Roundtable: Is Khabib Nurmagomedov the G.O.A.T?
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There can be no doubt that after his win over Justin Gaethje, Khabib Nurmagomedov is one of the most dominant and impressive fighters in the history of mixed martial arts.
But just how ‘great’ is he?
Since then we’ve added several knowledgeable contributors with their own thoughts on who the greatest fighters of all time are, and Khabib has gone on to take two excellent scalps on his journey towards the coveted ‘GOAT’ spot.
With retirement seemingly a very real thing, we are now faced with a full career to analyse, and what is truly the end of an era. So just how does Khabib stack up to other all-time greats? And if we had to rank him today—whilst the dust is still settling—where would he land?
Roundtable
Kyle McLachlan: Khabib is the greatest 155lber of all time and to kick it off I’m pretty sure he’s the number one all-time pound-for-pound though I’m admittedly writing this an hour after the fight ended and am not really one for nuanced thought right now. I’ll dive back into the conversation after once others have had their say.
Ed Gallo: I’ve studied Khabib quite a bit, I wrote three fairly in-depth articles about his game and performances. I think I’ve been critical. A lot of this was reactionary - so many fans seem to view him as a mythical, perfect, unbeatable fighter. Obviously that bothered me and inspired me to point out some holes in the armor.
With that being said, in terms of “goodness” - he’s one of the best fighters ever. He’s been the best grappler in MMA for some time, and revolutionized the meta. In terms of greatness, which I base on quality wins, he’s made a huge jump with this win over Justin Gaethje. Not only is Gaethje a phenomenal operator and physical beast, he should have been a difficult stylistic matchup. Although Gaethje didn’t apply the tactics many of us thought would be ideal, it’s still an incredible achievement for Khabib to take him out as quickly as he did. I have personally bumped Khabib up to #4 all-time. He didn’t start fighting truly elite guys until the end of his career, which of course is not his fault, but it holds back his resume slightly.
I totally understand the criteria by which some may see him as #1, and to each their own. This is all subjective and all I ask is that you clearly define your criteria and stay consistent with it.
Philippe Pocholle Marchetti: Through the years I’ve learned to watch and admire Khabib’s fighting style. I’ve always been shocked by his athleticism. Often, I mentioned how fast and explosive he was and people refused to see it for a while. It took a level change and a right overhand right in the face of an Irishman for people to realise what a freak Khabib is.
Also I remember the 2015/2016 years when Khabib had back to back injuries and was out for a while, People thought he was a “pull out merchant” or that he was just training too hard and too dangerously at AKA, but he came back and destroyed everyone. From a fast Southpaw KO artist (Michael Johnson) to the top of the top of lightweight fighters. Year after year, the world gave him new challenges and he “smeshed” them all.
Khabib never got dropped, was never ever close to being in trouble. He’s the definition of a dominant and violent Champion. Khabib’s legacy is huge also because he made wrestling and ground fighting “cool”. Of course, there was before him a series of fighters that made the ground game amazing but Khabib is really THE one who turned that style into something fans love. It is fascinating to watch Khabib’s fighting. Like I said the despair in Dustin’s eyes never stops haunting me. It took me some time, and a lot of tape study to realise how great and amazing Khabib Nurmagomedov is. He retires on top. After beating one of the best lightweights I ever saw compete and finishing his career with that submission is unreal. Legend.
Khabib’s resume is so good that nobody’s gonna say it misses Tony Ferguson to be completed. Also, there isn’t one fighter in his division that I would pick to beat Khabib right now. Khabib played the game and won it all. To me he’s #1 lightweight of all time but also the greatest of all time.
