5 MMA Fighters and Their Biggest Regrets

Nobody is perfect. 

Even a person who's capable of holding onto the most prestigious title in combat sports for seven years has the capacity of making choices he would live to regret—choices that could take all of the seemingly permanent accolades that make for seemingly untouchable legacies and remind us that there's no such thing.

Because for as perfect of a life as we hope to live, it's that one regretful choice that—by sheer definition—prevents us from doing so. 

Scroll on as we list five of the best fighters on the planet and their biggest regrets to date. 

Ben Askren: Not Playing Nice with Dana White

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Ben Askren may not be "the one who got away" as Fedor Emelianenko once was, but the UFC would have benefited from having him on its roster. 

Just picture him standing across the cage from Georges St-Pierre, Johny Hendricks or Tyron Woodley as he tested his Olympic-level wrestling pedigree with some of the best wrestlers in the UFC. Sure, those three would run circles around him in the striking department, but in the eyes of a grappling connoisseur, Askren versus any top-five welterweight is a pretty good matchup. 

Perhaps it was never meant to be. Askren and his Bellator roots never allowed him to appreciate the talent pool the UFC had to offer. While Dana White and his rich pals could have made Askren a relatively wealthy mixed martial artist, he chose to keep his distance and speak his mind.

Now he's stuck fighting guys named Bakhtiyar Abbasov and Nobutatsu Suzuki in the middle of the Philippines for a "world title."

Alexander Gustafsson: Not Waiting for Title Shot

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And to think this guy was supposed to take part in the greatest rematch in UFC light heavyweight history. 

To many, Alexander Gustafsson's original five-round affair with Jon Jones should have warranted an immediate rematch. By all accounts, the Swede gave Jones the greatest test of his young—but already historic—career. It was a feat (an ultimately short one, at that) many of us feared nobody else could achieve. The champion had met his match, and we wanted to see them go at it one more time.

But Jones didn't want that, and so it didn't happen. Gustafsson would need to fight at least once more before he could prove himself a worthy contender for the young champion's throne. Five months, two rounds and one victory later and Gustafsson was once again in position to square off with the king.

As fate would have it, the Mauler wouldn't remain healthy enough to meet Jones. But after an injury forced Jones to withdraw from his replacement bout against Daniel Cormier, Gustafsson was once again in position to request his once-promised title shot. The UFC refused, suggesting he take another fight instead of waiting for his shot at UFC gold.

He may have made the fan-friendly choice by choosing to rumble with Anthony "Rumble" Johnson, but he should have waited. 

Ronda Rousey: Saying She Wouldn't Fight Cyborg at 145

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Peyton Manning has Tom Brady. Cristiano Ronaldo has Lionel Messi. Novak Djokovic has Rafael Nadal. Ronda Rousey has "Cyborg" Santos.

Well, she kind of does.

Already the most dominant female champion in MMA history, Rousey has just about walked through every single woman who has stood across from her. Olympic silver medalist Sara McMann and her grappling skills were supposed to give Rousey a good run for her money.

It took Rowdy just a little over a minute to debunk that theory. 

But no matter who the UFC put in front of Rousey, no matter how much hype surrounded each oncoming challenger, there was one thing they all had in common: They weren't Cyborg. They could have been, had Rousey agreed to a fight outside of the bantamweight confines, but she didn't. She won't. 

Much like the Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather blockbuster fight that boxing fans have long been clamoring for, the world will never forgive the sport for not placing Cyborg and Rousey inside of a cage together during their respective and fortunately overlapping primes. 

Jon Jones: Not Fighting Chael Sonnen at UFC 151

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You could point to the positive cocaine test before his blockbuster UFC 182 title bout with Daniel Cormier. You could point toward the now-infamous brawl and death threats that came before the said blockbuster bout. Heck, you could even point toward the DUI car crash from 2012.

Yeah, there's a lot this guy has to regret during his 27-year stint on this planet. 

But for all the things Jones has done to ruin his image, it's the thing he didn't do that will likely haunt him the most: not fighting Chael Sonnen on eight days' notice at UFC 151. 

“When you are a champion, much less one of the guys who is supposed to be one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, you are supposed to step up," White said via UFC.com. "Jon Jones is a guy a lot of fans don’t like, and I don’t think this is going to make him any more popular. Lorenzo Fertitta (UFC chairman and CEO) and I are disgusted with Jon Jones and Greg Jackson.” 

Sure, things may have boiled over since then, but Jones still recognizes how quickly the UFC will turn on him—how quickly the company can bury him underneath all of the propaganda it's capable of perpetuating through the media. 

He was no longer the most invincible man on the planet; he was a chooser. And choosers don't bode well in this business.

Anderson Silva: Coming Back

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It wasn't a perfect ending, but it was an ending most of us would have accepted knowing what we know now. The once-untouchable champion had been knocked out in one fight and saw his leg snapped in the next. At 39 years old, the sunset was all but here; Anderson Silva merely needed to heal his leg and walk off into it. 

But, as most of the men who have competed in this sport, Silva would leave the cage on his own terms. He would walk away from the sport only when he knew both his legs were capable of keeping him upright through at least one more battle inside of the Octagon that brought him all of the fame and fortune he could only dream of when he made his professional debut almost 15 years ago. 

And in many ways, we needed it too. We needed to see The Spider return to a semblance of his former glory. We couldn't allow the image of him being carried off on a stretcher while writhing in pain live as the lasting memory of the fighter we once thought unbreakable.

But we were wrong. He shouldn't have come back. He should have stayed away from the sport and let us all remain blind to the temptations that performance-enhancing drugs can have on any athlete—even the ones we believed immune to the charm.

Maybe, just maybe, Silva only used steroids this one time. But we don't know that for a fact, and that's all that matters.  

OK, who did I miss? Comment with your suggestions below. 

Kristian Ibarra is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report MMA. He also serves as the sports editor at San Diego State University's student-run newspaper, The Daily Aztec, and a programming intern at Fox Sports San Diego. Follow him on Twitter at @Kristian_Ibarra for all things MMA.