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WALKER: Five Fighters the UFC Needs to Get Inside the Octagon
Feb 10, 2012 - 6:45:37 PM WALKER: Five Fighters the UFC Needs to Get Inside the Octagon

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By: Brad Walker, MMATorch Contributor

The UFC is far and wide considered to be the big leagues of mixed martial arts, and rightfully so. It is home to the best fighters in the world, the most prestigious titles and has brought us some of the best fights in the history of the sport. There is only one problem to all of this: some of the best fighters in the world have never stepped foot inside of a UFC cage. Sure, who the best fighters in the world are is generally up to ones personal opinion based on their personal analysis - but what if there really are top fighters out there who deserve to be in the cage with the guys who everyone believes are the best of the best? I have five names with five arguments for why they should be in the UFC, and perhaps one day they will be. Those fighters are...

1. Glover Teixeira - Light Heavyweight / Heavyweight (16-2)

Teixiera is kind of an anomaly when it comes to this list, because he was in the WEC when they were purchased by Zuffa but he never made the trip to the UFC roster. Teixeira has some of the heaviest hands I've ever seen, and his record definitely makes the case for a spot alongside the UFC's best. Currently he trains at The Pit with such instructors as UFC Hall of Famer Chuck Liddell and John Hackleman. Even if you ignore his great record, and phenomenal hands, Glover has a black belt in BJJ and has used it to make a statement in numerous submission wrestling trials. Oh, and he also holds wins over former UFC vets Ricco Rodriguez and Marvin Eastman, and he has bested Joaquim Ferreira, who is of course the only man to defeat Junior Dos Santos.

So one may ask what makes this guy worthy of being in the UFC just because he beat up a couple of recognizable names and the dude who submitted the current champ? Actually, yes - it probably does, Glover is one of the best fighters out there right now, and definitely one who Dana White needs to get on his roster. There has been broad speculation about why he didn't join the UFC in the WEC merger, but in the end we all are missing out because you can only see Glover's most recent fights on HDNET. His well-rounded game could give him an easy run for a title in either the heavyweight or light heavyweight divisions, and his coaching staff is definitely up to the challenge. Will he ever make his way to the Octagon - no one can say for sure, but he deserves a shot at the best in the world.

2. Shinya Aoki - Lightweight (30-5-1)

Anyone who has seen Aoki fight knows that his submission game is one of the best on the planet. I mean what other fighter can you point at and say "This guy has won two fights with a gogoplata!" Simply put, he has brutal jiu-jitsu to go along with his black belt in judo, and he is ranked as an A-class shootist. His game is so well rounded that fighting him is like asking to lose an appendage; just ask Mizuko Hirota who refused to tap and subsequently got his arm broken. Aoki did suffer defeat in his US debut to Gilbert Melendez, but aside from that loss, he has only ever lost to powerful strikers.

Now Shinya himself doesn't have much of a striking game, and has only one career win by knockout, which was really just a stoppage due to a cut. Aoki currently holds the DREAM lightweight championship, and has previously held gold in Shooto (middleweight) and WAMMA, where he was the inaugural - and only - lightweight champion. This guy is a dynamo on the ground and I don't believe there is a single lightweight in the world right now who would survive more than a minute or two on the ground with him. He's not necessarily one dimensional as much as he just knows what he does best and finds a way to make the other fighter fall into his traps. The judo throws leading to brutal jiu-jitsu submissions are an incredibly dangerous combination which will one day hopefully lead Aoki into the UFC, and perhaps to the Championship.