Tommy Elliott: This is about as middle aged gonzo as MMA analysis gets. I’ve put the kids to bed, I’ve been drinking slowly but steadily since 1:00 MDT, and I’ve never stopped thinking about the performance Khabib just put on. I’ve written about Khabib in the past, in reference specifically to how devastating his top game is...well, at this point, Demian Maia adorer that I am, I am ready to state that Khabib has the best top game on the mat this sport has ever seen. His ability to transition between positions whilst keeping control, his skill at combining damage and submission threats...there’s no one else. GSP wasn’t as aggressive, Maia wasn’t as adept at hurting his man, Tito, Fedor and other G&P legends didn’t have the submission offense...Khabib stands alone. Combine that with his virtually unstoppable chain wrestling (do I even need the qualifier? Was it ever stopped?) and you have the greatest all around grappler this sport has ever seen. Khabib is it. Clearly LW GOAT, in the conversation all time. I don’t have him above GSP or Aldo due to the fact that those guys faced and defeated multiple generations of top flight opposition, but in terms of strength of peak Khabib is unrivaled. Conor McGregor. Dustin Poirier. Justin Gaethje. In a row. All submission finishes. Did The Eagle even lose a round? That’s Bobby Fischer in the candidates tournament in 1971 not dropping a game. That’s Dan Gable in 1972 not giving up a point on the way to gold. It’s amazing given the strength of schedule. Khabib is without peer.
And as for retirement, who was left? He beat every credible threat already. Sure, he could have stuck around and beaten up Dan Hooker and won a fun but predictable fight against Chucky Olives, but why? All the real challengers have been defeated. It’s a world without dragons to slay at this point. The loss of his father, his lifetime coach, is clearly devastating and who can blame him for being unmade by that loss? Javier Mendes himself, his ostensible coach at AKA, has said in interviews in the past that for Khabib it was always the ‘father plan’...well, he’s executed that plan to perfection across a career, what more is there to say on the matter now that the man is gone (a man who was extremely well regarded in his native country, not least for turning young men to sport and away from war and religious extremism it should be said)? Khabib has scaled the mountain, and finding no real challengers there it’s natural to descend. I wish him the best in retirement, and I hope his legacy is not tainted by the troublesome politics of his homeland or any other potential source of tarnish. I want to remember him as a great champion, the greatest grappling-centric fighter the sport has ever seen.
So what then is Khabib’s legacy? Frankly, he beat everyone. He cleaned out arguably the strongest division in MMA. Some he beat as champion, some on the way up, but there was never any question that he was the cream of the UFC LWs. The way he did it bears esteem: he adapted from fight to fight, but with the exception of the short notice Iaquinta match he always, always did it by finding the optimal way to implement *his* game, *his* way. Wrestle, and if possible submit. Three defenses of the LW title, three submissions against some of the best fighters this sport has seen. Absolute mastery of the grappling phase, and the ability to force the fight into that arena. Some of the most beautiful offensively minded grappling to ever take place in the octagon. Watching Khabib on the mat is like watching someone paint a masterpiece in real time. There are moments of difficulty but never an iota of self doubt, and every obstacle ends up overcome and the end result is perfection. I don’t love his connections to the murderous dictator Kadyrov (though how voluntary that is living where he does is an open question), and the homeless pushup affair doesn’t reflect well on him nor does the bus incident, but his fighting legacy can’t be contested. He is simply the best grappler to have competed in MMA and one of the few, along with GOAT GSP, to retire near the peak of his powers. And I do believe his retirement is real. He has nothing left to prove, and what man would break a promise to his mother?
Kyle: Since my opening gambit I have pondered some more, slept, woke up and discussed more with my friends, and I have to say….is it weird that I’m convinced that Khabib is the greatest of all time? Like, sure as Ed said he only fought the elite of the elite right at the end of his career, but he absolutely smashed them with little issue, going on one of the most insane three-fight runs of all time. And despite Rafael dos Anjos improving markedly after Khabib beat him, it’s obvious to me that Khabib would’ve beaten him again and those improvements wouldn’t have meant much. RDA also won the title less than a year after Khabib beat him, so how much did he actually improve in that time? The theory that Khabib didn’t beat a ‘prime’ Dos Anjos is basically untenable I think.
So...for me Khabib has two wins over top twenty all-time fighters (McGregor and RDA) and has stomped guys that on paper looked like bad matchups for him on paper. Although Khabib doesn’t necessarily fit into the box my fellow TFS boys like for ‘the best’ P4P fighters to fall into, the fact he has made his game work inspite of that is equally impressive in my opinion.
GSP has more depth, Aldo has more title defences and is flat out as equally impressive as an anti-wrestler as Khabib is as a wrestler, Anderson Silva has more ‘wow’ moments but against a lower level of competition, Johnson has a wild reign but had a few gimmes in there because it was a top heavy division.
