They'd Never Be Champs, But We Love Them

Stone Cold Steve Austin once said, If you're not trying to be world champion, then you are in the wrong business. Now, granted, he was talking about the business of blokes in their undies slapping each other on the chest. But the sentiment applies to MMA as well. You have to imagine every man and woman who has taped up the gloves and stepped into the cage has had that big shiny gold belt in mind. That being said, some of the most beloved and exciting fighters in the world never made it to that mountaintop. If we're being completely honest, some of them didn't have a snowball's chance in hell. So today, let's celebrate those fighters who were never going to be champion, but we love them anyway. And we're going to start off with everyone's favorite uncle, Mark Hunt. Unless your name's Dana Frederick White Jr., you probably love Marky Mark of the Punchy Bunch. The Super Samoan had the most symmetrical UFC career in history, has a losing record in MMA, and yet is one of the most celebrated guys in the history of the heavyweight division. I've seen Mark Hunt warm up. They were like, come on, do some pads. He stood up, he threw like four or five uppercuts, sat back down, and he was like, he was pissed off that they got him up. And then he went out there, threw an uppercut, boom, knocks the guy out. And it was like the funniest ---- I've ever seen in my life. Firstly, he put on some of the greatest fights in the division's history in a weight class that can be as boring as pulling your eyelashes out one by one. For every Ngannou versus Lewis, there is a Hunt versus Bigfoot, an absolute war for 25 minutes that left Mark Hunt's beautiful bleached hair stained scarlet. I was going ******* nuts just punch after punch rocking each other back and forth and it was just it was the sickest heavyweight fight I've ever seen and his losing effort against Junior Dos Santos was awesome to behold for as long as it lasted and of course if you haven't seen Mark Hunt fight Ray Sefo in kickboxing even if you have zero interest in kickboxing please watch that fight please two enormous punchers laughing at each other's face as they swing hooks at one another with their hands down it's the closest thing to an anime mech fight you're ever gonna see in real life god bless new zealand add on top of all this the fact that mark hunt made it a personal crusade to fight and beat as many steroid cheats as he possibly could there's a big ******* pink elephant in the room somewhere and it's uh it's got a lot of steroids in it it's called a ******* needle that's what it is i think they're all just cheaters what they stand for is nothing they're just cowards at least 11 out of his 25 opponents across his MMA career tested positive for PEDs, including Bigfoot after that crazy draw, which makes it even better that Mark KO'd him in the rematch. The power that Mark Hunt can generate with his punches is something extraordinary. And like many people in this video, it's probably a bit harsh to say he was never gonna be champ. It's heavyweight, for ****'s sake. Your fat Uncle Terry could be champion if he managed to get his ass out of the pub for five minutes. Hunt could knock out any man walking the planet, and it is a very thin division, ironically. Hell, he even got as far as an interim title shot. But coming into the UFC at 36 years old on a 6 or 7 fight losing streak with absolutely zero grappling, there's only so far that a good chin and knockout power can take you, especially if your cardio isn't god tier. And in the era of heavyweight champions like Cain Velasquez, Junior Dos Santos, Fabricio Werdum and Stipe Miocic being on top of the heap, I just don't think Hunt had the weapons. That being said, for all the memes, for all the walk-offs, for smacking up roid heads, and basically just for being himself, we love you, Mark. Stop trying to be tough online or I'll knock your teeth out. I know where you live, boy. Now let's go from a big heavy puncher to the opposite and talk about Kazushi Sakuraba. Sakuraba is an interesting one because most of the guys I talk about today are going to be beloved for how they fight. Big punches, knockout artists, blood and guts strikers, huge personalities. Kazushi Sakuraba is not one of these men. Coming from professional wrestling, that aforementioned under-chest slapping, with a catch wrestling style, it doesn't exactly pass the sniff test for excitement, does it? And yet everybody loves Sakuraba. One of my favorite fighters ever, Kazushi Sakuraba. He endeared himself