The 5 best UFC fighters from Europe

#1 Conor McGregor

Conor McGregor's accomplishments alone put him up there with the all-time greats

Okay, so this was probably quite obvious in the end. Conor McGregor is, of course, the UFC’s first ever Irish champion, and he’s probably the most famous man in MMA history.

He’s almost certainly the biggest draw in the young history of the sport – selling pay-per-views by the million – and whether you love him or you hate him for his money-obsessed, trash talking, braggadocio style, you can’t deny that he’s been simply amazing since emerging onto the UFC scene in 2012.

Like it or not, based on his accomplishments alone – holding two titles in two weight classes at the same time – he’s up there with the greats like GSP, Silva and Hughes.

Debuting with a knockout win over Marcus Brimage on the undercard of a UFC on Fuel show, McGregor’s rise was as meteoric as any we’ve seen in the sport. Even when he was on the shelf for a year following an ACL injury, he kept his name out there with his non-stop trash talk.

Upon his return, he headlined the first UFC show in Dublin in five years and knocked out Diego Brandao, took out a top contender in Dustin Poirier in a matter of minutes, and then shut up the detractors who said he was avoiding wrestlers by starching Chad Mendes to take the Interim Featherweight title at UFC 189.

The Interim title was created when Jose Aldo pulled out of a meeting with McGregor, but he couldn’t avoid the unification match for too long and when the two met at UFC 194, it was expected to be a titanic battle. Instead, Conor shut up his critics with a one-punch, 13-second knockout.

The title win cemented him as the biggest name in the sport, and since then it’s just gotten bigger. His infamous series with Nate Diaz followed – McGregor lost the first meeting, but avenged the loss in the second – and then he knocked out Eddie Alvarez to claim the Lightweight title, too.

Since then, of course, it’s all gotten a little silly – a freakshow boxing match with Floyd Mayweather earned him millions of dollars and quite a lot of respect, but since then, it’s been weird controversies like his homophobic slurs at a UFC event and his recent cage-jumping escapades during a Bellator show.

Whether McGregor gets back into the cage is anyone’s guess – he certainly doesn’t need to from a financial perspective, but if he doesn’t, his detractors will always call him out on his lack of title defences – but he remains a superstar in every possible facet. And with his accomplishments to date, he’s certainly the best European fighter to ever set foot into the UFC Octagon.