So I look at it like this: take the quantity of title fights out of the equation: let’s look purely at the good ones. Does Khabib top four match up well with any of the other ‘GOAT contenders’ top four? Yes. Is Khabib as skilled as any of the other contenders for the number one spot? In my opinion, yes, his ground game was as dominant as the others were well-rounded.
Khabib might be my number one, he might not. All I want is for people to acknowledge that it’s a very real possibility that he has ‘GOAT’ status. You’re splitting hairs when you get to the very top of the mountain anyway.
Lukasz Fenrych: I haven’t got a lot to add on whether Khabib is the number one of all time- like Kyle says, he might be he might not but he’s definitely in the conversation- so I’m gonna take my thoughts on his legacy in a different direction; what he did for the public perception of wrestling and grappling. Before he blazed his trail through the lightweight division, we (as in the casual fans, of which I was one at the time) were still somewhat stuck on the idea that striking is fun but grappling is boring. Sure, his influence is helped a lot by the fact that once in that phase he smashed the shit out of people, and sure, non-g&p heavy grapplers are still sometimes greeted with skepticism and derision, but it seems to me that in the last few years, fighters with ground-based games are far more likely to hook onto a bit of promotional push and fan excitement, and that has to be somewhat down to both the domination and the undoubted, visceral thrill that watching Khabib do his thing conjured up.
Haxxorized: Not super invested in pinpoint ATG rankings for Khabib right now, in part because where I put him is dependent on how well the fighters he has beaten develop. Besides, this roundtable has already done great work arguing for top5 Khabib ATG. So instead of repeating the great takes of others, let us talk about moments.
I made a relatively big deal out of how I believed there were two Justin Gaethjes that Khabib had to consider coming into his fight in the UFC 254 staff picks. Justin had shown he was a capable counterpuncher and offensive pressure-based operator (both entirely valid ways to trouble Khabib), but had not proven he could harmonise those two approaches into a greater whole. Khabib was not convinced either, and game out with a fundamentally solid game-plan that involved forcing Gaethje to pick between the two with relentless pressure; before tiring him and finishing him with a lovely bit of stylistic brilliance in the second.
He demonstrated improvements in striking form and pressured solidly, displaying real courage and willingness to spend his chin to get the win under fire. The plan employed purposeful movement and even established body attacks to keep Justin guessing, while building to his pressure-wrestling threat. In short, it was about as perfect a fight as you could imagine for a fighter who knew it was his last fight as you are ever going to get, against an exceptionally credible top5 fighter who had offered an interesting stylistic puzzle. How many athletes can claim to have got even half of that equation right, let alone at the end of a tear against fighters as good as RDA-Barboza-McGregor-Poirer-Gaethje, all on the biggest-stages platform of a UFC title fight? If Khabib is not in your top5 at this point, get outta here.
The second point I would make is to expand on the point Ed made about fighting high-level fighters at the end of his career; and how that can be limiting to ATG status. For me, one thing that Khabib lacks is a defining performance in extreme adversity. A fight where some combination of your limitations and the brilliance of the fighter you face create a sort of hell, a metaphorical sorting of wheat from chaff. Where victory requires an incredibly high price to pay; and even truly exceptional fighters can falter. Khabib never had one of these fights; and I think it is a fair point to make that if he had fought in another weight class against a fighter like Usman, Whittaker or Aldo, the probability of him having to do so rises significantly. Of course if your career is nothing but flawless victories, on some level you have to ask: maybe they are just that good?
However, combat sports is not limited to just one fighter for whom that descriptor applies; and these other great fighters are whom Khabib must compete with for ATG status. We have seen this tale of ATG’s reaching even greater heights in moments of extreme adversity through fights like GSP-Hendricks, Aldo-Max, or (to talk boxing), Chavez-Taylor or Chocolatito-SSR. In a sport with the best fighters in the world, the more generations you fight - the higher the probability this fight will come to pass. Unfortunately, Khabib’s decision to retire now denies us the opportunity to see it. It is hardly a black mark against his career, but given the quality of fighters he is being compared to it is worth thinking about.