3. Eddie Alvarez - Lightweight (22-3)

Now as opposed to the last two fighters, Eddie Alvarez has had a lot more exposure in the United States thanks to having been the Bellator Lightweight Champion. Every time Alvarez steps inside the cage he brings an unrivaled intensity, and will fight from bell to bell as if his life is on the line. For the size he brings to the cage his hands are terrifying, because if you scaled this guy up to heavyweight he'd be throwing sledge hammers at his opponents. He has finished 19 of his 22 wins with 12 coming by way of knockout and another 9 coming from his brutal submissions. Alvarez got into MMA after excelling at wrestling in high school, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In his most recent fight he lost his lightweight title to Michael Chandler, and instead of following up his loss with a fight back to the top, he would like a rematch with the aforementioned Shinya Aoki, to whom he suffered a submission loss in 2008. Alvarez absolutely possesses all the tools a fighter needs to be one of the best in the world, and as the rankings show, he clearly is. Dana White hasn't necessarily had a chance to bring Eddie into the fold because of his contractual obligations with Bellator, but with his title loss in the rearview we don't know where he will head next. If he does in fact return to DREAM to fight Aoki again we could see an amazing war between two of the best lightweights in the world, and neither of them have ever stepped inside of a UFC cage. He's a solid fighter who is dangerous in any situation and nearly impossible to stop, so if Zuffa gets ahold of this guy, the entire division should be put on notice.

4. Hector Lombard - Middleweight (31-2-1)

In the interest of honesty, and to put it bluntly, if Hector Lombard did what he has done in his career but inside of the UFC cage, he would be considered Anderson Silva, but better. Unfortunately for Lombard his career has been spent recently in Bellator with short stints in Pride and various small organizations. His record is absolutely phenomenal, with 17 knockouts, seven submissions and seven decisions against just two decision losses. He has an incredible talent for Judo in which he holds a black belt, as well as jiu-jitsu where he holds another black belt. However unlike most BJJ fighters if you keep Hector Lombard on his feet, he is absolutely going to knock you out, there's not much of a doubt in that.

Many times the folks at Bellator have spent time tweeting, facebooking and putting out press releases saying that Hector Lombard would "absolutely" defeat Anderson Silva. The only bone I have to pick with this is that Anderson Silva has been facing top talent for his entire career whereas Lombard has fought very few elite fighters. Could he beat him? Sure, technically anyone can beat anyone on any given day, but that's just the way things work and how the universe keeps its balance. It is however extremely unlikely to happen anytime soon if ever and even if the fight took place there's no knowing who would take home the win. Lombard deserves the praise he gets from promoters and fans alike because he is one of the best in the world at middleweight, and if we can get him inside a UFC cage he will have his first true chance to show the world that he can hang with the elite.

5. Fedor Emelianenko - Heavyweight (33-4)

I know most of you probably saw this coming and a large amount of you will disagree with me but hear me out. Fedor has absolutely decimated some of the best fighters in the world, and until Fabricio Werdum broke his streak was considered the best heavyweight in the world. It's not that dissimilar of a story from Brock Lesnar, who beat the ever living tar out of some of the best guys on the planet, but when a couple guys beat him everyone started hopping on the "he sucks" bandwagon; the major difference, of course, was that Fedor did it over a much longer period. Brock Lesnar certainly didn't suck and neither does The Last Emperor, the only problem with all of this is that Fedor has never managed to find his way into the UFC, whether it be his asking price or the M-1 affiliation things just never fell into place. But what if they did, or for that matter why can't we just get him in the Octagon once?

Fedor has spent the last 12 years chewing up heavyweights and spitting them out, but because of three losses people believe that he's a fraud? Dan Henderson has the heaviest right hand in MMA, Fabricio Werdum has some of the best jiu-jitsu in all of MMA, and Antonio Silva is just a mastodon, so can we really say these three guys are so bad that them beating Fedor means the guy sucks? I would bet a pretty penny that there are more than a few top heavyweights in UFC that would get picked apart and defeated by Fedor, in fact more than 10 of his wins have come over past or present UFC fighters - including some champions. If he were to separate from M-1 and lower his ridiculous salary request we could make this happen, and I would love to see him step in the cage with Cain Velasquez or get a rematch with Fabricio Werdum. Losing three fights in a row doesn't make you a fraud, plenty of top tier talent have done that in their career, so don't crucify him - tell Dana White to put his money where his mouth is and either prove himself right … or wrong.



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