Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Combat Athletes

8. Fabricio Werdum

Werdum is yet another BJJ turned MMA great, finishing. “Vai Cavalo” was a UFC champion, finishing as Sherdog's fourth greatest heavyweight ever. Along the way, Werdum scored one of the biggest wins in MMA history when he submitted Fedor Emelianenko in Strikeforce. That ended the sublime decade-long undefeated streak of the greatest heavyweight ever as well as handing him the first real defeat of his career. Possibly exceeding that was his amazing war-of-attrition victory over Cain Velasquez for the UFC crown, as Velasquez was then also considered the greatest heavyweight ever. Both before and incredibly during his legendary MMA run, Werdum found time to become the best heavyweight BJJ grappler in the world. He was a four-time BJJ world champion, with two at the blue belt level and two at heavyweight black belt in 2003 and 2004. Werdum also took home an incredible amount of hardware at ADCC, becoming a very rare two-time gold medalist at heavyweight in 2007 and 2009, but also taking two silver medals and two bronze medals. Moreover, these medals range in date from 2003 to 2011, the latter after he had defeated Fedor in Strikeforce! That's an insane period of longevity and easily makes him one of the most decorated ADCC champions ever, even surpassing “Jacare.” With so much championship gold in two combat sports, Werdum is another easy inclusion.

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