The Best Fighters Outside the UFC: Featherweight & Lightweight

Contributor: Tim Hickey

(You can read Part I, with Flyweights and Bantamweights, here.)

It is a common known fact that that UFC possesses the deepest and most talented roster of MMA fighters on the planet. Over the past couple of years, with the absorption of the WEC and Strikeforce, they possess a majority of the best fighters in the world. But MMA is a world sport, and there is a barrage of talented fighters outside of the Zuffa bubble. This series of articles will focus on those fighters who are waiting for their chance to be called to the big show. Today we focus on the featherweights and lightweight who are forging their craft outside of the bright lights.

Pat Curran

Notable victories: Patricio Freire, Joe Warren, Marlon Sandro, Toby Imada, Roger Huerta, Mike Ricci, Daniel Straus

Championships: Bellator Season 2 Lightweight tournament winner, Bellator Summer Series Featherweight tournament winner, Bellator Featherweight Champion

Highlight Video:

Currently the highest ranked fighter outside of the UFC according to the Bloody Elbow Meta Rankings, Pat Curran has shown himself to be one of the most talented featherweights in the world. Starting his career as a lightweight and training under his cousin, former Pride, UFC and WEC veteran Jeff Curran, Pat had some excellent success in that division, winning the 2nd Bellator LW tournament, earning himself a fight with then champion Eddie Alvarez. He would go on to drop a decision to the champ, in which made him decide to drop down to featherweight. Since the drop in weight, he hasn’t looked back. Since losing to Alvarez, he has gone 6-0, with 4 of those victories coming via submission or KO. He looks to be a mainstay at the top of the heap in Bellator, and is being sold as one of the faces of Bellator . It is not outside of the realm of sanity to say that Curran can hang with any featherweight in the world on any given night.

Honorio Banario

Video: Here is his fight against Andrew Benibe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43dcoEAMAGo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sInIvWGXJQ

A 23 year old prospect from the Phillippines, Banario is an aggressive striker and very solid grappler, who likes to put pressure on his opponents and walk them down, where he then throws bombs. He has only been fighting in MMA for 3 years, but has already put together an impressive 8-1 record with 3 TKOs and 5 submission victories. Recently crowned the inaugural One FC Featherweight champion, Banario appears to be a very good and exciting prospect who hopefully one day we will see come stateside and grace the Octagon.

Tatsuya Kawajiri

Video:

“Crusher” is one of the most well rounded fighters in the JMMA scene. He possesses heavy hands, strong wrestling and a very varied submission game that keeps his opponents off balance. He has shared a ring and cage with some of the best in the world, with the wins listed above and losses to Eddie Alvarez, Shinya Aoki, a prime Takanori Gomi and 2 losses to former Strikeforce champ Gilbert Melendez (the 1st loss being very controversial as many thought Kawajiri had won the fight). The decision to drop to featherweight, after spending his entire career at 155 lbs, has been a good one for Crusher. He has rang off 4 victories in a row since making the weight class change. In this humble writers opinion, I believe we could drop Kawajiri into the UFC’s FW division and he would have excellent success and as good a chance as any to become the first Japanese fighter to hold a UFC title.

Georgi Karakhanyan

Notable Victories: Micah Miller, Din Thomas, Hiroyuki Takaya, Isaac DeJesus, Anthony Leone

Championships: Tachi Palace Featherweight Champion

Video:

A slick grappler who has shown flashes of KO power in his career, Karakhanyan has put together an impressive career thusfar. Despite a lackluster run in Bellator (going 2-2 with losses to Patricio Freire and Joe Warren) Karakhanyan has rebounded with 7 straight victories since March of 2011. He has shown the ability to hang wherever the fight happens to go and at 27 years old is just entering the prime of his fighting career.

Marat Gafurov

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAHNAU-irFA

Gafurov is another prospect who has had a had a very good start to his MMA career. In his 7 victories, he has finished 5 fights via submission and has shown to have a very aggressive (if not reckless) style on both the feet as well as on the ground. While he has shown to be pretty reckless this early in his MMA career, he shows great upside and could potentially become the next big thing out of Russia if given enough time.

