Those saying Dillashaw…he modelled his striking style after Cruz, and never beat him. You can’t say TJ and not say Dom. Wrestling was his first sport as well, but of course injuries ruined any chance for a wrestling scholarship even at that age
Cain had some good striking too
Edit: I can’t find the interview from back in the day where TJ speaks on knowing Faber would lose to Cruz and telling him he needed to improve his footwork and striking, needed to fight more like Cruz if he wanted to be the best…but i vividly remember hearing that at the time. No proof though, either way Dom deserves his name mentioned here
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i shook tj’s hand when he was on tuf at a strikeforce event. felt like a baby hand.
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Wrestler turned striker rules out Pico. Henderson was awesome for his time as a striker in Pride and widened his skillset in the ufc, but he was definitely a wrestler first in his ufc tournament and Rings. He was in and controversially won the King of Kings tournament which was open weight in Rings.
Someone already said this, but I’m going with DC. If we are going just on skills and resume, he’s up there pretty easily in my opinion. He also has a better resume as a wrestler than anyone other than Yoel that competed long term. Hendo is only close if you grandfather in the evolution of the sport, which I do.
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Everyone has ko’d Overeem. He dropped Belfort, ok great he dropped him. Wow
Dillashaw won that fight.
He fights nothing like Cruz. Dillashaw is all offense whereas Cruz is all defense. Cruz is a boxer and Dillashaw a Thai fighter. They only duck the same way.
I will add Frankie as well, in his prime he outstruck everyone despite having a huge size advantage in every single one of his fights all the way down to 135. Faber was the only opponent similar in size.
Thats because Hendo just liked to throw down and often sacrificed a real game plan just to go out and fight.
Hendo more dangerous and better control from top position when he wanted to.
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Chuck Liddell KO’s DC badly in a boxing/kickboxing match
DC got out struck by stipe and JBJ
Point is DC was a world class wrestler and evolved as a legit MMA striker…not that he’s unbeatable as a striker.
And DC was hanging with Jones and might have even had a slight edge leading up to the KO kick in the second fight.
Jones was juicing so who knows if boosted recovery time aides him in the explosiveness in that kick.
Regardless, DC was hanging with him and was a respectable striker for sure.
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This and he was also outsriking Stipe for the majority of their fights
The OP didn’t say how good of a wrestler the fighter in question had to be. So sure DC was a better wrestler than Liddell but they’re both wrestlers and Liddell was the better striker in MMA
Hendo solely threw the H BOMB
Hendricks had solid boxing not just one punch KO power
He spoke of Cruz’s footwork as being the key to him being the best and eluded to that being the inspiration for him to work so hard on it.
And no Cruz didn’t lose the fight
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I get the Chuck love, but didn’t he do karate or something as a kid? He never pursued wrestling more than college and it wasn’t like he was chasing gold there. I would say Chuck was well rounded to start. He always had kicks and good hands and used wrestling as a backup.
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