UFC 142 Results: Ranking the Wrestling of the UFC Champions

Saturday, Jose Aldo returned to his WEC ways by knocking out Chad Mendes in the final second of the very first round.

But what was perhaps even more impressive than the knee that ended the fight was the takedown defense that allowed Aldo to keep the fight on his feet.

Against Mendes, Aldo was supposed to be face an opponent that could take him down and hold him down. But Mendes simply could not outwrestle the champ.

Here is a complete ranking of the wrestling abilities of the seven UFC champions.

7. Anderson Silva

Anderson Silva may be the most dominant champion in the history of the sport, but no one is calling him perfect.  

He is one of three champions with no wrestling background, and, accordingly, his wrestling has always been his weakness.

His poor takedown defense has been exploited by Dan Henderson and Chael Sonnen.

And while his ground game and phenomenal striking have compensated for this deficiency, there's no doubt Silva's wrestling is the weakest of any champion.

6. Junior Dos Santos

Junior dos Santos recently became the heavyweight champion by knocking out Cain Velasquez, arguably the best wrestler in the division, in just 64 seconds.

Junior, like fellow Brazilian champions, does not have a wrestling background. But he has shown great hips, and is very good at getting back up to his feet when he's down.

He was also able to take down Shane Carwin, a fighter former NCAA wrestling champ Brock Lesnar had great difficultly getting to the mat.

5. Dominick Cruz

Dominick Cruz has the best wrestling in his division, and is the first wrestler on this list with any background in wrestling.

He hasn't fought a particularly high level pure wrestler yet, but he has outperformed strong overall grapplers in his career, including Urijah Faber, Demetrious Johnson and Joseph Benavidez (twice).

4. Frankie Edgar

It's pretty crazy how good Edgar's wrestling is for a small guy. In his first fight with BJ Penn, he became the first lightweight to take Penn down in nearly eight years.

In his second bout, he took him down three times.

He also got the better of the wrestling against Gray Maynard in the latter two of their encounters. In their first title bout, Edgar landed three of 11 takedown attempts, to Maynard's three of 17.

Neither fighter took down the other in the third bout, but Edgar came much closer than Maynard did, and looked like the more explosive wrestler of the two.

3. Jose Aldo

Jose Aldo has no formal wrestling background, but you wouldn't know that by watching him fight.

According to FightMetric, he has thwarted a ridiculous 95 percent of takedown attempts in the UFC and WEC, and has been successful on 60 percent of jos takedown attempts.

Most recently he thwarted every takedown attempt of Chad Mendes, the best pure wrestler in the division.

The one time Mendes sort of had Aldo down, Aldo popped right back up. His wrestling defense is just scary.

2. Jon Jones

Jon Jones continued to impress when he became the first light heavyweight to defend his belt more than once since Chuck Liddell by rendering Lyoto Machida unconscious with a guillotine choke.

While he has been striking more since becoming champion, wrestling remains his greatest strength.

In his two title defenses he was able to take down Rampage Jackson and Machida, both of who have some of the very best takedown defense in the entire sport.

He also has yet to be taken down in his career.

Down the line, Dan Henderson and Rashad Evans may try to take Jones down. Don't be surprised if neither of them are successful.

1. Georges St-Pierre

GSP has proven, time and time again, that he is the best wrestler in MMA. Statistically, his takedown defense is the second-best in UFC history, only behind Andrei Arlovski.

But unlike Arlovski, he's in a division stacked with elite wrestlers, and still ends up thwarting nearly all attempts.

He has outwrestled and outclassed the likes of Jon Fitch, Matt Hughes and Josh Koscheck. He has also scored multiple takedowns on BJ Penn, who has similarly legendary takedown defense.

But what really makes GSP's wrestling effective is how well he transitions from striking to wrestling. GSP seamlessly goes from combinations to takedowns, making his takedowns unpredictable and effective.

GSP is out with an ACL injury for up to nine months. Perhaps, in this time, there will be some top-level welterweights who develop strong enough wrestling to match GSP's, or a ground game strong enough to submit him.

I'm going to guess that none will be successful.