Patricio “Pitbull” Freire

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgLRHGbybCs

One half of Bellator’s fighting Pitbull brothers, Patricio Freire is a fearsome striker who possesses incredible speed, and does a wonderful job of mixing up his Muay Thai with takedowns and a black belt in BJJ. He has shown to be consistently one of the best fighters under the Bellator banner, only losing twice since coming stateside with his only losses coming against former champion Joe Warren and current champion Pat Curran. At only 25 years of age, Patricio hasn’t even hit his fighting prime yet but continues to fight strong competition. Combine that with his training under the Team Nogueria banner, I suspect we shall hear Patricio Pitbull’s name quite a bit in the coming years.

Joachim Hansen

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M77hvCO1TYM

If you want to get your money’s worth as a fight fan, watching a Hellboy Hansen fight will always give you the most bang for your buck. A vicious, powerful striker, Hansen’s highlight reel is fun (well, if you are like me and like seeing other humans get flattened with punches. Why else would you be here if you didn’t?) Of his 22 victories, 15 have been via submission or KO. He is a decorated European grappling champion, as well as has a 1-1 record in pure kickboxing matches. Hansen recently made a successful return to MMA after being away from the sport for 2 years when he won his fight last month at Road FC. We will likely never see Hellboy in the Octagon, as he feels they had low balled him when they bought Pride and tried to bring him over, but to hardcore fans he will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Michael Chandler

Video:

A former Division 1 All American, Michael Chandler has ascended from Bellator prospect to the face of the franchise. After his spectacular upset in a FOTY candidate with Eddie Alvarez back in 2011, Chandler proved that night he could be considered one of the best in the world. Training with Alliance MMA, he has put together a fairly well rounded game in the 3 1/2 years since he began his career. His strong wrestling base, combined with excellent ground and pound as well as an ever evolving striking game, it isn’t a far stretch to say that Chandler could potentially dominate Bellator’s lightweight division for the foreseeable future.

Shinya Aoki

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtiExYDh7Po

One of the most dangerous grapplers in all of MMA, the “Tobikan Judoka” is a master of submissions. Aoki is a rare throwback talent in which he only has one excellent strength. On the ground he is otherworldly, making competent grapplers look idiotic as he works them and inevitably submits them. He has an unbelievable 67% submission rate in his victories, by far and away the best percentage in MMA today, especially for someone with almost 40 career fights. He takes a lot of flak for winning against lower tier competition, but struggling against some of the high level fighters he has fought over recent years, but it cannot take away from just how great of a fighter Aoki truly is.

Eduard Folayang

Video:

A decorated Wushu champion in Asia (Wushu is a proto MMA style sport, and more can be read up on it here).  Eduard Folayang is an exciting and explosive fighter. Bursting into the MMA consciousness with a barnburner of a fight with Ole Larsen in March of last year, Folayang has earned 2 FOTN bonus’ in his first 4 One FC fights. Considered one of the best pound for pound fighters by his home country of the Philippines, (which says something when Manny Pacquiao is a fellow countryman), Folayang has shown he is always a fighter that you want to tune in to watch.

Isao Kobayashi

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drvRi-OEzWM

A brawler with heavy hands, Kobayashi is very Chuck Liddellian in the way that he will be willing to eat punches in order to land punches. Having finished 9 of his 13 victories via (T)KO or submission, he has been running the table in his homeland thusfar. His last fight back in December lasted only 14 seconds before he completely wrecked Kenichiro Togashi.

Rick Hawn

Video:

A former Olympic judoka, Hawn has shown himself to be one of the best lightweights in all of Bellator. Despite his background as a judo player, he has never actually submitted anyone in MMA competition, but has finished 10 of his opponents via KO/TKO. While he is 36 years old an in the twilight of his career, he has still shown himself to be more than a capable fighter, and remains a powerful and dangerous opponent for anyone at 155 lbs.

So there we have it, a dozen fighters than most of you may have heard of, some you may not have. Either way I think this sample size shows that there is still a fair amount of talent outside of the deep waters of the UFC. Check back soon for the next installment where we will be highlighting the welterweight and middleweight divisions.

-Images via Sherdog.  Tim can be reached @timhickey80.