5 reasons why Demetrious Johnson is the greatest MMA fighter of all time

#5 The other contenders all have minus points on them

The other fighters considered contenders for the ‘Greatest’ label alongside Johnson are generally assumed to be Georges St-Pierre, Jon Jones, Fedor Emelianenko, and Anderson Silva.

And of those five, Johnson probably has the strongest claim purely because he doesn’t have some of the question marks hanging over him that the others do. Sure, you could argue he’s fighting in the weakest division, but he’s still destroying top contenders regularly. Let’s look at the others.

GSP is probably the closest contender to DJ, but hanging over him are his two career losses, to Matt Hughes and Matt Serra, as well as the Johny Hendricks fight which he probably should’ve lost.

The Hughes fight carries no shame but the Serra loss – even though he avenged it – was embarrassing, and Johnson has no losses like that on his ledger. Both of his, in fact, came at 135lbs, a weight class above his natural home.

Silva and Jones both have fantastic records – you can’t really hold Silva’s late-career losses against him I don’t think while Jones realistically has never lost – but the spectre of PEDs hangs over both men like a black cloud, particularly Jones who has now tested positive twice in the prime of his career.

And while Fedor had a fantastic run in PRIDE, many of his opponents were questionable and once he made it into the US, accusations of ducking opponents haunted him and his vaunted winning record was soon broken.

Basically, Johnson stands above the rest – for the time being at least – and while he’s clearly not completely infallible, I’d say he definitely warrants being recognised as the greatest MMA fighter of all time, to date at least.

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