Great Divide: Who is the greatest featherweight of all time?

Jed Meshew https://ift.tt/rj582Wt

Jose Aldo and Alexander Volkanovski | Photo by Buda Mendes/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

The Great Divide is a recurring feature here at MMA Fighting in which two of our staff debate a topic in the world of MMA – news, a fight, a crazy thing somebody did, a crazy thing somebody didn’t do, or some moral dilemma threatening the very foundation of the sport — and try to figure out a resolution. We’d love for you to join in the discussion in the comments below.

At UFC 314, Alexander Volkanovski did something no man had ever done before: he won a UFC title fight in a weight class below 170 pounds over the age of 35. Before Saturday, fighters 35 or older were 0-10 in UFC title fights from flyweight to lightweight. Now Volkanovski stands alone as the statistical outlier who defies the adage that Father Time comes for us all. But does he stand alone as the Greatest of All Time at 145 pounds?

Volkanovski’s win on Saturday and return to the top of the featherweight mountain renewed a conversation that had been growing louder before Volkanovski’s loss to Ilia Topuria last year. Who really stands above the rest at 145 pounds in MMA history? Jed Meshew and Damon Martin make their cases.

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Photo by Cooper Neill/Zuffa LLC

Jose Aldo is the FW GOAT

Meshew: Oh, goody gumdrops, we get to have this asinine conversation again! I thought when Volkanovski lost the title, this very silly topic would have died the quiet death it deserved, but somehow he wins a — let’s be honest, papery — belt and the band of fans who only started following MMA in 2016 strikes up again. Well, it’s my civic duty to remind you all just who the heck Jose Friggin’ Aldo is.

But first, let me tell you what I’m not going to do: I’m not going to drag down Volkanovski. The case for Aldo as GOAT (and it’s not a case, it’s a fact) is not that Volkanovski is bad or overrated or anything negative to do with him. Volkanovski is one of the 10 greatest fighters to ever lace up gloves. No, the argument is simply recognition of how absurd Jose Aldo’s accomplishments are.

Volkanovski breaking the 35+ curse — albeit, again, with a bit of an asterisk — is no small accomplishment. But how about Aldo being the youngest champion in Zuffa history? It rarely gets talked about because Jon Jones is “the youngest champion in UFC history,” except that’s only on a technicality. Jones won the light heavyweight title at 23 years and 243 days old. Aldo won the WEC featherweight title — the de facto UFC belt at the time, since the promotion didn’t have 145 or below — at 23 years and 70 days old. Aldo beat him to the punch by nearly six months! (And the fact that he’s still getting Top 15 wins at bantamweight a decade after his prime is legitimately one of the most incredible things in MMA history, but it’s at 135, so it has no bearing here.)

But that’s just the appetizer of accomplishment because the truth is this “argument” comes down to one simple fact: “greatness” is a measure of accomplishment, and there are only a couple of fighters in MMA history who have accomplished more than Aldo. Nine successful title defenses over six years (I’m not going to count his interim title win over Frankie Edgar in their rematch at UFC 200 even though it became the undisputed title, for the same reason I’m not sure we should give all that much credence to Volkanovski’s win at UFC 314 — they didn’t beat the champ). That’s third all-time (tied with Georges St-Pierre) for number of title defenses and second all-time behind Anderson Silva in days as champion (2215 for Aldo, 2457 for Silva). For context, Volkanovski’s incredibly impressive title run was 1761 days with five title defenses. That’s genuinely an insane accomplishment; it’s also just about half of Aldo’s defenses and 15 months less time at the top.

And though I’m loath to give the mouth-breathers who make this argument any attention, let’s address by far the most common refrain when trying to tear down Aldo’s resume: EvErBoDy He FoUgHt WaS tRaSh!

Urijah Faber and Frankie Edgar are champions and UFC Hall of Famers. Chad Mendes is only not a Hall of Famer because he had the unfortunate timing to have his career run entirely during Aldo’s. They both fought Korean Zombie, but Volkanovski got him past the 35+ age line. And while people are quick to rip on guys like Ricardo Lamas, Kenny Florian, and Mark Hominick, stick around the sport for a while. I will bet you absolutely anything that in a decade, some new crop of fans will look at Volkanovski’s resume and say, “Well, Yair Rodriguez and Brian Ortega are trash.” That’s just how these things go. If you don’t win a belt, the people who weren’t there to see you fight think you sucked.

