This article, inspired by the events of UFC 207, chronicles the top MMA champions who once were the very elite of their division, only to look like shadows of their once-dominant selves later in their career.
There are many reasons a fighter could drop from being the best to looking as though they don’t belong. Age, lack of confidence, build-up of injuries, or worn-out chins that lead to easy knockouts have all caused this to happen to some of the sport’s best.
While some fighters wish to go out on top, before they have shown any signs of vulnerability, the fighters here didn’t call it quits in time to prevent it from hurting their legacy.
Controversially, Fedor Emelianenko was not added to this list. It’s hard to say he fell from grace after losing 3 straight fights in Strikeforce, considering they were all to top heavyweights. Fedor was already getting into his late 30s by then as well. Plus he’s 5W-0L since then, although there has been some suspect judging involved in some of those bouts.
Here are the top 6 MMA champions to fall from grace…
6. Royce Gracie
You would be hard-pressed to find any MMA fan who isn’t at least appreciative of the contributions made to the sport by the Gracie family, most notably Royce.
In 1993, the UFC’s genesis period, it was Royce Gracie who demonstrated that an intelligent, well-trained, jiu-jitsu practitioner could defeat top kickboxers, sambo fighters, and even those who had been competing in Pancrase. Royce changed the face of martial arts, there can be no doubting that. Once other athletes began training jiu-jitsu however, Royce’s aura of invincibility quickly faded.
The first example of this was at UFC 5 during his “super-fight” with Ken Shamrock. While the fight was scored a draw, Shamrock made it clear that Royce was human. Later Royce would lose to Kazushi Sakuraba in Japan as well.
At UFC 61, Royce’s return to the octagon, Matt Hughes made it clear to the world that the elite of the sport were now far more advanced than Royce was. It doesn’t change what he contributed to the sport, but Royce Gracie went from being seemingly unbeatable, to looking as though he was no longer able to compete with the sport’s top athletes.
