MMA: Who Would Be the First 25 Fighters in an MMA Hall of Fame?

Mixed martial arts is often said to have a short history, but that isn't exactly true. While the history of mixed martial arts is short compared to that of other sports, there are time periods in and aspects of MMA history that are ignored or have been forgotten by fans.

Unfortunately, many of these figures will not be remembered for what they accomplished in the sport because they were never in the UFC (either due to the UFC not existing at the time, contractual disputes, or any number of reasons) and therefore cannot make it into the UFC Hall of Fame!

But what if there were a mixed martial arts hall of fame? Who would be the first 25 fighters inducted?

Read and find out, but please be aware that there will be some modern-day UFC fighters in the list as their accomplishments deserve recognition.

Gene Lebell

Who better to make it into the MMA hall of fame than "Judo" Gene Lebell, the man who won the first televised MMA fight in the United States against boxer Milo Savage.

Lebell showed the world that grappling was a necessary component of fighting and he also instructed famous figures such as martial arts legend Bruce Lee and kickboxing champion Benny "The Jet" Urquidez.

He fought in MMA and he helped convert others to its gospel of being well-rounded. Thus, he deserves a spot in the MMA hall of fame.

Masakatsu Funaki

Upon reading the title of this slide almost all readers will probably ask "who?" but Masakatsu Funaki is a figure in MMA history who should be known.

Funaki was a legendary professional wrestler and legitimate catch wrestler in Japan. He was the co-founder of the Pancrase organization which, at the time, was one of the only real "mixed" martial arts promotions in the world, due to the fact that many of its competitors could strike (albeit with open hands) as well as grapple.

Funaki was a two-time King of Pancrase (it means Pancrase champion) and has notable victories over legends such as Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Guy Mezger and Bas Rutten. In fact, he is the only man to have victories over both Shamrock brothers and Bas Rutten.

Funaki deserves his spot thanks to his preservation and cultivation of the art in Japan as well as his illustrious fighting career that came to an end in 2008 when he retired.

Bas Rutten

An entire slideshow can be written for reasons why Bas Rutten is great and deserves to be remembered forever in a mixed martial arts hall of fame. Suffice it to say that Rutten was a very accomplished fighter with wins over great competitors.

Rutten was a three time open-weight King of Pancrase as well as a former UFC heavyweight champion with wins over Kevin Randleman, Frank Shamrock, Masakatsu Funaki, Maurice Smith and Guy Mezger.

In addition to his accomplishments in the cage/ring, Rutten has also been a force for good in the sport outside of it. He was a brilliant commentator for the Pride organization and is currently the co-host of HDNet's Inside MMA.

And finally, it's doubtful that any other fighter on this list had the sheer unique character and force of personality that Bas Rutten has. Whenever I watch his videos on YouTube or HDNet, I have to wring the personality out of my clothes.

Royce Gracie

Say what you will about the Gracies being overrated and not being able to keep up with the sport (there is certainly something to those arguments), but the fact of the matter is that the Gracies—and their representative in the first few UFC events, Royce Gracie—were more responsible for creating the sport we have today than any other fighter.

This is what makes him hall of fame worthy, the fact that it was he and his clan that enabled the existence of the sport itself, even if this was not his or their intention.

Kazushi Sakuraba

Even though Kazushi Sakuraba has only one a single title in his career (he was the UFC Japan Heavyweight Tournament winner), he is still one of the most legendary MMA fighters to come out of Japan if only for his legendary 90-minute duel against Royce Gracie in the Pride 2000 openweight grand prix.

Sakuraba was also known as "The Gracie Hunter" because of his victory over Royce and several other prominent Gracies.

Randy Couture

Randy "The Natural" Couture won the UFC 13 heavyweight tournament and won the UFC heavyweight championship on two separate occasions in the SEG (the owners before Zuffa) days and then again in the Zuffa era.

In addition, he won the UFC light heavyweight championship twice. Almost all of his titles were won when he was over 35 and some of them were even won when he was over 40!

Couture is also an accomplished coach and is the leader of the Xtreme Couture stable. He is one of the most respected and adored figures in MMA history.

Mark Coleman

Mark Coleman was one of the most dominant wrestlers the early UFC had seen. He was big, muscular, strong and vicious—a real animal.

He is often credited with being the first fighter to perfect and make "ground and pound" his primary strategy and is thus called "The Godfather of Ground and Pound" by many.

He is one of the few fighters to have won back-to-back tournaments (UFC 10 and UFC 11) and he was the first-ever UFC heavyweight champion.

Although afterwards his career did briefly hit a rough point, he rebounded with his most legendary accomplishment: Winning the Pride 2000 grand prix.

While his career went downhill from there, no one can rob him of his accomplishments earlier in his career.

