Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Welterweights

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Welcome again folks, this time to Sherdog's list of the ten greatest welterweights ever. This was compiled based on a weighted poll of 12 Sherdog contributors, and I will note where my own views deviated considerably from the consensus. Personally though, the appeal of any such lists isn't the exact order or who was included or excluded, but the actual discussion of each entry. Anyone can come up with a list with no further commentary and it's no more “right” than another. However, the best such lists have entertaining and informative explanations, which is the goal I hope to accomplish.

A word about criteria: My main measure for this list was greatness for one’s era and how long that era lasted. I believe the majority of other contributors used a similar rubric. Ranking historical fighters based on who would beat whom doesn’t make sense, since the division as a whole keeps improving and evolving. If this was purely about who would win against the others most of the time, Colby Covington would be in the Top 5 while a man many consider the greatest fighter of all time, Georges St. Pierre, might not be. However, that makes little sense, as it doesn't take historical context into account. Nevertheless, fighters from earlier eras may be penalized for competitive their division was or was not. There were fewer decent fighters in the 90s when compared to even the 00s, let alone today.

The welterweight poll found the Sherdog staff much more divided than just about any other weight class, and as such, there is a lengthy “bubble list” of greats who received at least one vote from the panel, but not quite enough to break the Top 10: Pat Miletich, Jose “Pele” Landi-Jons, Rory MacDonald, Yaroslav Amosov, Colby Covington, Nick Diaz, Demian Maia and Stephen Thompson.

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