The 10 best fighters that never won UFC gold

''Undisputed'' is a pretty straight forward concept. You've beaten everyone in your path and have sole claim to and possession of the championship of your weight class. To avoid spending too many words on my opening salvo, lemme just be blunt. This is a list of the 10 best fighters who fought in the UFC but never captured a title. Some of these fighters are true all time greats who are deserving of their own in depth career review. With that in mind, I have kept this one shorter, but feel free to to check out in depth looks at the careers of Frankie Edgar and Jose Aldo.

To be clear, interim belts DO NOT count. So likes of Colby Covington and Carlos Condit do qualify, but neither have made my list despite both being excellent fighters in their own rights. I've also left out streaking contenders who have bright futures and real chances to become champions in the near future, so usually the likes of Leon Edwards and Aljamain Sterling would have featured, but I've left them out on this occasion. I've also decided to not include Justin Gaethje as he has the chance to become the undisputed champ in a matter of days. 

Simply enough, I took into account overall ability as a fighter and strength of schedule while creating this list. I've also put down a fight that I feel best shows how good the fighter was at their best underneath every entry. Feel free to watch a few. With that being said; the list. 

10. Nick Diaz

There was a 2-3 year period where Nick Diaz had a legitimate case for being the best welterweight in the world other than GSP. A  high volume striking game with a solid BJJ base. A two organisation champion, he won 11 fights in a row across 3 organisations before returning to the UFC in his career's twilight. Was he the best athlete? Was he great defensively? Was he a particularly powerful puncher? The answer to all three of those questions is no. Here's what he did have going for him; everlasting cardio, the best boxing skills of his era, iron will and extreme durability. Does he have the most glittering collection of wins? No. There isn't much past a KO of Robbie Lawler way back when, and a KO of Semtex Daley in the best 1 round fight I've ever seen in any combat sport. Still though, Nick deserves his flowers as a early star in the sport and for being a very underrated technician.

Essential fight: vs Paul Daley - Strikeforce: Diaz vs Daley

9. Jorge Masvidal 

For so long he was one of the most under appreciated fighters ever. It took him knocking the UK's brightest MMA prospect at the time out cold, then socking the UK's best fighter in the face backstage for him to finally get his dues. Better late than never. A tactical and technical genius who has fought the best of the best in two weight classes. An understated kicking game, gorgeous boxing skills, the ability to switch stances and true KO power in both hands. An experienced, hardened, durable veteran with an attitude and a swagger in the cage that truly represents who he is as a person.  A fighter on the receiving end of several controversial decision losses. I could argue all of his UFC losses before 2019 were robberies, Wonderboy tooling aside. 

Essential fight: vs Nate Diaz - UFC 244

8. Gegard Mousasi

A FOUR organisation champion. 55 pro MMA fights. An athletic technician with a beautiful jab, sound counter striking and expert pressuring footwork. A top 6-7ish 185er of all time. I do have a few issues with him though. Lack of discipline (he's been penalized on multiple occasions for illegal upkicks) and his tendency to drop his levels when fighting lesser competition. Mousasi unfortunately left the UFC just as things seemed to kick into stride. His UFC career started kinda average, 4-3 including a KO loss to Uriah Hall. He turned it around and went on a 5 fight win streak and seemed primed for a title shot, but he left the UFC due to contract disputes. The weird finish of the Weidman fight definitely didn't help him The 2015-18 UFC middleweight division was full of monsters.The golden age of the division. Mousasi managed to avoid fighting Romero, Whittaker, Rockhold, Bisping and even Tim Kennedy. I've kinda held that against him in regards to his ranking.

Essential fight: vs Costas Phillippou - UFC Fight Night 66

7. Stephen Thompson

Adesanya is the best striker in the business and guys like Petr Yan are making a case to be the ones who fall just under. Wonderboy's striking might not be on their level but it's nothing to sniff at. He can fight out of either stance, has a lethal spinning attack and is terribly accurate with both his hands and feet. To be frank, Wonderboy has been cheated out of two wins. The first Woodley fight (the 2nd was a draw) and his fight against Darren Till, to me, he won both of those fights with a 48-47 score. Now if you take that into account with KO wins against Johny Hendricks, a young Robert Whittaker, and comfortable wins against Rory MacDonald and Vincente Luque, this gives him the best clutch of ''wins'' of anyone on this list apart from who I have ranked #1. The fact that Tyron Woodley was given a title shot after narrowly beating Gastelum then spending 18 months on the shelf, while Wonderboy was in the midst of a 6 fight win streak and had just KO'd the former champ is criminal. I think Wonderboy would have definitely gotten one over on a battle worn Robbie Lawler. Politics, eh?

Essential fight: vs Johny Hendricks - UFC Fight Night 82

6. Urijah Faber

One of the most important fighters in the history of the sub 155lb divisions. A personal favorite of mine when I was younger. Before Aldo came along, Urijah was easily the best and greatest 145lber the sport had seen. He honestly looked unbeatable during his run to the top. His resume does not lack in names or quality either, Jens Pulver? A young Dom Cruz? A physically strong, scrappy, big-for-the-weight-class wrestle-boxer with good power and excellent transitional striking. Urijah was really the man before he had his technical and tactical pitfalls exposed by Mike Brown. Twice. Who was a better boxer and a superior athlete. Then again by Jose Aldo... who, well frankly who I speak enough about. Urijah was never really able to get it going in the UFC the same way. 0-4 in UFC title fights, running into the same two dominant champions at all four attempts, much like his Team Alpha Male cohort Joe Benavidez.

