Who Are The P4P Baddest MFs In MMA History?

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For a guy who often seems uncomfortable speaking in public at all, Nate Diaz sure owns some great moments in self-marketing history. There was his callout of Conor McGregor in 2015 that earned him a last minute red panty night when Rafael Dos Anjos got injured – “You’re taking everything I work for, motherf**ker. I’m gonna fight your f**king ass!”

And then there was the miraculous birth of the Baddest Motherf**ker belt, which Nate shit talked into existence following his three round dismantling of Anthony Pettis at UFC 241.

“No one’s showing any acknowledgement for being the best fighter in the world. Which I am, just like Masvidal,” Nate said. “I’m the best martial artist. Now we’re fighting for the baddest motherf**ker in the game belt. And that’s mine! So I’d like to defend that against Jorge Masvidal. If he wants to be the baddest motherf**ker, that’s how we gonna do it.”

While UFC president Dana White says the plan is to make the ‘BMF Belt’ a one off novelty, you know that biz is going to carry on past the inaugural title fight between Diaz and Jorge Masvidal at UFC 244. People still keep track of all the lineal PRIDE and Strikeforce champions, so there’s no way our grand kids aren’t going to be tracing the path of the BMF title fifty years from now (provided MMA and/or civilization is still a thing).

So with the future of the BMF title semi-secure, now we have to do a little groundwork to establish which BMFs got us to where we are today. To help us, we have former (and future?) UFC fighter turned commentator Dan Hardy. He put together his all-time greatest list, and it’s pretty solid.

1. Nick and Nate Diaz
2. Jorge Masvidal
3. Wanderlei Silva
4. Robbie Lawler
5. Joanna Jedrzejczyk
6. Donald Cerrone
7. BJ Penn
8. Tito Ortiz
9. Jon Jones
10. Mike Perry

So good news for the legitimacy of the BMF belt: we’ve got the number 1 and 2 guys fighting for it, which is as it should be (unlike how the UFC launched women’s featherweight). Hardy gives older brother Nick a hat tip for doing a lot of the Diaz branding groundwork too. It’s hard to argue with Wanderlei Silva earning spot number 3 considering his extensive body of terrifying work. Robbie Lawler certainly has flashes of bad mofo mojo as well.

From there it gets a bit subjective and I ain’t gonna tell you what’s right or wrong. Duke it out yourselves in the comments. And don’t forget to include your secret sauce formula — what percentage of baditude versus what percentage kick-assery makes up your BMF calculation.

And I doubt I even have to mention it, but McGregor fans (those that are left) take note: Dan Hardy left your boi off the list entirely.