5 great MMA fights we missed out on

MMA fans have been relatively lucky over the years in that the majority of fights that were spoken about as ‘dream matches’ were able to be put together by various promoters – usually the UFC. I’m talking fights like Liddell vs. Silva, Lesnar vs. Velasquez, St-Pierre vs. Diaz, and so forth.

Unfortunately, we still missed out on plenty of fights that were wildly hyped over time; fights that never ended up happening due to various different reasons, be it contract issues, retirements, injuries and so forth. Here are 5 great MMA fights that we never got to see.

#1 Brock Lesnar vs. Fedor Emelianenko

How would a fight between these two superstars gone down?

In the summer of 2009, a fight between UFC Heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar and the widely-recognised #1 Heavyweight in the world – Fedor Emelianenko – was the fight that MMA fans wanted to see more than any other. Not only would it pit the great Fedor against a man far larger and more powerful than he was, but it would’ve been a chance for Lesnar to really prove that he was the top big man in the sport without question.

Unfortunately, the UFC simply couldn’t get a deal done with Fedor and so the fight remained no more than a pipe dream. Despite Lesnar taking plenty of shots at Fedor – most notably saying he no longer cared about fighting the Russian when it was announced that ‘The Last Emperor’ had signed with StrikeForce rather than the UFC – you could tell that missing out on a fight with him was definitely a regret.

How would the fight have gone? Judging on Lesnar’s eventual downfall – based on a combination of his issues with diverticulitis and a struggle to defend against standing strikes – I’d probably have put my money on Fedor to get through with a big bomb. After all, the Russian had dealt with world-class wrestlers and much bigger foes before. It would’ve been one hell of a spectacle though and it remains frustrating that we missed out on it.

#2 Cain Velasquez vs. Alistair Overeem

A fight between Alistair Overeem and Cain Velasquez would've been incredible

As 2010 came to a conclusion, it was hard to argue with the idea that Cain Velasquez was the top Heavyweight in MMA. He’d destroyed Brock Lesnar to claim the UFC title late that year and as Fedor Emelianenko’s long undefeated run had come to an end at the hands of Fabricio Werdum – who washed out of the UFC in 2008 – nobody really disputed Cain’s spot at the top of the mounted. Nobody that is, except Alistair Overeem.

‘The Reem’ was at his peak in late 2010; the height of the so-called ‘Ubereem’ era. He’d moved up from 205lbs in 2007 and had been consistently packing on muscle since then, and was on a truly destructive run by 2010. He was the reigning StrikeForce Heavyweight champion and he’d also won the K-1 Grand Prix that year, too. And so naturally, everyone dreamed of him coming to the UFC to challenge Velasquez.

Of course, Overeem did come to the UFC – but only at the end of 2011, by which point Velasquez had lost his title to Junior Dos Santos. Overeem was set for a fight with JDS, but then failed a drug test and ended up suspended for a year. Velasquez won his title back during the interim, but when Overeem returned, he lost his first fight back, and so any chance of a fight with Cain faded away swiftly.

As both men are still competing near the top of the UFC Heavyweight division, there’s a distinct possibility this fight could still happen in the future – perhaps even in 2019 – but realistically both men are past their 2010 primes now and so it wouldn’t be as great as it would’ve been back then.

#3 Georges St-Pierre vs. Anderson Silva

The fans dreamed of a superfight between St-Pierre and Silva for years

‘Superfights’ across weight classes are suddenly all the rage in the UFC, with this weekend’s Henry Cejudo vs. TJ Dillashaw clash being the third champion vs. champion meeting since June 2018. The one ‘Superfight’ that everyone really wanted though is one it looks like we’ll never see – Georges St-Pierre vs. Anderson Silva.

The talk of a potential GSP/Silva fight began largely back in 2009, as both men were on incredible runs in the Welterweight and Middleweight divisions respectively. Although their divisions were still full of interesting contenders, it was hard not to imagine a fight between these two seemingly invincible champions – would GSP’s wrestling and boxing be able to overcome Silva’s virtuoso striking game?

Unfortunately, it just didn’t seem like either man was too interested in the fight – probably because they were both earning big money by being defending champions. GSP stated that he didn’t want to move up to 185lbs, feeling the move would be detrimental to his body (which would prove to be true when he did move to 185lbs in 2017 and saw his health suffer as a result) while Silva simply couldn’t move down to 170lbs. A catchweight was never truly mooted.

With cross-divisional fights now more popular, the idea of the fight has been spoken about again recently but was immediately shot down by GSP – who claims he’s no longer interested due to Silva’s various drug test failures.

In the end, it remains a pity that we never saw this one, but perhaps the careers of both champions were better in the long run because the fight never happened.

#4 Fedor Emelianenko vs. Randy Couture

Randy Couture never fought Fedor Emelianenko despite his best efforts

In a similar fashion to a possible fight between Fedor Emelianenko and Brock Lesnar, in 2007 everyone wanted to see a fight between the then-PRIDE Heavyweight champion – and consensus top Heavyweight in the world – Fedor and the then-UFC Heavyweight champion Randy Couture. After buying out the promotion in early 2007, the UFC were already signing all of PRIDE’s top fighters, and it seemed only a matter of time before Fedor followed suit.

Unfortunately, it was never meant to be. Fedor’s management couldn’t come to terms with the UFC – usually clashing over the issue of a potential co-promotion – and so the Russian never stepped into the Octagon. That was actually enough to anger Couture to the point where he walked away from the promotion, determined to find a way to fight Fedor outside of the UFC.

Of course as we all know, lawsuits followed on both sides and resulted in Couture being stuck on the shelf for a year before returning to the UFC with his tail tucked between his legs. The Fedor fight never truly came close to happening and while the Russian took out former UFC champs Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski in Affliction, the fight everyone wanted to see remained a dream.

Could Randy have really pulled off another miracle by defeating the great Fedor? In all honesty, it’s probably unlikely – Fedor took out fighters like Rodrigo Nogueira, who defeated Couture in the UFC – but it would’ve been a lot of fun to see him try, and it remains unfortunate that the UFC failed to put this fight together.

#5 Rashad Evans vs. Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua

After their fight at UFC 128 fell apart, the UFC never matched Shogun Rua with Rashad Evans again

Another great fight that we came painfully close to seeing; a clash between Rashad Evans and Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua in late 2010 would’ve been a match between two men who were at the time, quite clearly the two best 205lbers on the planet. Evans was coming off one of the biggest wins of his career over ‘Rampage’ Jackson, while Shogun had just dethroned Lyoto Machida to claim the UFC Light-Heavyweight title.

Various injuries to Shogun delayed the fight until 2011, but eventually, a fight between the two men was signed for UFC 128 in March of that year. Unfortunately, about six weeks before the fight, Evans blew his knee out and was replaced by Jon Jones, and well, we all know what happened from there. Jones destroyed Shogun to become the top Light-Heavyweight in the sport.

Evans took his shot at Jones in April 2012 and was beaten, and after that, neither he nor Shogun came close to another title shot. Strangely though, the UFC never tried to match them together again despite the fight seemingly being a natural one to make.

Why it never happened is anyone’s guess, but it would’ve been pretty awesome to see – even in 2012 or 2013 after both men had been beaten by Jones. Would Rashad’s boxing and wrestling skill have been enough to get him past Shogun’s whirlwind combination of striking and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu? It’s a massive pity that we never got to find out.