Maia has wins over list guys Carlos Condit, Jorge Masvidal and relatively dominant performances over dudes you'd recognize like Ben Askren, Lyman Good, Neil Magny, Gunnar Nelson and then undefeated Ryan LaFlare. His losses are to genuinely legitimately awesome fighters like Rory MacDonald, Kamaru Usman and Tyron Woodley.

8- Johny Hendricks Record in the 10s (Jan 1st 2010 to December 31st 2019)- 10-6 Record in title fights- 1-2 Record against other fighters on the list- 2-3

Hendricks is another dude who had an unceremonious ending to his career. From 2011 to 2015, he was genuinely at worst #3 in the welterweight rankings. We're talking a resume loaded with guys like Josh Koscheck, Carlos Condit, Martin Kapmann, John Fitch, Matt Brown, GSP and Robbie Lawler all on the docket. I went back and watched Hendricks vs GSP for this and still come away thinking Johny got jobbed. Hendricks' career will always be filled with question marks and what if's. We'll never know whether he was on steroids and we'll never know what would've happened if Hendricks would've kept himself in shape more consistently to avoid the ballooning up that eventually fucked his body up.  We'll never know if he would've beaten GSP in a rematch or how he would've done had the rumored Nick Diaz vs Johny Hendricks fight that was in talks for 2015 (the one which led to Anderson vs Nick Diaz) would've panned out. Hendricks is a what if but the fact he is a what if while also being a top 10 welterweight for a loaded decade of great fighters is a damn testament to how big of a whirlwind he was for the beginning of the decade.  

9- Jorge Masvidal Record in the 10s (Jan 1st 2010 to December 31st 2019)- 7-5 Record in title fights- 0-0 Record against other fighters on the list- 0-2

Jorge Masvidal makes it onto the list primarily due to his run on the back half of the 2010s. Regardless of how you feel about Darren Till, Nate Diaz and Ben Askren, those are three of the most impressive wins of 2019. He was in the running for 2019's FOTY (I believe he WAS my pick) and is having a seriously impressive second half of his career. Even his losses are all in pretty damn close fights minus Wonderboy who just casually pieced him up. The reason he's so low is that the two guys on this list that he fought, he lost to. Masvidal historically has been a guy who can feast on the lower portions of (insert division/rankings here) but when it comes to the step up, he never actually takes the next step in fights he can CLEARLY win. If he ever fights Kamaru Usman, he could move up higher on the list and if he wins then we need to talk about Masvidal as having a Bisping-esque career resume.

10- Carlos Condit Record in the 10s (Jan 1st 2010 to December 31st 2019)- 6-8 Record in title fights- 1-2 Record against other fighters on the list- 1-5