Essential fight: vs Joe Pearson - WEC 25

5. Tony Ferguson

Tied for the longest win streak in the history of the most talented division in MMA. Ultimate Fighter winner. Former interim champ. High volume, high pace, high risk. He can strike out of both stances and has a vicious ground game. Tony Ferguson is one of the most entertaining and lethal MMArists alive, even after the Gaethje fight. His 12 fight win streak did always feel a bit padded to me, but Barboza has always been dangerous, Kevin Lee is very talented and was in the best form of his career and RDA was arguably still in his prime. He has been able to use a high variance style of striking, good transitional work and an impressive stable of chokes to build a prolific offensive system, even if said system does often leave him exposed and lead to him taking crazy amounts of punishment. I said it was prolific, I didn't say it was safe. Part of Tony being on this list is probably bad luck. He had multiple opportunities to fight for the title and would have stood a real chance against Khabib, especially in 2018.

Essential fight: vs Rafael Dos Anjos - UFC Fight Night 98

4. Yoel Romero

Might be straight up and down the best athlete in the history of MMA. One half of the greatest rivalry in UFC middleweight history. A Cuban Olympic silver medalist in freestyle wrestling, he oddly didn't use his elite grappling in MMA as much as you might assume someone with his pedigree would. As Reemz once said on an episode of the podcast, ''he's literally one of the best grapplers of all time and he just decided to become a kickboxer''. His flying knee KO against Chris Weidman is one of my favorite finishes ever. Proper explosive stuff. Now of course highlight reel KO's and explosive striking are huge parts of Romero's game/legacy, but he has a lot more layers to his game than he is sometimes given credit for. A cohesive, sound pressure boxing game in the Rockhold fight. A stout counter boxing approach in his all time great second fight against Robert Whittaker (which I scored in his favour), brutal finishes on the ground against Machida and Brunson. Legitimately one of my favourite fighters ever and one of the true all time greats of the sport.

Essential fight: vs Luke Rockhold - UFC 221

3. Joe Benavidez

Joe Jitsu. One of the genuine all time greats of the sport, he might even be a bit low here. This is a piece about non UFC champions, but if you include his WEC fights, he is 0-5 in championship fights. Having been finished brutally in three of those losses. That, along with a controversial win against Cejudo and a loss to Sergio Pettis are the reasons why he isn't 1 or 2 on this list. A confident, sound striker in the pocket with honest power and brilliant counters. His grappling was/is also elite, always so comfortable in a scramble. Strong for the division, excellent hips, great transitional work. No one on this list came closer on more occassions than Joe. Unlucky for him that he happened to run into 2 of the top 6 fighters in my personal top 10 all time. 

Essential fight: vs Dustin Ortiz - UFC Fight Night 57 

2. Chad Mendes

The best fighter to come out of Team Alpha Male. A blue chip wrestler and A+ athlete in every facet necessary for MMA. The ''wrestler with a right hand'' was transformed by Bang Ludwig into one of the slickest wrestle-boxers and pocket operators in modern MMA. His power, feints, footwork and counter striking even managed to give the greatest fighter ever absolute fits. UFC 179 Mendes is still the gold standard for performances in a title fight that didn't bear gold. He doesn't have the collection of wins over upper echelon fighters like others on this list, but starching a prime Ricardo Lamas stacks up favorably against any win by certain fighters that some people reading this may think deserve a spot on this list (Gustaffsson, Overeem). My only gripe is that we never got to see Mendes vs Holloway. Chad will be the only fighter on this list who actually lost his essential fight. It's rare that the best performance of a fighter's career comes in a loss. (But if you wanna see how dominant he was in his prime, give his fight against Clay Guida at UFC 164 a watch).

Essential fight: vs Jose Aldo - UFC 179

1. Dustin Poirier

Top 3 lightweight of all time and fringe top 15ish fighter ever. One of the most crafty and lethal offensive boxers in the game. Poirier has always been a willing action fighter and has been one half of some of the most breathtaking contests I've ever seen (Zombie, Miller, Gaethje, Holloway, Hooker). A solid career at 145lbs has been followed by an all time great run at 155 which culminated in a victory over Max Holloway for the interim title in one of the best fights in MMA history. His performance against Justin Gaethje might be the most impressive of his career. Gaethje has inflicted life changing damage on everyone that's stood across from him. Poirier was no exception but the craft, IQ and grit he showed to smother Gaethje with volume punching while manipulating his high guard was excellent, He also showed off some decent counter kicking (before Gaethje beat his legs into submission) and his counter straight left off Gaethje's low kicks that was landing all fight long was eventually the punch that began the fights finishing sequence. Aldo and GSP are the two best fighters the sport has ever seen, they both beat more borderline and actual elite competition than anyone else. Can either of them boast a 3 victory run as impressive as Alvarez - Gaethje - Holloway? No. I don't think anyone in MMA history can.

Essential fight: vs Max Holloway - UFC 236

Lemme know what you guys think of the list. 

Hit me at @Atlas8sp on twitter! 

(Stay tuned for a Khabib vs Gaethje preview/prediction later this week)