MMA: Is GSP the Real Pound-for-Pound Best?

The conversation regarding who is the best pound-for-pound fighter in MMA is simultaneously fun and frustrating.  We’re all convinced that we just know who is the best fighter in the world, and our argument is concrete.

Sadly, it’s mostly just a conversation, because until we see Georges St-Pierre fight Anderson Silva, or Silva fight Jon Jones, we’re reduced to comparing facts and figures to make our point on the matter.

It’s great to agree with someone about who is the P4P best.  It incites a conversation that regales great memories in that fighter’s history, huge victories, and “Did you see that?” moments.

Disagreements in this topic, however, can get downright nasty.  Records are compared, monumental victories and losses are held side-by-side, notability of opponents is hashed out, and occasionally chairs are thrown (but hopefully you’ve never come to that).

For argument's sake, I’m keeping this conversation to four fighters.  After you disagree with everything I say, please don’t hesitate to harshly let me know so in the comments.

Jose Aldo

We’ll start with the smallest guy, who possesses some of the most lethal striking in the game, Jose Aldo.  Aldo walks into the cage unfazed and relaxed, and promptly unloads on his opponents after the opening bell.  The most trouble we’ve seen him in was Round 5 against Mark Hominick, which Hominick clearly won.  That's not to discount the previous four rounds, which saw Aldo treat Hominick like an amateur who’d walked into the wrong cage that night.

We know Aldo is a black belt in BJJ.  We know his strikes are more explosive and carry more weight than the average featherweight.  We’ve seen him turn top-level competition into chumps on numerous occasions. 

However, I’m big on longevity when discussing who deserves the title of pound-for-pound best, and as impressive as Aldo has been, I need to see more before anointing him the unofficial king of fighters.  A test against some elite lightweight talent would go a long way.  Did somebody say Frankie Edgar?

Georges St-Pierre

A champion among champions if there ever was one, Georges St-Pierre understands, perhaps more than anyone, what it takes to stay on top.

His record is unblemished since he slipped up and got caught against Matt Serra nearly five years ago.  He’s talked extensively about that loss as a moment that taught him a valuable lesson in how he approaches a fight, and has been true to his promise of treating every fight with the importance it deserves. 

GSP comes into every fight with a new weapon, and has increasingly taken less damage from his opponents the more time he spends in the cage.  Yes, we’d all like Georges to return to the days when he finished all his opponents—nonetheless, we can’t deny the skill-set with which he enters The Octagon, and the ease with which he dispatches his opponents.

The guy holds so many black belts and top-shelf accolades in so many different disciplines that I literally don’t have the energy to research it all for you and list here.  Look it up yourself, it’s really impressive.

Having said all that, I’m not inclined to hand the faux P4P trophy to GSP, but I'm close.  He certainly caters to my previous argument of longevity as a champion, but my issue with GSP lies in his hesitation to be as dominant as I believe he could be if he just let loose.  Every time he’s in the cage now, it seems that he is content to play it safe and just do enough for the win.  I don’t like that.

We call Michael Jordan the greatest basketball player ever not because he simply scored so much, but because he made electric things happen throughout a game, and delivered even more theatrics at crunch time.  He existed on a level above everyone else.

Like I said though, GSP misses this by a nose.  If you want to give it to him, I can’t really hate.

Anderson Silva

I don’t know that there’s another fighter who’s viewed by the public on a wider spectrum than Anderson Silva, which is to say that he is loved by many, and hated by many. 

Those who love him will point to his consistent ability to finish opponents, while those who hate him scream that the believers must be forgetting his fights against Thales Leites and Damien Maia, where Silva looked borderline-disinterested.  Silva deserves criticism for his performances in those fights, but I’m not inclined to omit him from the conversation of P4P best because of it. 

Silva delivers the jaw-dropping performances (most of the time) that we love to see in fights.  His Jedi-like dismantling of Forrest Griffin, who’d held the light heavyweight belt inside of a year before that fight, was something out of a Bruce Lee movie. 

He seems to exist on a level far above most of the opponents he faces, and I’ve never seen a gap like that exist between a champion and the rest of a division.  (Maybe Fedor back in his Pride and post-Pride days for a bit, and it’s worth noting he was widely considered the P4P best during that time.)

Anderson Silva has a full resume of which to be proud.  He’s wrecked opponents in quick and brutal fashion (Griffin, Vitor Belfort), he’s snatched victory from the jaws of defeat (Chael Sonnen), and most importantly he’s been sitting on top of the middleweight division since October of 2006, or 13 victories ago.  Good enough for nine consecutive title defenses, the UFC record.

Anderson Silva is the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.  He’ll have the opportunity to prove it again against his previously toughest opponent, and undoubtedly biggest nemesis, Chael Sonnen at UFC 147 in Rio in June.

Jon Jones

Last, and yes, least on this list is Jon Jones.  I’ll remind you again, I put a lot of weight into longevity—it’s almost a seniority thing—and Jones simply hasn’t been beating guys up for long enough to earn this title. 

This is not to say that I don’t think Jones can, and probably will, hold this make-believe title at some point.  In fact, of the four fighters on this list, I believe Jones has the ability to be the best of them all when these careers are said and done. 

None of that matters right now, however, and while I’ve watched with joy and occasionally awe as Jones has rendered seemingly great fighters helpless as he climbed to the top of the light heavyweight division, he simply hasn’t been doing it long enough.

I’ll need to see him do more before giving him the crown.  Specifically, can he take down his former friend and training partner turned arch-nemesis Rashad Evans at UFC 145 in April?

Is this the worst argument you’ve ever read for crowning the P4P best?  Is it the most insightful and thoughtful viewpoint you’ve ever seen made for an argument?  Something in between, perhaps?  Let me know in the comments, and as “Big” John McCarthy says, “Let’s get it on!”