The 10 best fighters to never fight in the UFC

#1 Fedor Emelianenko

The great Fedor Emelianenko is the best fighter to never fight in the UFC

There’s absolutely no doubt that the greatest fighter to never step into the UFC’s Octagon is ‘The Last Emperor’ Fedor Emelianenko. The Russian legend might've lost his last three StrikeForce fights – and be in the middle of an ill-advised comeback run right now – but it’s still very fair to make an argument for him as the greatest Heavyweight in the history of MMA, making him an obvious choice for the top spot in a list like this.

For the best part of a decade – from 2000 to 2010 – Fedor was perfect in MMA, with his only loss being a fluke cut stoppage in a 2000 fight with Tsuyoshi Kohsaka. After winning the Openweight title in the RINGS promotion in 2001 and 2002, Fedor made his way to PRIDE, the promotion which at the time housed most of the world’s top Heavyweights.

The Russian ended up beating them all, from Mark Coleman and Kevin Randleman to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Mirko Cro Cop. Most of the time he appeared to be unstoppable; he carried insane punching power in his small, chubby frame, and on the ground he could move like a world-class jiu-jitsu black belt, being able to snare submissions from seemingly any position. For a while at least, he appeared to have no weaknesses.

Fedor could’ve signed with the UFC on numerous occasions but always chose not to, for various reasons – the company's refusal to co-promote with M-1, a feeling of disrespect from Dana White, better offers from elsewhere, and so forth.

The UFC might prefer to push the narrative that he failed when he did come to the US but that’s simply false – he destroyed two former UFC champions in Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski in 2009 and only began to lose in StrikeForce as his skills began to wane due to his advanced age. In his prime however – at any point from 2000 to 2009 – he probably would’ve been capable of winning the UFC title with relative ease.

The fact that we never got to see Fedor in the Octagon – and as he’s now 42 years old, we probably never will – is perhaps the biggest disappointment in the history of the sport. Simply put, it would’ve been phenomenal. Either way, there’s no argument against it – Fedor Emelianenko is the best fighter to never fight in the UFC.