We are in a golden age of MMA talent, a lot of fighters who people argue are the greatest of all time are currently active fighters or have recently retired. Even when it comes to the individual weight classes a lot of fans and analysts say that the current champions are the greatest whatever weights of all time.
Jon Jones, Daniel Cormier, Khabib Nurmagomedov, GSP, Amanda Nunes, Anderson Silva all commonly make it on to people’s top Pound for Pound fighters lists and all these fighters are commonly on peoples greatest of all time lists and its not even uncommon for these people to top those lists. But what are the legacy of these and other similar top UFC talents and legends, what will we say about these people in 10, 20 years from now?
Georges St-Pierre
We’re going to start with the person I believe is the GOAT and It's more than just because he's Canadian. Georges leaves behind a legacy of beating everyone he's faced, which in terms of fight record is probably just behind being undefeated in terms of clout, especially since George always won in dominant fashion the second time around with Matt Serra and Matt Hughes (So the secret to beating GSP is to be named Matt, this makes me proud).
GSP will also be remembered as one of the most well rounded fighters to ever step into the Octagon, on top of being one of the most skilled in general. He will most likely be remembered for this last fight Micheal Bisping, which demonstrated his improvement, as well as his determination and willpower, if you know what GSP was going through during the lead up to the fight, dealing with his ulcerative colitis being unable to train.
The unfortunate part is that we never got to see George go against Khabib, seemingly due to the UFC’s own lack of interest for whatever reason. In all fairness thought that's the only real what if GSP leaves behind after his retirement.
Jon Jones
It can be hard to say what legacy Jon Jones leaves behind as he's still fighting and doesn't seem to be retiring any time soon. Jon still has a lot of time to have a lot of different things happen to his career, he could continue to win every fight he enters, he could have a devastating loss that he never recovers from.
(oh hey Ronda. Source: UFC)
Another thing we have to take into account is that he has a lot of time to do some, as i'm gonna call it, “Jon Jones activities” that could get him into some serious trouble. Let's say that Jon were to retire today for whatever reason though, or that his career stays on a similar path to the one he is currently on and he avoids controversy.
It’s pretty damn obvious that Jon will be remembered as a controversial figure no matter what he does, but he will also be known as one of the most talented champions to ever step into the ring and if he manages to not do anything stupid (and get caught) and stay undefeated, I beleive that his controversies will be overshadowed.
Khabib Nurmagomedov
The King of Smesh himself will be remembered for a lot of things, he is sort of an interesting contrast to his training partner Daniel Cormier, a decent amount of his legacy will probably be defined by Conor McGregor, the bus incident, the press conferences, the fight itself and the brawl after it all. Fortunately for Khabib he is more likely to be seen in a positive light compared to McGregor due to all that top tier goonery that McGregor committed before, during and after the fight and he also has a very dominant over the Irishman.
If everything stays the course for Khabib, he will be remembered as a monster in the ring with insane wrestling, as well as a pioneer for russian, and specifically Dagestani MMA and its athletes.
Amanda Nunes
If anyone on this list is going to be remembered as a pioneer, its Amanda Nunes. The Greatest female fighter of all time, who is also the first openly gay UFC (and probably MMA) champion as well as the first female champ-champ. Now, yes she wasn't the first super popular female fighter,
Hey again: Source: WWE)
But she has definitely cemented herself as the most talented to ever enter the octagon. Knocking out the most feared female fighter of all time (which I guess now makes Nunes the most feared?) and the most famous female fighter in the world, both in under a minute, like seriously that's probably one of the biggest flexes in MMA history.
Anderson Silva
And finally we come to somebody who tops a lot of people’s GOAT lists, the OG GOAT if you will. The Spider definitely deserve his top spot in those lists, running through the middleweight division and going undefeated in the UFC for 6 years, while being pretty active for most of that. Silva cemented his legacy with his strange striking style, as well as being one of the first people to really bring a highly specialized striking arsenal to the UFC.
Unfortunately Anderson Silva has a few things that are more than likely to tarnish his legacy, I mean the whole Dick Pills fiasco was a thing that puts pretty much all of his pro MMA victories into question. There’s also the infection that hits every old fighter that still competes at a high level, the I can still do it disease as I like to call it.
At least his case is not as bad as BJ’s. (Source: UFC)
I also don't think that all the Memes about him breaking his legs are good for his legacy either, seriously he's got like two of them now. The worst part is that as new fans come in to the sport every day, they don't know how dominating Anderson was when he was champion and they are probably gonna see him as the guy who has a completely wrecked leg or from the video of weidman knocking him out, which is, in my opinion quite sad for someone who should be held up as a legend.