10 MMA Fights That Created Instant Legends
With one fight, legendary status was confirmed for these fighters.
The word 'legend' gets bandied about far too frequently across all sports these days.
A footballer, NBA player, or NFL star has one good season? Legend. A boxer wins a couple of fights? Legend. A golfer has a good tournament? Legend. A cricketer manages to make cricket not be the most dull and boring sport on the planet? You get the gist...
Like those other sports, the world of MMA is likewise one littered with faux legends and icons, as fans over-exaggerate somebody's legacy or are too quick to throw such prestigious labels around. Of course, that's not to say that there aren't some true revolutionaries and game-changers who fully deserve to be lauded as an MMA legend.
When looking at such legendary figures, there are always those one or two fights that stand out as being defining moments in setting a fighter on their way to superstardom or solidifying them in that top bracket of legendary names.
And here, we're going to take a look at ten such fights which can be pinpointed as being responsible for instantly creating some true legends of the world of Mixed Martial Arts.
10. Georges St-Pierre Vs. Matt Hughes - UFC 65
One of the greatest ever, Georges St-Pierre’s legend-making fight is largely viewed as his UFC 65 win over Matt Hughes to become the UFC Welterweight Champion.
GSP had openly talked up how he was such a huge fan of Hughes’ before they first met at UFC 50, but that fight for the then-vacant Welterweight Championship saw Rush suffer his first professional loss after Hughes tapped him out.
With a record of 7-1 after that UFC 50 fight, many fans wondered whether the bloom was off the rose for GSP – as has so often been the case for fighters after their first loss.
St-Pierre would bounce back with victories over Dave Strasser, Jason Miller, Frank Trigg, Sean Sherk, and B.J. Penn as he found himself in a rematch against Hughes at UFC 65. It was there that the French-Canadian would avenge his first ever loss, taking Hughes’ Welterweight Championship in the process.
To the majority of fight fans, that victory over the likewise legendary Matt Hughes was enough to see GSP taken seriously as having the potential to be an all-time great.
Unfortunately for Georges, his follow-up fight would see him shocked by Matt Sera in a first round TKO loss. In typical GSP fashion however, St-Pierre has won all 13 UFC fights since that Sera defeat – including winning both the UFC Welterweight Championship and the UFC Middleweight Championship, both of which he vacated.
Currently, GSP is officially retired, although a dream match against Khabib Nurmagomedov has recently been teased by St-Pierre, Khabib, and the UFC.