My Mount Rushmore of UFC

For those of you unware, in professional sports it's very common to use a "Mount Rushmore" to describe your top 4 athletes in any sporting event. And what I find very interesting about your "Mount Rushmore" is you can be as vague or specific as you want. Specifications could be by age, era, sport, gender, you name it. I do plan to make many more of these, so let's take a look at my UFC Mount Rushmore first.

Anderson Silva

Seriously I dare you to try to find a flaw in Anderson Silva's fight game, other than his tendency to showboat in his later years. Anderson was so dominant, during his fight with Stephan Bonnar there was literally a commercial with Forrest Griffin about how unbeatable Anderson was. What I did appreciate the most about Anderson though, unlike some other champions who let the challenger chase them. Anderson knocked down anybody Dana threw at him, other than GSP sadly. That was the only time politics may have come in the way. Now back to the point of why Anderson Silva belongs on this Mt. Rushmore, again seriously. I dare you to try to find a flaw in his game. MAYBE, his wrestling was not as elite as his BJJ but that's it. Lastly, let's talk numbers real quick. 2,457, that's how many days Anderson spent as champion with 16 straight title defenses. Jeez, not only does he belong on Mt Rushmore but he should seriously be considered the GOAT of not only UFC but MMA in general. Sadly the only though if there's one big flaw with Silva, is that after his loss to Chris Weidman he was never the same. He only won 1 more fight, lost 7, and had one no contest with Nick Diaz due to PED violations.

Georges Saint-Pierre

Similar to Anderson, I dare you to try to find a flaw in GSP's fight game. Superb striking, beautiful BBJ, stamina for days, GSP was an incredibly well rounded fighter. The only two "flaws" I can think of is maybe wrestling, which we all know Matt Hugues definitely exploited during their fights. Also I do remember GSP taking way more damage than he needed to in some fights. Which I always found peculiar because GSP was a great counter puncher and he was trained by the legendary boxing coach Freddie Roach. But he still took a ton of damage, his face was always busted up like crazy after his fights even when he won. Lastly numbers; GSP was the 4th fighter in UFC history to be a multi-division champion, finished his career 26-2, and as of 2020 is officially in the UFC hall of fame.

Ronda Rousey

Say what you want about Ronda but not only was she the first, she's why we have a women's division in MMA after Dana White explicitly once said the UFC would NEVER have women after being asked by TMZ. We all know how crazy dominant Ronda was, destroying just about every woman put in front of her, that was of course until Holly Holm had something to say about Ronda's undefeated streak. She is also literally the first woman ever to be in the UFC Hall of Fame as of 2018, come on. I couldn't leave her off this list. Sadly Ronda left for the WWE way too early if you ask me, retiring with a record of 12-2 after her only two consecutive loses. I wish she had stayed around longer to get her comeback win. Yet she didn't, after her loss to Amanda Nunes she moved on to the WWE. But even after joining the WWE and fulfilling her dream, she's barely even on TV nowadays which is very peculiar. Now she's just streaming for those wondering what happened to Ronda.

Forrest Griffin

Forest was the very first "Ultimate Fighter". Just like with Ronda, you have to give it up to the very first. What's interesting about Forrest is he wasn't as complete of a fighter as say Anderson or GSP. His overall record isn't even really all that impressive at 19-7 with 9 of those wins coming from decision. HOWEVER; the heart, grit, determination, whatever you want to call it was only ever rivaled by maybe the Diaz brothers and like the "Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung. Also Forrest was known for having some legendary fights; with guys like "Rampage" Jackson, Tito Ortiz, and of course the one that put the UFC on the map, Bonner vs Griffin. There's really only one big blemish on his resume which was his fight against Anderson Silva. That fight was very lack luster, Forrest looked light he was fighting under water, it was almost comical. I actually thought the fight was thrown, that's how poor his performance was for such a highly anticipated "super fight". Turns out though Forrest tested positive for Xanax, which looking back at that fight knowing what we know now makes sense.

As stated above I do plan to make many more of these Mount Rushmore's. Basketball, football, WWE, so on and so forth. I also do plan to come up with multiple iterations of these list. This is not only Mt. Rushmore for the UFC I plan to make.

Thank you for your time, I hope you enjoyed what you have read today. I have plenty of different articles on many different topics. Feel free to give those other articles a read or two. Also if you'd be so kind, I'd greatly appreciate a heart and if you really feel so inclined tips are always appreciated but by no means required.