Frank Shamrock

Frank Shamrock was one of the most accomplished and skilled fighters MMA had ever seen.

As the adopted brother of Ken Shamrock, Frank was shown the ways of submission grappling earlier than most and he excelled at it, eventually becoming King of Pancrase.

After his stint in Pancrase, he became the first UFC light heavyweight champion at UFC Japan, defended the belt four times and then dropped the belt due to lack of competition.

Frank Shamrock also was a champion in the WEC (before the Zuffa buyout) and in Strikeforce.

An unfortunate rivalry with UFC president Dana White has kept Frank out of the UFC hall of fame. Thus, adding him to a mixed martial arts hall of fame would finally vindicate the former champion.

Pat Miletich

"The Croatian Sensation" was just that back in is day.

Miletich already had 19 fights and a 17-1-1 record by the time he entered the UFC in 1998.

He won the lightweight tournament at UFC 16. Miletich then became the first-ever UFC welterweight champion at UFC: Ultimate Brazil and had four successful title defenses—all of which took place while the UFC was owned by SEG.

Militech would lose his title to Carlos Newton on Zuffa's second UFC event, UFC 31. Miletich only had four bouts in his career after losing his title.

Nevertheless, he deserves a spot in an MMA hall of fame for his accomplishments.

Ken Shamrock

Ken Shamrock was another fighter in the early days who had significant "mixed fighting" experience outside of the UFC before he came to fight there; he had been a King of Pancrase before he was ever in the UFC. 

Shamrock, despite losing to Royce Gracie at UFC 1, came back and ultimately was able to win the UFC Superfight championship against Dan Severn at UFC 6.

Although he was one of the superstars of the early SEG days, he did not accomplish quite as much as some others did in MMA history.

Nevertheless, Shamrock was one of the MMA's first well-known icons and as such deserves a spot in the hypothetical MMA hall of fame, the later embarrassments in his career notwithstanding.

Tito Ortiz

Love him or hate him, Tito Ortiz was one of the most crucial figures in the history of modern American MMA.

He was one of the most dominant UFC light heavyweight champions in the organization's history and he helped to garner the UFC and MMA as a whole many fans thanks to the feuds created by his brash personality.

Furthermore, he will be on a sort of a Randy Couture-esque type comeback trail should he defeat Rashad Evans at UFC 133 tomorrow night.

Dan Severn

Dan Severn was the first fighter in the UFC to showcase wrestling's dominance as a combat sport.

He performed a series of neck-crushing suplexes against Anthony Macias and even stymied Royce Gracie for a significant amount of time before being submitted.

He won two tournaments (UFC 5 and Ultimate Ultimate 1995) and the UFC Superfight championship against Ken Shamrock in the infamous "Detroit Dance" at UFC 9.

He also sports one of the most powerful mustaches in MMA, second only to another man on this list.

Don Frye

Don Frye was one of the toughest of the early UFC fighters—with the most powerful mustache in MMA to boot!

He was another two-tournament winner (UFC 8 and Ultimate Ultimate 96) and he made it to the finals at UFC 10.

His grizzled personality and ability to strike and wrestle made him one of the premier fighters at the time.

Oleg Taktarov

Oleg Taktarov was—along with many of the people on this list—one of the few people of the early days of the sport (especially in the first 10 UFC events or so) that had an advantage tantamount to bringing brass knuckles in the cage with you.

What was that advantage? Knowing how to grapple.

Taktarov won the UFC 6 tournament and contended for the first UFC Superfight championship. He fought in the finals of the Ultimate Ultimate 1996 tournament.

He even fought against Ivan Drago but that was outside of the UFC and in a boxing fight, so that shouldn't count in this, but the novelty of it is really quite amazing.

Anyway, Taktarov was a very skilled fighter and deserves to be remembered for his resilience and fighting skill in an age when there weren't many skilled guys around.

Marco Ruas

Marco Ruas is another forgotten name in MMA.

He was a Brazilian known as "The King of the Streets." Ruas managed to win the UFC 7 tournament by chopping down the massive Paul Varelans with leg kicks in the 13th minute of their bout.

He came up short in the Ultimate Ultimate 1995 semifinals to Oleg Taktarov and was never seen in the Octagon again.

Maybe I have a soft spot for the legends of the old UFC, but it seems such a shame to cast out Marco Ruas!

After all, he showed that the true skill of a martial artist will always overcome the raw power of a brawler/bully like Varelans.

Dan Henderson

Dan Henderson is one of the most highly decorated fighters in the history of the sport and was the only man in MMA to have titles in two separate weight classes simultaneously (the Pride middleweight and welterweight titles, which roughly correspond to light heavyweight and middleweight in the UFC respectively).

Henderson also won the UFC 17 middleweight tournament and is the current Strikeforce lightheavyweight champion.

