MMA's Most Underrated Fighters: Who Are the Elites That Nobody's Talking About?
MMA is a fast-moving sport. Every week, high-end talent competes across the globe, and exciting fights are hosted by a variety of promotions.
Because of that, great competitors can have their work either quickly forgotten or completely overlooked. Add in how combat sports aren't a pure meritocracy, with actual talent often taking a backseat to mainstream-friendly darlings, and it's very easy for high-end talents to fly under the radar for extended periods of time.
That's a shame, and we here at Bleacher Report won't stand for it.
There are more than a few bona fide elite-level fighters who have been toiling in obscurity for far too long. So who are they? And what makes them special?
Raphael Assuncao
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Raphael Assuncao's bantamweight record in the UFC is 11-1. That's right: 11 wins against a sole defeat.
He has wins over Marlon Moraes, Bryan Caraway, Aljamain Sterling and current champion TJ Dillashaw and is currently riding four consecutive wins.
He is completely cemented into the top five of the bantamweight division...and nobody seems to know who he is.
Part of that is a lack of finishing skills. Despite having solid striking and high-level jiu-jitsu, Assuncao has traditionally struggled to close out fights, scoring just three stoppages in his 12 fights in the division. That has made for a lot of competitive decisions against unheralded opponents and has hindered his ability to make a real impression with fans.
A lot of it, of course, is plain and simple bad luck. A rib injury in 2014 was followed by serious ankle surgery in 2015, issues that required nearly two full years off. He had the misfortune of returning for an ill-fated rematch with Dillashaw, which saw him lose fairly convincingly and get left out of the the title picture as a result.
Four consecutive wins have seen him return to the front of the contention queue, but even now, his future is uncertain with Dana White giving a less-than-enthusiastic response to questions about Assuncao challenging for the belt following his UFC 226 win over Rob Font. Officially, the explanation from White is that his title woes are a direct result of his injury history, but the more likely scenario is that he just hasn't resonated with fans.
Unfortunately, it's very possible Assuncao will never receive his shot at gold. There are just too many contenders who are more exciting and more marketable than he is, and unfortunately, he has been a staple of "most underrated fighter" lists for four years now. That's unlikely to change at this point, but regardless of whether fans or UFC brass ever take to him, he could be the best bantamweight in the world.
Gegard Mousasi
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The UFC long had a monopoly on top-level MMA talent, but in 2018, those days are firmly in the rear-view mirror. A number of promotions across the globe boast a stable of legitimate greats, and in a few cases, other promotions can make a reasonable claim to having the single best fighter in a weight class.
Bellator MMA's Gegard Mousasi is one of those cases.
The toast of the Japanese MMA scene from 2008 to 2011, Mousasi's UFC career got off to a rocky start when he was folded into the promotion in 2013. Despite taking some losses, there was never any doubt about his skills or athleticism. The expectation was that he would go on a streak eventually, and that ultimately came to pass in 2017, when he went 4-0 against consistently stiff competition (with three of those wins being stoppages).
In 2017, he picked up one of the biggest wins of his career when he scored a second-round TKO over former middleweight champion Chris Weidman. Theoretically, that win should have vaulted him directly into title contention, but the UFC instead opted to let him take his five-fight winning streak to Bellator MMA.
Though his Bellator debut stirred up some doubt about his legitimacy when he scored a questionable decision win over Alexander Shlemenko, he redeemed himself in emphatic fashion by thrashing long-reigning Bellator middleweight champion Rafael Carvalho in the first round.
Because Bellator lacks the reputation of the UFC, many have already forgotten just how good he looked toward the end of his run in the Octagon and have dismissed his wins in Bellator. Make no mistake, though. Mousasi might just be the best in the business.
Leon Edwards
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The UFC's welterweight title picture is a crowded one.
Tyron Woodley is the 170-pound champion. Colby Covington has the interim belt. Darren Till will challenge Woodley for the strap in September. Kamaru Usman is waiting for his own well-deserved crack at gold. Stephen Thompson is only a win or two away from forcing his way back to the front of the line.
Leon Edwards should be right there in that discussion, but instead he has gone almost entirely overlooked to this point.
Like many other imported fighters, Edwards has had the misfortune of being relegated to the UFC's overseas Fight Night circuit. Competing on cards designed to draw loads to the arenas but few to their televisions, he has posted good wins over strong competition in front of some of the smallest audiences the UFC can muster. Though wins over the likes of Albert Tumenov and Vicente Luque are enough to turn him into a contender on paper, the lack of visibility he's endured throughout his career makes him an unlikely option for the UFC in practice.
