8 Sides Blog

''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...

  Ok, here we go with another prediction. You have to be careful with these because it's important to try and not let bias get the better of you. With that being said, the last two prediction pieces I've written were laced with at least some semblance of bias but I managed to pick the correct winner both times, so I must be doing something right, right? Also I'll be real. I'm only here to talk about Adesanya and Costa because I have absolutely no interest in the 205lb division since Jon Jones vacated the belt, but hey, for the sake of it, Blachowicz by 3rd round TKO. Anyway, let's talk about a serious division. This is really a special fight. In prospect of course. I feel like I have to cover my back after Adesanya vs Romero. This is most excited I've been about a fight since Gaethje vs Ferguson. What we have here is a contest between two of the three best fighters at 185. An arrogant pressure fighter with genuine one shot KO power and underrated craft. A brash,...

I'm in two minds about MMA becoming as popular as it has been the last few years. I'm not here to claim to be a purist or anything like that, believe me. My only issue is the existence of the nonsensical casuals who say and do dumb shit, like comparing Kamaru Usman, one of the best fighters on the planet, to Jose Mourinho. Okay, maybe I do consider myself quite a purist. In fairness, when I was like 10 years old stumbled across MMA by accident. I was flicking through channels on the Sky box. For context, I turn 24 in November, so essentially I've been a fan of the sport for almost two thirds of my entire life. Admittedly a casual myself for a significant amount of time, initially. Regardless, that's a long time for a sport with a linage that you'd struggle to trace back more than 30 years or so. It might sound like I'm rambling. To be real with you, I slyly am... but I'm going somewhere with this so stick with me. See when it comes down to it, I really don...

The other day, former two division champion Conor McGregor took to twitter to give his view on the GOAT conversation. Pretty much ranking himself joint 1st with Anderson Silva and explaining how Georges St. Pierre and Jon Jones followed. Of course this sparked debate throughout the entire MMA community, so why not come up with our own lists? Myself and friends of the podcast Reemz and Ivan put this together to give you all an idea of out top 10 P4P MMA artists of all time. Let us know what you think! Reemz Top 10 all time P4P My criteria takes into consideration things such as; peak level of performance, martial arts skillset, fight IQ, quality of opponent beaten, championship pedigree, longevity and influence and legacy. 10 - Conor McGregor Conor McGregor makes this list for a multitude of reasons, firstly he is one of the most gifted natural strikers of all time, he’s an expert boxer showing amazing proficiency in boxing going backwards and well as counter striking with his...

I've never been more excited about anything combat sport related in my entire life. We're literally looking at one of the deepest cards in MMA history. With 9 fights on the Prelims and Main Card, 8 of those 18 fighters have fought for or held a UFC title. We also have maybe the best pure boxer at 145 (Kattar) and a genuine all time great 185er (Jacre) even if he is dwindling. It's also a card that comes with title implications in the company's two best divisions (155 and 135). I'll be having a look at just the main event in this piece though. (Having said that. My dark horse on the card is Calvin Kattar vs Jeremy Stephens. Those who plan to tune into UFC 249, watch out for that one) Not the original plan Khabib vs Ferguson was scheduled and cancelled for the 5th earlier this year. We all know why so I won't get into that. Who knows though, maybe it was a blessing in disguise? As much as I love Khabib, stylistically Gaethje is a more exciting opponen...

Towards the end of 2019 I wrote a little piece listing who I thought were the top 5 pound for pound fighters in UFC history, where I put Georges St. Pierre and Jon Jones at joint 1st. A few months later, some important fights have happened and I've also gone back and re visited the fight library of some fighters who might actually deserve that title over the aforementioned legends. Anyway, this one might be a bit longer than some of my previous work so bear with me. In essence, what you're about to read is an apology to who I now have to admit is the best MMA fighter I've ever seen: Jose Aldo. During his tenure in the WEC Jose was as aggressive as any fighter on the roster. Who could forget the 8 second flying knee knockout against Cub Swanson? Or the sight of him mounted on a prone Mike Brown, pasting shots into the side of his head en route to winning the title for the first time. In 8 fights under the WEC banner only Urijah Faber was able to go the dis...