Hamady ‘Baba’ Diagne : Khabib’s performance against Gaethje was so impressive that I wanted to chime in on this roundtable. I will deal with something quickly though : I don’t care if Khabib becomes the ‘GOAT’ or not after that. As I said when we ranked our 20 best MMA fighters ever, this sport is still too young to fairly do that, in my opinion at least. Plus, I always have a hard time putting only one athlete above everyone else, especially in a sport with so much diversity of profiles.
With that being said, if Khabib doesn’t come back from retirement, he sure leaves a very unique mark in the sport. His run at the top was short lived compared to other greats like Aldo, GSP, DJ or Fedor. But in more than one way, and when you include his ascent, that run was simply mesmerizing. RDA, Johnson, Barboza, were thoroughly dominated like they didn’t belong to the elite, while they really were.
McGregor, Poirier and Gaethje. All submitted. His last 3 opponents all had a real shot at winning on paper. But Khabib always found a way, and in increasingly devastating fashion. There is nothing left to do, and don’t bring Ferguson into the conversation. I’m now more than convinced it would go down the same way. For the last two years I was adamant that Gaethje would be the toughest test for Khabib’s dominance, my only problem was the lack of knowledge I had on Justin’s grappling. But I believed he’d be able to stand his ground, quickly do damage, and make Khabib doubt himself a little bit. ‘The Eagle’ just ran through him with absolutely no respect for his power, showing that his chin is not just insane, it’s otherworldly.
What we witnessed with Khabib’s career, is a fighter so dominant, that he made thousands of fans enjoy an aspect of the MMA game that wasn’t popular with them in the first place. He absolutely demolished the fighters of his era that were supposed to provide him a challenge. It’s a shame we won’t see him compete against the next generation and see how he fares, like we’ve seen the other greats do. But I’m at peace with that. He is one of those specialists that I really enjoyed watching, and there’s no doubt in my mind he is going down in history as a true all time great.
Philippe: As a fan first, I’m sad to think I’ll never see Khabib maul people but I’m happy that this man went as far as he did. I know not everybody likes Khabib as a human due to his support or at least non dishing of Kadyrov but I learn to really love and be inspired by Khabib’s personality. More than just the legendary broken English, Khabib had that perfect mix of being raw steel but also very candid. Has the eyes of a kid in the body of a beast. Khabib always wanted to fight the best and his constant denial of rematching Conor in order to fight true number one contender is something that I’ll remember for a while.
For sure Khabib made his money but he played the game his way, just like GSP. Never became a UFC puppet and did what seemed right to him. Khabib showed respect and inspires respect too.
For his future, I hope Khabib will not come back as a fighter but as a coach. Now that he fulfilled his father's dreams and promised to his mother that he won’t fight anymore, I hope the eagle will fly over the mountains of Dagestan, and help out the young talent of that specific place, that seems so full of talent. May he guide them like Abdulmanap did for decades.
Ben Kohn: My daughter is drinking her bottle next to me, so let me take this moment to talk about Khabib. I picked Gaethje to win, and in it I posed two questions.
Can Justin follow the game plan and would it matter? We have our answer. Khabib took what was perceived as his biggest challenge to date, and he put him to sleep. 29-0, the only champion to retire undefeated in addition to being on top of the sport. I don’t know if I can rank him number one, as I do value the ability to thrive among adversity in the fight, but anyone saying he’s not the top 5 has to remove themselves from these discussions.
Khabib also clearly rose to the occasion himself, showed some new wrinkles, and displayed better pressure than he has in his entire career to date. He ate some very big shots, walked through the leg kicks, and completely destroyed Gaethje on the ground with ease. I really did not expect it to be that vast a gulf.
There are those who will try and discredit Khabib’s wins and knock him down the GOAT list, as with any ATG contender, but Gaethje, Poirier, McGregor, and RDA are 4 absolutely top tier wins considering how they looked prior (and especially after with RDA). Barboza, Johnson, and Iuaquinta are more than respectable as well. Anyone bringing up Tibau can fuck off (I love Gleison but shut up).
Just a few brief words on Justin, since this is Khabib’s moment and piece. I was surprised to see just how out of depth he’d be off his back, but maybe that’s really just how damn good Khabib is. He’s the greatest MMA top control grappler the sport has ever seen to date, and I’m not sure we’ll see him topped anytime soon either. Usman is fantastic but is nowhere near as dangerous a finisher as Khabib. As mentioned above, GSP wasn’t as aggressive, Johnson we’ve seen get shut down, and Maia just lacked the threat of ground and pound. Every other contender lacked SOMETHING that Khabib just doesn’t. His striking, transitional awareness, pressure and control, and high level submission game are a combination no other fighter can claim to date.