Things might be thawing a bit, as his most recent bout was a main event opposite fan favorite Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone. Unfortunately, he still has a long way to go before he can upend any of the aforementioned contenders.
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Germaine De Randamie
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It might seem a bit strange to label a former UFC champion "underrated," but Germaine de Randamie's career has been a strange one. In 2017, the Dutch striker was attached to one of the oddest contests ever booked in the UFC: a fight opposite Holly Holm for the featherweight championship.
De Randamie's very presence in the bout was met with grumbling from fans as longtime contender Cris Cyborg was left out in the cold by the booking. Those grumbles turned to cries of outrage, however, when de Randamie and her team stumbled their way through one of the greatest series of PR gaffes in sports history when she…
- Landed two late punches on Holm after round's end
- Won via controversial split decision
- Told Joe Rogan during the post-fight interview that she was taking time off to deal with injuries
- Refused to face Cris Cyborg
- Invited the UFC to strip her belt
- Disappeared from social media
- Was stripped of the title
- Said she was surprised when she was stripped of the title
There is a lot to talk about with how poorly handled this stretch was, but one thing that's largely been forgotten about by fans is the fact that, despite everything else, de Randamie is a legitimate talent.
A kickboxing champion by just 16 years old, de Randamie has faced high-end competition from the very beginning of her MMA career and looked solid throughout. Since debuting in the UFC in 2013, she has amassed a solid 4-1 record with the sole blemish being a somewhat questionable loss to now-champion Amanda Nunes.
She likely won't ever reach her full potential, as she seems to enjoy splitting time between fighting and working as a police officer, but she's proven herself capable of hanging with UFC champions. Fans might not like it, but she's a threat to anyone at 135 or 145 pounds.
Douglas Lima
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Most elite fighters are either manufactured by the UFC or find their way there over time. That fact has always led to fans brushing off fighters who achieve big things outside the Octagon, despite the fact that indie darlings tend to pan out more often than not.
Former Bellator welterweight champion Douglas Lima is the latest great talent to never compete in the Octagon. But make no mistake: Even if he never makes his way to the UFC, he is firmly entrenched as a top-five welterweight right now.
The Phenom first rose to prominence in 2011 when he debuted in Bellator as MFC champion and thrashed his way through the Season 5 welterweight tournament. He was dealt a huge setback in 2012 when he was manhandled in a title fight opposite former Olympic wrestler Ben Askren, but he rebounded well by steamrolling the entire Season 8 field and capturing the vacant title in 2014.
A series of injuries saw him lose the title in 2015 and get put on the shelf, but when he finally returned to action in 2016, he proved that he had ironed out his in-cage issues by recapturing the gold with a win over Andrey Koreshkov. After defending the strap with a lopsided win over Lorenz Larkin, he came up a hair shy in a bout against longtime UFC contender Rory MacDonald.
Yes, Lima has had plenty of ups and downs throughout his career, but after eight years of fighting formidable opposition, his resume is lengthy and his skills are beyond doubt. His grappling is good enough to keep fights standing, and few can avoid his devastating striking. He’s capable of taking wins off anyone at 170 pounds, and really, what other measuring stick is there when it comes to elite status?
Kyoji Horiguchi
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The UFC has never been particularly good at identifying and grooming prospects, and that fact has only been amplified in recent years. Far too often, potentially high-level talents will be thrown into sink-or-swim situations and forgotten about when they can't tread water.
At 24 years old, Kyoji Horiguchi was tossed into the Octagon with then-flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson. The results were about what one would expect in a contest between a young up-and-comer and possibly the greatest fighter of all time: Mighty Mouse had little trouble outwrestling and outlanding the still-developing talent en route to a fifth-round stoppage.
Fighters have had their careers irreparably damaged by less, and few would have been all that surprised if Horiguchi hadn't come back from that shellacking.
Instead, he adapted and redoubled his efforts. He began cross-training with the American Top Team gym in Florida and showed immediate improvement, racking up lopsided wins in his next three forays into the Octagon.
Unfortunately, that success was met with indifference from the UFC, which allowed him to leave when his contract expired in 2017. It didn't take him long to find a new home, however. He debuted with Japan's Rizin FF just a month later to kick off a 5-0 year that ended with his capturing the Rizin bantamweight title.
Though commentators often like to discuss how young talents "are only getting better," Horiguchi is one of the rare cases where it's true. Potentially a top-five talent in two weight classes, there's no reason to believe he's slowing down any time soon.
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