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#1 Daniel Cormier
One of the greatest Freestyle wrestlers to make the transition to MMA, Daniel Cormier was actually offered a scholarship to play football at LSU but chose the former instead.
The decision would prove immensely rewarding. DC won the US senior national championship 5 consecutive times between 2003-08, making it to the 2004 Olympics where he missed the podium by a whisker and finished 4th overall. He was named team captain heading into the 2008 games, but kidney failure due to weight cutting would force him out of the tournament.
Cormier made his professional debut in 2009 and though an undersized Heavyweight, he would drown his larger opponents with his relentless pace and wrestling. He won the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix in 2012, knocking out Antonio Silva after stepping in on five weeks' notice and then body-slamming Josh Barnett in the finals en route to a unanimous decision.
His first two UFC fights were at Heavyweight, where he beat Frank Mir and Roy Nelson by UD, before dropping to Light Heavyweight. A bitter feud with Jon Jones would take birth and conclude at UFC 182, with the champ retaining his crown. A hit-and-run incident would lead to Jones being stripped of the title and Cormier would become champ by beating Anthony Johnson at UFC 187.
The new champ wouldn't cease seeking vindication for his loss and the inevitable rematch was set up at UFC 200. Incredibly, Jones was pulled for a doping violation at the last minute and watched from the sidelines for a year.
Jones would reclaim the title that he wasn't beaten for by stopping Cormier at UFC 214, but his demons weren't done with him and he was stripped of the belt barely a month later. Cormier was reinstated as the Light Heavyweight champ and is an MMA analyst for Fox Sports while he waits for his next challenger.
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