The 5 best UFC fighters from Brazil

#3 Jose Aldo

Jose Aldo was one of the UFC's most dominant champions

One of the UFC’s truly dominant champions, despite the fame of Conor McGregor and the current brilliance of Max Holloway, most MMA observers would still consider Aldo the greatest 145lber of all time – you simply can’t argue with seven successful UFC title defences – and that would’ve been nine had the UFC integrated the division from its sister promotion WEC a couple of years earlier.

As it was, Aldo came into the UFC as the already-crowned champion when the lighter weight classes were imported from the WEC and was immediately pushed as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters on the planet. Aldo more than lived up to his side of the bargain, showing off his unparalleled striking skill as well as his unbelievable takedown defence in his early defences against the likes of Kenny Florian and Mark Hominick.

The only knock on Aldo? The fact that he didn’t fight quite as much as most fans would’ve hoped, due to a susceptibility to injuries. Indeed, he was forced out of a total of five scheduled fights due to various ailments, the most infamous either being UFC 176 (which was cancelled due to Aldo withdrawing from his fight with Chad Mendes) or UFC 189 (which saw him withdraw from his huge fight with McGregor).

Ignoring that, though, and you can’t deny the dominance of his run at 145lbs. Up until his loss to McGregor in 2015, nobody had really come close to beating Aldo – not strikers, wrestlers, submission artists or a mix of all three. And even post-McGregor saw him recapture his title with an imperious win over Frankie Edgar before Holloway came knocking. On his day, Aldo was probably the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, and not many can say that.