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1. Bruce Lee -The first high profile martial artist to suggest the blending of various styles to accomodate your own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of your opponents. He is the king of this castle.
2. Royce Gracie -The early UFC's really put MMA on the map. It was really the first time we saw fighters of varying styles facing off against each other in real matches. Many will say that the Gracies just used these early matches to demonstrate the effectiveness of BJJ... I would say that it was the beginning of MMA as we know it today; a true hybrid of multiple styles being used inside of the ring in actual fights. Ever since then the evolution of the sport has been breathtaking.
3. Kazushi Sakuraba -Pride's earliest king and the first to crack the riddle of Gracie JJ... In the 90's a lot of early fans of the sport drifted more towards Pride because so many of the stars from the UFC ended up going there. Fighters we had watched in the earliest UFC's like Frye, Coleman, Goodridge, Shamrock and Gracie were fighting in Japan, and fighters like Sakuraba, Big Nog and later on Fedor were eating these guys for breakfast... The Sakuraba-Gracie fight sort of cemented the legitimacy of MMA the world over...
4. Whoever wins the 'probably will never happen' fight between Fedor and Randy. The gods of Pride and UFC still need to have it out before this slot is decided.
5. Anderson Silva -I believe that Anderson is the modern face of MMA... A fighter truely versed in both striking and submission who has swallowed the souls of everyone he has faced in the last several years. In twenty years when people are looking back on the history of MMA he will be remembered as a god.
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