Is Khabib the GOAT? Maybe, but is it important right now to crown him as such? No. But there is no doubt that this win firmly places him into the elite of the elite as a fighter.
Sriram Muralidaran: All above have made most of the points I would’ve, so won’t retread that in depth -- to me, Nurmagomedov is a clear top-5 ever, and depending on your criterion, he could be #1 (for instance, intrinsically valuing an undefeated record or no unavenged losses is something I’ve seen before, and I don’t really get it, but Nurmagomedov as the #1 all time is nevertheless consistent with that). In a sharp contrast to my usual conduct on Khabib, I won’t be the relentless naysayer either -- there are certain divisional-metagame critiques that can be made on Nurmagomedov’s competition, but his competition was inarguably terrific regardless, and essentially any long-reigning champion needs the game to work in their favor and not against it.
The more Khabib’s career has gone on, the more tautological it feels to say “Khabib’s only reigned for so long because he hasn’t faced anyone who can beat him”; it’s true that he hasn’t faced many fighters who poses specific challenges to his style, an Aldo or a Whittaker or an Abdulvakhabov, but that’s splitting hairs with regard to greatness when even much of the raw talent he faced would beat anyone of Khabib’s style who wasn’t as good as Khabib. Dustin Poirier would not look completely useless against a control-wrestler like Kevin Lee, but he did look useless against Nurmagomedov, because Nurmagomedov is Nurmagomedov and no one else is.
I think there’s a great deal to learn from Nurmagomedov as a fighter, even if it isn’t quite as applicable to the average fighter’s game as the tactics of a GSP are -- Nurmagomedov is an absolute freak athlete, after all, and huge for 155, and both take on particular prominence in fighting a style as physical as his. Above all, I think Nurmagomedov weaponized what his opponents know about him better than anyone; for most fighters, their opponent comes in blind because MMA simply is that way, but Nurmagomedov weaponized his opponent’s caution at simply getting near him like no one else. His dominance in one field perfectly and reliably covered for the oddness and even the weakness in others, and that’s really what MMA is about; no one but Jose Aldo and Eduard Vartanyan is perfectly versatile and terrific in every phase, everyone has things to work around, and Nurmagomedov did as well as anyone in making sure his weaknesses got as little daylight as possible. That he wasn’t lazy in actually minimizing those weaknesses -- developing a jab, the pace and pressure and even the bizarre kicking game he used against Gaethje, his decreasing reliance on that divebombing single leg as his competition has gotten better -- makes that point further.
With the details of his meta-defining ground game explained already, what this led to was an intensely focused fighter who knew what he was good at and consistently had tools to get his opponent there -- even if those tools weren’t the kind that analysts would love. I’m not going to pretend that I like Nurmagomedov as a fighter at all, nor that I think he’s unbeatable (even as a function of his undeniable aura that encourages everyone to fight against their own type). I’ll forever be frustrated at the ways in which Poirier and Gaethje approached him, even if it was a function of Khabib himself -- and the mystery of how he’d approach someone who approached him well will always be a bit annoying, when we’ve seen that for the other ATGs of his tier. However, he’s unquestionably one of the most special fighters the sport has ever seen.
Matt Gioia: The improvements Khabib has made from his first ATG win to his last are astounding. RDA was able to back up Khabib at certain moments of the fight but even against one of the best pressure fighters we have ever seen, it was inevitable that Khabib would get him to the fence. As Aiden pointed out in his article, the change in takedown selection to the twisting bodylock made him all the more deadly against the fence, yet that didn’t stop his evolution. Khabib secured his valedictory takedown off of a double leg in open space, while turning the corner, something he had never done before. It was not just his grappling that improved, his striking looked the best it ever has during this fight. There were no rapid retreats like there were in the Johnson and Poirier fights, even under heavy shots and leg kicks. To improve in the manner Khabib has, fight after fight is perhaps the most impressive part of Khabib’s career. Contemporaries have only really done that after a loss or set of them: Gaethje after Dustin and Eddie, Dustin after featherweight and Michael Johnson, and Conor after Nate. Khabib never lost a fight, never lost a round decisively, yet still made rapid improvements to his game, a game that is clearly not finished in its evolution. He has set the meta and broken it, made top P4P fighters look amateurish, and retired undefeated. Yet it still feels like we won’t be able to see the best possible version of Khabib, that there is a further level this man can reach.
