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After Conor McGregor’s history-making night at UFC 205, the motor-mouthed two-division UFC champion is building a resume that rivals the all-time greats.
Eddie Alvarez, one of the most accomplished lightweights in history, was simply no match for McGregor in the main event of Sunday’s champion-versus-champion super fight at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
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The battle-tested 32-year-old was floored three times in the first five minutes and knocked out before the nine-minute mark of the fight.
With that win, McGregor became the first man to hold two championships simultaneously in the 23-year history of the UFC.
If that weren’t impressive enough, the Straight Blast Gym: Ireland poster boy has accomplished that once-unthinkable feat after just three years, seven months and nine days in the Nevada-based mixed martial arts league.
There’s no denying that McGregor has already built a legacy as one of the most important and unforgettable fighters of this era, but where does he stack up against other legends of his sport?
To get an idea, I took a look at McGregor’s accomplishments and compared them to Jon Jones, Georges St-Pierre and Fedor Emelianenko – the consensus three best mixed martial arts fighters in history.
The catch is, I only counted the first three years, seven months, and nine days of their careers with the promotion they built their lasting legacy in – in Silva and St-Pierre’s case, the UFC and for Emelianenko, the now-defunct Pride Fighting Championships.
Fighter: Conor McGregor
Titles: Interim UFC featherweight championship, UFC featherweight championship, UFC lightweight championship
Title defences: zero
Notable wins: Jose Aldo, Eddie Alvarez, Nate Diaz, Chad Mendes, Max Holloway, Dustin Poirier
Record during time period (April 2013-present): 9-1
The brick-fisted 28-year-old skyrocketed to the top of the industry in quick and spectacular fashion, challenging for his first championship in his sixth UFC bout.
Fans were justifiably salty about McGregor skipping the line and being afforded favourable treatment, but at this stage, the Irishman has done his part to silence his detractors.
McGregor has almost exclusively faced top talent since penning a deal with the UFC and in the latter stage of his career, when he has the power to demand any fight he pleases, the John Kavanagh student is certainly not playing it safe.
Fighter: Jon Jones
Titles: UFC light heavyweight championship
Title defences: two
Notable wins: Lyoto Machida, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua, Ryan Bader
Record during time period (April 2009-March 2012): 9-1
After a little under four years in the elite mixed martial arts promotion, ‘Bones’ Jones had already redefined single year success in the sport.
His still-untouched 2011 campaign – choking or punching out Machida, ‘Rampage’, Bader and ‘Shogun’ with startling ease – put the entire sport on notice.
One of the reasons behind the UFC’s light heavyweight class being the marquee division for years was its roster of stars who passed around the title like a hot potato. With the young, dynamic, violent smashing machine’s arrival, it was clear those days were over.
Jones lodged eight title defences before his out-of-the-cage demons caught up to him, but after less than four years in the big leagues, his resume was nowhere near as impressive as King Conor’s.
Fighter: Georges St-Pierre
Titles: UFC welterweight championship
Title defences: zero
Notable wins: Matt Hughes, BJ Penn, Josh Koscheck, Karo Parisyan, Sean Sherk
Record during that period (January 2004-September 2007): 8-2
St-Pierre, the UFC’s most bankable pay-per-view star before the arrival of McGregor, joined the UFC after just five fights and fast became an impact player at 170 pounds.
The French-Canadian fighter managed to capture the top prize at welterweight during his first three-and-a-half years with the company but failed to hang onto it for long, shockingly losing to seven-to-one dark horse Matt Serra.
With his prime years in the rearview mirror now, St-Pierre is easily one of the best ever, but his entire championship reign came in the latter period of his career.
Fighter: Fedor Emelianenko
Titles: Pride FC heavyweight championship
Title defences: two
Notable wins: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (2x), Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic, Kevin Randleman, Mark Coleman
Record during that period (June 2002-February 2006): 14-0-0-1NC
Emelianenko ran roughshod over the top big men in Japan’s Pride ring during the 2000s, collecting several high-profile scalps.
The only thing stopping the once-great fighter from having a better resume than McGregor during the three-plus-year period is the history of wild Japanese matchmaking.
For as great as Emelianenko was, he seldom faced elite competition, padding out his resume with wins over phony pro wrestlers like Yuji Nagata and 600-freak-show spectacle fighters like 400-plus pound Vale Tudo star ‘Zuluzhino’.
Fighter: Anderson Silva
Titles: UFC middleweight championship
Title defences: nine
Notable wins: Yushin Okami, Vitor Belfort, Chael Sonnen, Forrest Griffin, Dan Henderson, Rich Fraklin (2x)
Record during that period (June 2008-February 2012): 14-0
All the other fighters profiled here found their greatest success outside of the near-four-year window. Not Silva.
The Brazilian Muay Thai striker joined the UFC after an up-and-down career as a globetrotting journeyman at the ideal time in his maturation, becoming the king of the middleweight castle within five months.
During the near-four-year time frame, Silva front kicked Belfort in the gob, tapped out Sonnen in the dying minutes of a fight he was clearly losing, and ruined Franklin with a Muay Thai onslaught that will forever be commemorated in animated .gif form.
Of all the competitors listed here, Silva is the only fighter with a more impressive start to their UFC campaign than ‘The Notorious’ McGregor, but by the time the Brazilian striking specialist reached those heights he was already 37 – almost a full decade older than Ireland’s pay-per-view magnet.
As ‘Bones’ Jones is currently proving with his drug-fueled downward spiral, nothing in life is set in stone – especially in the cruel and volatile world of prizefighting – but right now McGregor seems poised to become a fighter whose face is chiseled into MMA’s fictional Mount Rushmore.