Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Light Heavyweights

6. Quinton Jackson

The middle spots on this list are a chaotic traffic jam, as virtually everyone had Jackson, Mauricio Rua, Lyoto Machida and Chuck Liddell ranked between fourth and seventh—but in a different order. Personally, I had Jackson sixth. His career in Pride Fighting Championships wasn't nearly as good as people recall. An early submission loss to Kazushi Sakuraba is forgivable, and he has nice knockout victories over Liddell, Ricardo Arona, and Kevin Randleman, but not only was he viciously knocked out twice by Wanderlei Silva and once by “Shogun,” the latter an utterly one-sided beating, but his split decision wins over Murilo Bustamante and Murilo Rua—both natural middleweights who were substantially smaller than Jackson, to boot—were robberies, especially the latter. Something about facing Brazilians named Murilo, I guess.

Rampage hadn't sustained nearly as much damage as his rival Silva had, though, so he ended up having a much better career in the UFC, winning the championship by easy first-round knockout against Liddell in their rematch and defending it against Dan Henderson, unifying the UFC and Pride belts in the process. Even after losing the title by decision to Forrest Griffin, he knocked out Silva in their trilogy match, took a decision over longtime contender Keith Jardine and won that controversial split decision against Machida. He was then stopped by Jon Jones and his career went downhill afterward, but it was a great run overall. His excellent wrestling, including his trademark slams, and heavy-handed boxing were an incredible combination when he was at his best.

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