Danny Martin: I said before UFC 254 that Khabib would need to show off some layers to his game that he’s never demonstrated before to beat Gaethje. He did that, and he won. I was left gobsmacked by the champion’s performance, and it left me wondering if I ever understood anything about Khabib Nurmagomedov in the first place. As far as I’m concerned, there are a handful of GOAT candidates in this sport and Khabib is very clearly one of the obvious picks. While I’m a little disappointed we never got a chance to see Khabib in a rematch (not that any of his victims really deserved one, mind you), and I still maintain that there is at least one fighter in MMA history who would’ve comprehensively disassembled Khabib (three guesses who), many of my criticisms surrounding the champion were emphatically answered after his last performance. All I can do is applaud.
Mateusz Fenrych: MMA is still a young sport yes, but I feel like the foundations of generational greatness had another brick added this time out.
For myself, it’s not necessarily a matter of statistical dominance - the undefeated record is an overstated one in every combat sport, I’m sure, and even though Khabib’s (as the Yanks term it) ‘strike differential’ must surely be one of the most frightening in the UFC’s quarter century of existence, this obviously gets padded by padded records - it’s how he makes an entire generation of fighters and fight fans feel, and do.
From his defeat of Michael Johnson onwards, when he managed to keep injury at bay and put a run together, he gained a hold on the lightweight division that he never relinquished.
His oh-so-Eastern European, almost matter-of-fact smashing of extremely capable opponents while having the presence of mind to calmly, coldly berate them (“please, you must give up, you must do this”, “let’s talk now”), built up the right image of implacable force mixed with the minerals to back it up.
What’s more, as Lukasz says, he changed the game. Grappling was not only interesting to the casual fan, it was terrifying; something to witness, a draw. How do you stop this? How can you?
Superman is over-powered unless you have a little batch of kryptonite to face him down with.
Each of Khabib’s last three opponents were rumoured to have some, and yet it proved useless; despite some (apparently) fairly obvious weak points in his game he made the fight world bend to his will.
He adjusted, made changes, improved, but never lost sight of what made him so good. He forced others to up their games, improve and integrate their skills, yet improved at the same time and kept a step ahead. That striking was never pretty, but it improved enough to get effective, and it meant that even against some brilliant strikers, he still won, his way.
Those who change their games, are good. Those that force others to change are on the road to greatness.
And… well. He does still have that 0. Despite facing those he forced to change.
Number 1? Perhaps not. But bricks 1 - 5 are set for the time being.
Kyle: I am slightly out of whack with most of my colleagues when it comes to ranking the all-time greats (for example I do not see the ‘lock’ for ‘G.O.A.T’ status the majority of them see for Jose Aldo, although of course I see him as being in the foundational bricks just as Mateusz does above) but Khabib’s dominance over arguably the greatest and deepest division in mixed martial arts history means a lot to me.
When comparing him to GSP, some of the greatest 170lbers most notable wins coming against pioneers of the game--and his second world title coming against a past-prime fighter who caught lightning in a bottle in Bisping, rather than a prime 185lber--would make an argument for him ranking higher than Khabib a trickier one.
But then again, fighting back as hard as GSP did against an absolute stylistic nightmare for him in Johny Hendricks counts for a lot for me. It’s not just the results on paper that matter, but taking each fight into consideration on a case-by-case basis (See also: Aldo vs. Yan)
Still, I am not going to take away points from Khabib for not showing us what he looks like against an apparent stylistic nightmare in Gaethje years beyond his absolute prime. Getting out of the game at the right time is to be commended, and as he leaves the sport with an indelible mark on it, I’m glad to see my colleagues acknowledging that--greatest of all time or not--he has a very real claim to that title.
Hope everyone reading this appreciated him while he was here, because now he’s gone.
