Jon Jones
Khabib Nurmagomedov
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Khabib Nurmagomedov leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Jon Jones at #1 and Khabib Nurmagomedov at #4.
The case for Jon Jones
Widely regarded as the most complete fighter the sport has produced, Jones holds a record of 28-1 with the lone loss a controversial 2009 disqualification for illegal downward elbows against Matt Hamill — a fight he was dominating. He became the youngest UFC champion in history at 23 by stopping Shogun Rua at UFC 128 in 2011, then ruled light heavyweight for nearly a decade, beating Daniel Cormier, Alexander Gustafsson, Lyoto Machida, Vitor Belfort, Glover Teixeira, Thiago Santos and Dominick Reyes. In 2023 he moved up to heavyweight and submitted Ciryl Gane for the vacant title at UFC 285, then stopped former champion Stipe Miocic with a spinning back kick to the body at UFC 309 in 2024. His unmatched reach, creativity and fight IQ are shadowed only by suspensions and legal issues outside the cage.
The case for Khabib Nurmagomedov
The most dominant grappler the sport has known, Khabib retired flawless at 29-0, having barely lost a round across his entire career. A multiple-time combat sambo world champion from Dagestan, he built a smothering, cage-crushing wrestling style — 'send them off,' as his father put it — that no opponent solved. He won the vacant lightweight title against Al Iaquinta at UFC 223 in 2018, then defended it in the biggest fight in company history, submitting Conor McGregor by neck crank in the fourth round at UFC 229 before roughly 2.4 million pay-per-view buyers. He followed with submissions of Dustin Poirier and, in his final bout, a third-round triangle choke of Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 in 2020. He retired immediately afterward, honoring a promise to his mother following his father's death, walking away perfect.