He further added to his legacy by defeating the once revered Fedor Emelianenko at Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Henderson.

Fedor Emelianenko

Say what you will about Fedor Emelianenko; nobody can deny his accomplishments during the height of the Pride organization.

Even if you subscribe to the school of thought that Emelianenko was always overrated, how can you deny his impressive run as Pride heavyweight champion?

That impressive time period of his career alone is enough to earn him immortality in a hypothetical MMA hall of fame.

Chuck Liddell

Simply put, "The Iceman" was the very face of mixed martial arts during his prime in the UFC. When someone thinks of a "cage fighter," they think of Chuck Liddell.

Liddell was a UFC light heavyweight champion and successfully defended his belt four times before losing it.

Say what you will about the latter days of his career, Liddell was still a living legend in his day and could still probably beat up any keyboard warrior who criticizes him (the same goes for Ken Shamrock and Fedor Emelianenko; who are we to insult them?)

Matt Hughes

Matt Hughes was one of the most dominant champions in the history of mixed martial arts.

He defended his UFC welterweight title seven times and has the most wins in the UFC of any fighter in the organization's history at 18.

Hughes was once the unstoppable force at welterweight until he met the immovable object, Georges St-Pierre.

B.J. Penn

B.J. Penn is considered to be the greatest lightweight fighter of all time and is one of only two men to earn titles in two separate weight classes in the UFC.

Penn has a veritable "who's who" of beaten opponents which includes former UFC champions Jens Pulver, Matt Serra, Sean Sherk, and Matt Hughes, former PRIDE champion Takanori Gomi as well as wins over contenders over Caol Uno, Renzo Gracie, Kenny Florian, and Diego Sanchez.

With such accomplishments, Penn would go into an MMA hall of fame on roller skates.

Georges St-Pierre

This one sort of goes without saying, since many people are familiar with St-Pierre's status as UFC welterweight champion and one of the pound for pound best fighters of the modern era.

St-Pierre has had six straight title defenses and is approaching his seventh against Nick Diaz at UFC 137. He is currently on a nine-fight winning streak and is 17-2 in the organization overall.

Anderson Silva

Again, this one sort of goes without saying. Current UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva is considered to be the pound for pound best fighter and greatest of all time by many people, including UFC president Dana White.

Silva is on an unreal 13-fight winning streak, the last eight fights of which have been successful title defenses (which is a record as well). Silva also has the record for longest title reign at just shy of five years (he won the title in October 2006).

He has never lost in the UFC and is literally a living legend for the amazing antics and maneuvers he has pulled off in his fights as well as his unbelievable accolades.

Wanderlei Silva

Even though Wanderlei Silva's career has hit a severe slump and many are calling for him to retire, he will always be a legend in the sport of MMA.

Silva was the winner of the 2003 Pride middleweight grand prix and was one of the most feared fighters in the world during his prime.

Unfortunately, as with many legends, Silva fell from his prime which caused many to deride and doubt him. "The Axe Murderer" will always be a legend in the sport despite the harsh musings of keyboard warriors.

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira was a former Pride and UFC champion who most certainly deserves a spot in a hypothetical MMA hall of fame.

He has went an impressive 32-6-1 (1 NC) in his career so far and has become a legend for his ability to absorb punishment yet comeback with a submission victory.

He is also one of the leading members of the famous Black House stable and is the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor of Anderson Silva.

Nogueira isn't the strongest, smartest, or most skilled on the list but he certainly has the most heart of any fighter in the history of mixed martial arts.

Mauricio "Shogun" Rua

Mauricio "Shogun" Rua is another legend from Pride (where he was the Jon Jones of his day) whose legacy has been wrongfully tarnished because of lackluster fights in the UFC against Forrest Griffin, Mark Coleman, and Jon Jones.

Nevertheless, Rua is a former Pride and UFC champion who defined an era not only in Pride but in mixed martial arts.

"Where Is My Favorite Fighter" And/or "Where Is Bruce Lee?"

Many will read this and be upset that their favorite fighter didn't make the cut. Don't be alarmed or insulted, there were only 25 slots and I just chose 25 fighters who I thought deserved it.

This is not to say that the ones on here didn't deserve it, quite the contrary. It's just that there were more than 25 great fighters in MMA history so they can't all be listed here.

Others will be appalled and outraged that Bruce Lee isn't on the list but it isn't such a big deal, is it? The list is reserved for MMA fighters rather than MMA philosophers. Is there proof of Lee having a sanctioned MMA fight? What titles in MMA has he won?

This is not to insult Lee (he could beat me up for sure and he was more fit than I'll ever be) but rather to just point out the facts and address the dogma surrounding Lee. Please don't be insulted if you disagree with me but rather bring up your feelings in the comments below.