Ryan Wagner: I’ve written before about how great champions leave an imprint on the metagame of MMA that affects the way future generations conceive of the sport. Khabib’s imprint is obvious. He represents the synthesis of two somewhat distinct schools of MMA grappling. There’s the BJJ-focused top game that started with BJ Penn’s dedication to smash passess and back-taking, which can then be traced to the control-based passing style of Georges St-Pierre and Demian Maia. On the other hand we have the Russian-style top game, which focused on using space effectively rather than locking it down. While St-Pierre and Maia looked to close off every possible bit of space in order to maintain control or set up a submission, Fedor Emelianenko purposely created space, using that space to land devastating strikes and allowing the opponent to move in order to exploit their attempts to transition. Khabib represents a brilliant fusion of the submission-focused smash passing of Maia with the devastating striking and transitional brilliance of Fedor. He’s even taken that a step further by developing interstitial control positions which afford him control of his opponent’s posture for a brief moment, whereupon he can rain down hard punches with impunity (look at his shin rides from half guard/side control, or postured half guard with a post on the opponent’s face).
Khabib has also gifted the MMA world with a system of top control that makes use of the cage. We’ve seen an arms race involving the cage wall between wrestlers and strikers - when wrestlers began stuffing their opponents against the cage to hit, strikers learned how to prop their backs against it and walk back to the feet. Khabib’s cage-riding system uses positions like leg mount and cross-body rides to control the legs while freeing the hands to hit, preventing opponents from recovering their base enough to stand. Khabib only really started unveiling this system four years ago in his fight with Michael Johnson, and it’s already been popularized in the meta, with opponents attempting to work out counters and other fighters imitating or further developing the system.
In terms of competition beat, Khabib clearly belongs near the top. While his short title reign may leave some depth to be desired, McGregor, Poirier, and Gaethje undoubtedly comprise one of the best three-fight runs in MMA history, with Edson Barboza, Michael Johnson, and pre-prime RDA representing a very strong B-roll. Khabib’s brief reign belies his dominance over the Lightweight division as well. While he was forced to sit out for two years after the RDA win, Khabib’s presence acted as a specter hanging over the division. His subsequent wins over Barboza and Johnson seemed like an unstoppable progression toward his inevitable end as Lightweight champ.
While Khabib lacks the long-term dominance of fighters like Jon Jones, Fedor Emelianenko, and Anderson Silva, he far eclipses them in terms of competition beat, which arguably makes the disparity in title reign somewhat moot. As I value competition beat heavily, Khabib is a shoo-in for my top five, and I would posit first that anyone who heavily values strength of schedule should consider Khabib a relative lock for the top five, and second that anyone looking at the legacy of a combat sports athlete should heavily value the strength of their competition.
I would need to think a bit more about where exactly to put Khabib within the top five, but my top three of Aldo-GSP-Johnson is locked down, and I’ll address that here. All of the fighters in my top three eventually ran into absolute nightmare matchups that seemed specifically designed to knock them off - and it was no coincidence. Haxx mentioned that a “defining performance in extreme adversity” can not only tell us a lot about a fighter that we can’t learn from only seeing them win, but that it can bolster one’s greatness even in a losing effort. I’ll take that a step further and argue that great, long-reigning champions in strong divisions essentially produce the conditions of their own destruction. GSP, Aldo, and DJ didn’t simply happen to run into nightmare matchups, they molded the meta of their divisions to their skillsets and shaped the games of generations of contenders - all tailoring their styles to take down the champ. While the competition Khabib faced was among the best in MMA history, he never ran into a nightmare stylistic matchup the likes of which Johny Hendricks, Max Holloway, or Henry Cejudo were for their respective champs, as the Lightweight division didn’t have generations to adjust for him in the same way. And while I can’t slight Khabib for not beating fighters who didn’t exist, I also can’t give him the credit I give Aldo, GSP, and DJ for producing the kind of fighters that were seemingly designed to take them down.
Kyle: That last point is very interesting to me. My only counter-argument is that the UFC roster has had years to come up with a gameplan to counteract Khabib and they still haven’t managed it.Demetrious Johnon’s 125lb title reign lasted six years, and the time between Khabib’s win over Rafael Dos Anjos and his retirement post-UFC 254 was six years also. He has had the title for over two years, are we saying that no one was able to adjust enough in six years? Is that not also a positive when assessing how formidable Khabib is? To keep it on the Johnson comparison, did anyone ever actually adjust for him? The Cejudo rematch showed that Henry had made a lot of general improvements, but I still don’t feel he actually beat him in the way Hendricks ‘beat’ GSP.
