The Top 10 Hot-and-Cold Fighters in MMA

Will the real (insert fighter name here) please stand up?

If you're asking that question—essentially wondering which version of a fighter is going to show up on fight night—then you're asking something dangerous. A professional combat athlete who is inconsistent on a fight-to-fight basis risks more than embarrassment. He risks a filthy, disgusting beatdown.

Here are 10 fighters who are among the most confounding, hit-and-miss, multiple personality, hot-and-cold fighters in MMA. Whatever you do, do NOT put any money on these guys.  

10. Brendan Schaub

He's looked like a contender at times, but has stumbled in rather spectacular fashion under the brightest lights—in his Ultimate Fighter season finale against Roy Nelson, and last summer against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.

9. Nate Marquardt

The new cornerstone of the British Association of Mixed Martial Arts, Nate the Great had a checkered track record in the UFC.

A loss to Thales Leites in 2008 precipitated a three-fight winning streak. A loss to Chael Sonnen was followed by a win over Rousimar Palhares. Which was promptly followed by a loss to Yushin Okami. That was followed by a win over Dan Miller. You get the idea.

8. Andrei Arlovski

It's tempting to look at this as a simple case of an aging guy losing his chin, but he's one of the sport's streakiest fighters going back to his first career loss—which came to this guy.

7. Thiago Alves

You can't even rely on him to make weight; he's missed it two-and-a-half times now (made it on a second attempt against Papy Abedi).

Once a top welterweight contender, Alves was 17-5 before losing to Georges St-Pierre at UFC 100. No shame in that, but he went on to lose to Jon Fitch and Rick Story in the course of three bouts. He rebounded with a win over Abedi. We'll see how far back he can bounce when he tangles with Martin Kampmann at UFC on Fox 2.

6. Melvin Guillard

Right when it seems It Might Be Different This Time with Guillard, that's usually when the wheels are about to come off.

It happened in 2005 against Roger Huerta. It happened in 2007 against Joe Stevenson. And it happened against Nate Diaz in 2009.

Most recently, a loss to Joe Lauzon in October ended a five-fight win streak and any talk of Guillard as a title contender. 

5. Alistair Overeem

Overeem's uneven record against top names—Chuck Liddell, Sergei Kharitonov, Shogun Rua, Fabricio Werdum and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira among them—has given him a certain reputation for underperformance. No one likely needs to tell Alistair Overeem that he has a chance to reverse that course against Brock Lesnar at UFC 141. 

4. Vitor Belfort

For someone who actually held a UFC title belt at one point and is nicknamed The Phenom, Vitor Belfort has led a pretty darn hot-and-cold career. He always seems to follow up a great win—over, say, Randy Couture—with an equally great loss. To, say, Randy Couture.

3. Forrest Griffin

His last-second choke-out of Shogun Rua was a win for the ages. But his destruction at Shogun's hands in Rio last summer was an equally symbolic fight for Griffin. Over the course of his career, he has shown he's capable of beating, or losing to, just about anybody.

2. B.J. Penn

Penn would seem to only have himself to blame for his high ranking on this list.

A lack of a sustained commitment to conditioning, as well as an insistence on shuttling back and forth between weight classes, has led to almost as many humbling losses as glorious wins. Most of those losses came at welterweight, but his dual setbacks against Frankie Edgar show it's not a single-class problem.

1. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua

The man synonymous with the term.

He often seems to come into fights out of shape and lethargic, almost as if he wasn't aware he was supposed to be fighting that night.

The loss in his first fight with Griffin led to a thoroughly unimpressive win over Mark Coleman, followed by a destruction of Chuck Liddell.

Then there's the split with Lyoto Machida, the second of which netted him the light-heavyweight belt. But then came the loss to Jon Jones. Then came the dismantling of Griffin in the return match. Then a loss to Dan Henderson in a memorable war that saw Rua running hot and cold within the confines of those five rounds. 

I don't think the battle for this top spot is even close.