to the fans through his choices, showing up to UFC Japan in 1997 lying about his weight so they'd let this 180-pound guy in against the 240-pound monsters and winning that tournament. Saku basically just then went on to fight larger men his entire career. Even in his own weight class he was routinely 10 or 20 pounds lighter than the likes of Wanderlei Silva, Rampage Jackson, Ricardo Arona and Vitor Belfort. But he also fought a lot of his career against heavyweights like Big Nog, Cro Cop, Fovchanshin, Randleman. These guys were huge. He beat Hoist Gracie over a 90 minute fight, rounds of 15, they're not counting two minutes of rest in between rounds. So that was a total of 945." He would fight basically anyone under any rule set and usually gave up the advantage. It is impossible not to respect that. Add on top of that, despite his catch wrestling and pro wrestling background, he has an 88% finish rate. Even Charles Oliveira, the most finishy finisher in the history of the UFC, he's sitting at 86. Saku had an amazing chin, which we saw a lot because he was basically fed to the wolves sometimes by the Pride FC matchmakers they made him go up against prime vandy three times he got really up by Wanderlei beat the **** out of him with soccer kicks on the ground and all that crazy ---- it was like watching a man get hit by a train be released from hospital and then stand on that same piece of train track two more times there's also a bit of a silly billy as you can see from his fantastic and underrated YouTube channel by all accounts an incredibly humble guy a UFC Hall of Famer and he beat 15 former champions across different promotions but was he ever going to be the top dog of course not across his career if you exclude that UFC tournament win he had two title fight losses two Grand Prix quarterfinal losses one Grand Prix semi-final loss and a Grand Prix opening round loss all of those by KO he was never going to be able to be at the top of the mountain with his style and his size, especially not in Pride. But hey, he had the Saku belt, so that counts, right? And now a hop, skip, and a jump from Japan, we have our next beloved scrapper, your friendly neighborhood Korean zombie, or Chan Sung Jung if you're boring. Skill-wise, KZ has got to be one of the top dogs on this list. In his original UFC run, he was just fantastic to watch. And where a lot of these guys are limited in their weaponry, the zombie had a lot to work with. And just a really smart, really just tough, good grappler, man. It's like the hype is real with this guy. Heavy hands, extremely underrated jiu-jitsu. And when he wanted to be, he could be a really slick operator too. One of the fastest KOs in UFC history, seven seconds against Mark Hominick. The first twister in UFC history, which had both Joe Rogan and Eddie Bravo absolutely creaming their jeans. And like with Hunter, you might think I'm being harsh to say he was never going to be champ. He had two title shots. He was routinely in the top 15 at featherweight, but there are two main reasons He's in this video and one is actually the reason we love him in the first place He took so so much damage hence the nickname hence the love but my god the accumulation. I want to fight always but My chin is there. He still wants to fight honestly, but he just feel like his chin is kind of gone and Once it's gone doesn't come back in raw numbers it doesn't seem that shocking. Around 900 strikes absorbed, 820 of them significant strikes. That's a 4.52 significant strike per minute rate. It's slightly above average, but it's more than just the raw data here. The wars he had with Leonard Garcia, Dustin Poirier, Yair Rodriguez, and Brian Ortega just wore down his chin and his body. I've been having brain damage for over the years, so I don't have that chin anymore. The list of injuries and surgeries seems never-ending. Left shoulder, rotator cuff tear. Right shoulder, separated. Broken hands, broken feet, broken orbital bones, ruptured ACL, MCL, meniscus, eye surgery to fix double vision. By the time of his second UFC run, this man was already like a Warhammer dreadnought, just held together by bits of string and still fighting to the death. And that's the second thing that killed his UFC title chances. He needed two runs. After separating his shoulder in his first title fight against Jose Aldo, he was called up for mandatory military service in Korea, which is when he suffered that massive knee injury and needed reconstruction. He didn't fight for four years, four years of his absolute prime. It's