The lay-off between the RDA fight and Khabib’s return was a good point too: he really was looming over the division in absentia, and every major contender must have known they would have to deal with him at some point. And in our own staff picks we predicted that Gaethje would likely have the right approach and preparation, and he was a fighter who we had seen make major strides. It counted for nothing in the end. Ryan, do you think that Gaethje might have been Khabib’s Hendricks, and it simply didn’t matter?
Ryan: Kyle makes a good point that Khabib had been a factor in the division long enough for the elites to begin training to beat him, but my point was less in regards to current elites with existing skillsets and more about influencing the development of subsequent generations - new fighters who are looking at the champion and building their game from the ground up with him in mind. In regards to Gaethje, I actually think McGregor was probably a worse stylistic matchup for Khabib, and I don’t think either of them were bad stylistic matchups (although both certainly posed stylistic issues that Khabib did a superb job dealing with). In my pre-fight piece for Khabib/Gaethje, I mentioned that I consider smart tactics when defending takedowns on the cage a prerequisite to considering if someone might be able to consistently win that fight, and that it was a total unknown for Gaethje. McGregor had the pressure to avoid being put on the cage in spurts, and he had shown solid attention to grip-fighting tactics defending takedowns, as well as strong survivability off his back. Khabib actually managed to get Gaethje down in open space off a leg kick which is an incredibly impressive adjustment given that Khabib has struggled with open-space takedowns, but my assumption coming into the fight is that as the fight wore on, Gaethje would be unable to keep himself off the cage, and then we’d see whether he really posed a stylistic issue for Khabib.
In regards to champions producing a nightmare matchup for themselves through long-term dominance - GSP, Aldo, and DJ are some of the best fighters to ever compete, and they (aside from DJ to an extent) eventually ran into not just strong stylistic challenges, but someone against whom it’s difficult to even conceive a clear path to victory. That type of matchup exists for every fighter, and the division wasn’t given the chance to prepare one for Khabib. Again - I don’t consider this a slight against Khabib, but I do give those three more credit for that reason. Regarding Kyle’s point about the Cejudo rematch - I do think DJ clearly won that fight, but I also think Cejudo’s game had developed to the point where he represented a style near tailor-made to beat DJ nonetheless.
Kyle: Ryan, are you saying that in order for Khabib to jump into your top three bracket, you’d need to see something special, i.e Ray Leonard returning to beat Hagler or something like that? For Khabib’s retirement to turn into merely a long hiatus and for him to return and win his crown back two, three years down the line? Or say, something inconceivable like moving up to 170lbs and beating Kamaru Usman for the welterweight title? If he were to do that, would he rank number one all-time on your list do you think?
Ryan: While I tend to value sustained dominance over top competition ahead of great wins, something like that would be an extraordinary feat worthy of special consideration. I already value Khabib’s competition ahead of the dominance of fighters like Fedor and Silva, and returning after a layoff to recapture his belt would definitely move him up for me. In the first scenario, how much I value it would likely be circumstantial depending on the matchup, the champion’s position and previous fights, etc. Khabib isn’t far off from my top three now just on competition, and it would likely move him ahead. If he came back and beat Usman at 170, I’d be hard pressed to have him outside of my top one.
MMA is such a young sport that it’s interesting to think about how legacy will be viewed in the future. Kyle has made the point to me many times than in 20 years, many of our favorite all-time greats may not even be seen as top 20. Not only is the sport still heavily developing, but the weight to which we give certain accomplishments is open to changing fast as well. For example - I know we as a group have tended not to give a ton of weight to double-champs in many circumstances, as the title wins are often one-offs, or the fights made under dubious circumstances, but it’s not difficult to envision new generations of fighters springing up who make the case for valuing a few shocking accomplishments ahead of more consistent strength of schedule. Discussing legacy and greatness in MMA going forward will not only require a keen eye to detail, but also a critical evaluation of the tools and criteria we use to determine and examine it.