Sherdog's Top 10: Greatest Fighters Never to have Competed in the UFC

9. Douglas Lima

Lima, a terrific three-time Bellator MMA welterweight champion who never got the credit he deserved, cracks his first Sherdog list, coming in ninth. In his prime, Lima was one of the best strikers in all of MMA, with silky-smooth technique on all his shots, bone-crushing leg kicks that stopped multiple foes, a fine jab and a murderous left hook with instant knockout power. He also had excellent BJJ and decent ability to get back to his feet. Wrestling was always a relative weakness for Lima, but only the best grapplers could take advantage of it. Lima turned pro at the age of just 18 and quickly raced to an impressive 21-4 record by the time he was 24 years old, including a decision over Clint Hester, a 74-second knockout of Terry Martin, a decision over Steve Carl, and a second-round knockout of Ben Saunders to become a Bellator tournament champion.

That led to challenging undefeated Bellator champion and one of the best welterweights in the sport at the time, Ben Askren. Askren exposed Lima's lack of wrestling to win a five-round decision. Lima responded with five highlight-reel knockouts in a row, four of them featuring kicks. The last two were crushing Saunders in the second round again—this time with a head kick—for a second tournament championship and finishing Rick Hawn with leg kicks in the second round to win the vacant welterweight title. Lima would then lose his crown to Andrey Koreshkov, again through being outwrestled, but would get a quick rematch after decisioning another great striker in Paul Daley. This time Lima was successful, winning a fight that ranked as Sherdog's eighth greatest Bellator fight ever. Lima won a verdict against a terrific challenger in Lorenz Larkin but then lost his title again, this time to Rory MacDonald, who had recently come over from the UFC, where he had fought for the title and held a dominant win over then-champion Tyron Woodley. Yet again Lima was undeterred. He had a nearly perfect run through Bellator's million-dollar welterweight grand prix. Firstly, he faced old nemesis Koreshkov in a rubber match. This time Lima stopped his takedowns and put him to a sleep with a choke in the fifth and final round. In the next round he handed Michael Page the first loss of his career with one of the greatest knockouts in MMA history. In the finals he faced MacDonald and demonstrated significant improvement, avoiding takedowns and beating him up on the feet, taking the clear decision to become an unprecedented three-time Bellator welterweight champion. Approaching his mid 30s and with 39 pro fights on his odometer, many which required colossal weight cuts, Lima began slipping. First, he lost a champion vs. champion showdown against Gegard Mousasi, and then lost his welterweight crown against undefeated dynamo Yaroslav Amosov, whom we will discuss later. Both times, wrestling was the culprit. Lima was then out-pointed in the striking in a rematch against Page and then by the tremendously talented and underrated Jason Jackson, extending his losing streak to four. Lima proved he wasn't completely washed-up with a nice decision over talented Costello van Steenis, but it's clear his best days are in the rearview mirror. Still, Lima has had a great career and is a worthy inclusion here.

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