such a waste. The gap between his two title fights was almost a whole decade. Oh yeah, and the two guys he would have had to beat to reach that gold? Prime Jose Aldo and Prime Alexander Volkanovski. I know KZ was good, but honestly, between the injuries and those opponents, it just felt like Lady Luck dealt him a ---- hand. It just wasn't in the stars for our favorite brave enough to ever win the title. And the same goes for Clay Guida. Newer fans probably only know Clay for his latter career, where he came a little bit of a poster boy for being fed to younger up-and-coming talent. Brian Ortega in 2016, Charles Oliveira on his march to the title, things like that. But among the older heads and the hardcores, Clay Guida was always a name that pricked your ears up. Once more, coming into the sport as a wrestler, you wouldn't think that his fighting style could endear him to fans as much as it has. but sometimes that wild-ass caveman-looking dude would sort of forget about wrestling and just swing. Is he the most talented, well-rounded mixed martial artist in the world? No. His style is to move forward, and I think that's the style that's made him who he is, the style that's made him a fan favorite and warhammer fights. His Hall of Fame fight with Diego Sanchez is the stuff of legends. Two actual crazy people, mean-mugging and throwing hands non-stop for 15 minutes, and by the end, they both looked like the Kool-Aid man had sneezed his life juice all over them. And yeah, as the scorecards were read out, Clay Guida was still bouncing on the balls of his feet and looking like he was just happy to be here. That's the kind of thing that made this man a two-time fan-voted Tequila Cazadores Spirit Award winner. Yeah, apparently that's a real thing, but seriously, I don't think there's ever been as relentless a fighter as Clay Guida. They gave Marab the nickname Machine, but I've never seen him bouncing on the balls of his feet as the scorecards are read after an actual gladiatorial death match. And to top it all off, even as he was aging out of the division and his limitations were becoming obvious, Clay just wouldn't give the UFC enough of a reason to cut him. It took over 20 ******* years for this man to lose more than two fights in a row. He just kept on winning fights that he had no right to. I know, we'll bring in WEC champion and actual human ninja Anthony Pettis, fresh off of the Showtime kick. Let's give him Clay Guida so we can fast track him to the belt. Yeah, no, Guida wins. He had this awkward style, good wrestling, and he'd just take me down and grind me out. How about Michael Johnson? He needs a win. He's got huge knockout power in this division. Guida just won't be able to handle it. No, Guida wins. Okay, ****. It's 2021. Can we just give him this ADCC-level jiu-jitsu specialist, Leo Santos? He's coming back from his first loss in 11 years. Yeah, Clay submitted him. It's hilarious. It's like trying to step on a cockroach, but the cockroach has been beating people up since 2003. Was he ever going to win the belt? God no. Closest he ever got was a title eliminator in 2011, and that's across a 37 fight UFC career, so it's not like he didn't get a shot. And with the second most losses in UFC history at 19, it was just pretty abundantly clear that Clay was a bit slow, a bit hittable, not very technical, and for most of his career, a bit of a relic of a bygone age. Oh ****, was it fun watching him just onk people every now and again. And moving right on from onk to neff, see, I'm cool, I know the We have the first current fighter on this list Tommy Guns McMillan. I just heard all the fanboys throwing bricks at their computer screen Max he's undefeated. He's 3 and 0 in the UFC. What the **** are you talking about? He's never gonna be champ Yes, okay, pitchforks down for a second Please, obviously Tommy has an opportunity to prove me wrong and I can't wait to see what he's able to do in his career That's the point of having him on this list I love this kid, if you look past the tattoos that make him look like an old schooler that joined a gang, look past the enormous sunglasses and what do you have must-watch MMA, I really do think he's the best fighter to watch in the sport right now, you know what you're gonna get with Tommy McMillan, absolute blood and guts, he's gonna be smiling, he's gonna be throwing bombs and he's gonna be eating bombs too and that last part is the issue, Tommy gets hit like it's going out of fashion fast, I mean he came out of his Contender Series bout looking like he'd snorted