But the thing about title fights is, it’s always against a good guy. That’s how titles work. The people fighting for them are always among the best available opposition. And while Volkanovski has done unbelievable things in his career — and again, is a Top 10 fighter of all time — he simply hasn’t done as much as Aldo. And even he knows it!

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But here’s the thing, Volkanovski isn’t done yet. While this title is a little specious, the fact remains it’s his now, and he’s going to defend it. If he puts a few more notches in the belt and at least gets close to Aldo’s NINE title defenses, we can revisit this conversation. But please, I’m begging y’all, put some respect on Jose Aldo’s name. The man is not just the King of Rio, he’s the King of Featherweight, too.

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Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

Alexander Volkanovski is the Featherweight GOAT

Let’s be clear — this debate isn’t meant to tear down one guy to build up another but when you’re talking about the resumes of two all-time greats, you have to start nitpicking to find differences between the two.

First and foremost the easiest argument to make for Aldo are the total number of title defenses he had as champion between the UFC and WEC. Make no mistake that’s a wildly impressive accomplishment but context matters when it comes to those title defenses.

Not that Demetrious Johnson deserves to catch a stray here but his record for the most title defenses in UFC history with 11 might hold up forever but typically speaking, he doesn’t jump over fighters like Jon Jones or Georges St-Pierre when it comes to the GOAT conversation simply because he defended his title more than them and that’s largely due to the level of competition each faced during their respective careers. Bill Russell won 11 NBA titles but he barely registers in arguments over the best basketball player in history even though he nearly doubled the amount of championships that Michael Jordan claimed during his legendary career.

The same applies for Aldo and Volkanovski but it must also be stated that it’s not like there’s some giant chasm between them when it comes to their history in championship fights.

As it stands, Volkanovski holds a remarkable 14-1 record at featherweight with a 7-1 resume in title fights at 145 pounds in the UFC compared to Aldo, who is 10-4 overall with an 8-3 record in championship bouts.

Of course, Aldo’s wins are impressive but as much as we all love Mark Hominick, he was 20-8 when he got the title shot and there’s no ignoring he went 0-3 after falling to Aldo before retiring from the sport. It’s often forgotten that Kenny Florian was a very good fighter in his day but his biggest accomplishments came at lightweight. Add to that, he had one win at featherweight before he got his title shot, he lost to Aldo and then never fought again. As for Volkanovski, his only title defense against a fighter in a similar situation was “The Korean Zombie,” who lost and then only competed one more time before calling it a career

OK, let’s just say you want to put Volkanovski’s title fight wins over Yair Rodriguez and Brian Ortega in the same bucket as Hominick and Florian then I’ve got two words for you to consider — MAX HOLLOWAY.

At worst, Holloway is the third best featherweight of all time and Volkanovski beat him three times with the third fight being the most lopsided match of them all. As for Aldo, he’s 0-2 against Holloway and got finished by knockout both times. And let’s not forget about the fact that these two actually fought — Volkanovski won a dominant decision over Aldo before the Brazilian left the division and tried his hand at bantamweight instead.

None of those fights happened with Volkanovski or Aldo past their prime so you can’t even use that argument when it comes to comparing those performances.

There’s no true metric to measure greatness because so much goes into determining who we believe are the best fighters in the history of the sport. Without a doubt, Aldo is on that list but Volkanovski’s quality of wins are just better overall, especially when you factor in the head-to-head competition.

Maybe Aldo could have added to his legacy at featherweight had he ultimately not left the division while Volkanovski just made history as the oldest fighter to ever capture UFC gold at 155 pounds or below. Yes, he beat Diego Lopes rather than avenging his loss to Ilia Topuria but Aldo claimed an interim title (that was eventually turned into an undisputed belt) after he beat Frankie Edgar rather than getting a second shot at Conor McGregor, who separated him from consciousness in 13 seconds.

These guys are both future UFC Hall of Famers but Volkanovski just has the better overall resume with more meaningful wins at featherweight, which is why he’s the GOAT.

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