a line of angry bees and then stood on a rake, in his most recent fight, possibly the fight of the year so far against Marwan Rahiki he was doing the chicken dance with a mashed up face in the second round before he could mount his incredible comeback, yes the guy does not stop, he's got heart for days and he will tank headshots but that's a really big problem for me, the chin is one of the first things to leave you as a fighter especially if your style is to not protect it and as talented and hard-hitting as he is, if his chin starts to go, I think the top 15 at featherweight will be a murderer's row for him. I mean, can you imagine what John Silver or Diego Lopez will do to his face? So maybe, just maybe, I'll put an asterisk on this one and say, unless he makes some big changes, I think Tommy Gunns is going to struggle hard to sniff out any gold in the big show. But ******* hell, is he fun to watch. I love it. Tommy wants to be entertaining. He wants to fight. He's literally born for this ----. There's nothing else he'd rather be doing. And if you want to talk about fun to watch, look no further than the Black Beast, Derrick Lewis. Talk about a guy who managed to get over with the fans, not just for his in-ring ability, but everything else about him too. Derek Lewis is, he's a, he's a genius. Derek Lewis has lost a bit of his shine lately because I think the fans have finally figured out he's got about two minutes of cardio and he will be beaten by anybody whose chin he can't find. But back in his heyday, man, this guy briefly managed to transcend the sport. My mom asked me, Who's that big fat bloke who took his shorts off while he was talking to Joe Rogan? That was a bit of a weird conversation. Obviously, any man with the most knockouts in the history of the UFC is going to be beloved by a certain type of fan, right? Lewis has delivered some of the most devastating highlight reel moments in a division full of big punches. When he hit Curtis Blades with that uppercut, holy ----. I think Curtis bypassed the shadow realm. He just went to whatever comes next. No gulag for you. That was like one of the most perfectly timed uppercuts I've ever seen. And, of course, outside of giving very large men very large brain damage, Derek Lewis was busy just cracking everybody up. Who punches the harder thing? My wife does. I think anyone would do well in heavyweight division. You know, most of us are just fat guys, man. Remember his beef with Daniel Cormier about the Popeye's chicken thing? What's your issue with Daniel? He disrespected Popeye's chicken on a commercial a few years ago. It's a bit overplayed now. Obviously, the balls was hot moment, but the subsequent commercials were pretty great. He's just a genuinely funny dude. Tack on to that, rescuing a hundred people from the Houston floods back in the day with his massive truck. Battering that poor fool who tried to steal said massive truck. For a while, it seemed like every other day we were just getting a funny or heartfelt story in the news about Derek Lewis. And that is how you win over the fan base. But was he ever going to get the belt? I mean, like with Hunt, obviously in heavyweight, you have a punch's chance at anything, right? But yeah, even Mark Hunt managed to beat Derek Lewis. And that's really all you need to know. The most one-note of one-note fighters, with a bad gas tank and a permanently injured back. I just don't think the Black Beast was ever destined for gold. I could continue fighting these takedown fighters, you know. I like fighting guys like that right now, so keep them coming. And yeah, in an era of Stipe Miocic, Daniel Cormier, I mean, John Jones, I just, I don't think he's beating any of these guys. And I think that might be all we have time for, folks. Like I said, I'm certain there's going to be some arguments that these guys could have grabbed that brass ring. And look, that's fine. that's what discussions for hit us up in the comments i'll have a look maybe if i'm feeling froggy i might even reply to a few but let us know who do you think should have been added to the list nate diaz nick diaz donald cerrone maybe thanks as always to our channel members you guys really do make a difference you keep the lights on and you let us stay able to do this if you're interested in getting involved make sure you click the join button underneath the video and have a look at the options otherwise if you did like the video make sure you do like it and subscribe if you want to keep up with what we're doing and i will see you in the next one