Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Featherweights

9. Chad Mendes

No one doubted that Mendes had incredible talent, but he could never quite beat some of the best fighters in the entire sport, whether that was the superlative Jose Aldo, Conor McGregor on only a week's notice, or his last fight against a surging contender named Alexander Volkanovski, all of whom we will see later in this list. Personally, I think it's insane that Mendes is ahead of McKee, an even more naturally gifted fighter who actually made good on all that ability and won a featherweight crown. Nevertheless, Mendes had tremendous wrestling, ground-and-pound, and some brutal, powerful boxing, though it had certain limitations. Mendes won punishing decisions over Erik Koch, Cub Swanson, Javier Vasquez and Rani Yahya, attaining a perfect record of 11-0 and a title shot against Aldo. Aldo knocked out Mendes in the first round, but undeterred, “Money” rattled off an excellent five-fight winning streak, four by stoppage, including knockouts of Darren Elkins and Clay Guida, and a decision over Nik Lentz. Mendes fought Aldo again, and while it was an amazing fight and he did much better, Aldo still won a very clear decision. Mendes then knocked out the excellent Ricardo Lamas in a single round and was then tapped to fight against McGregor for the interim featherweight championship when Aldo had to withdraw from his scheduled title defense against the Irishman. The result of that fight makes one wonder if Mendes would have won on a full training camp, as he easily took down and battered McGregor for the first round and a half before gassing out late in Round 2. Given that Mendes was fighting on short notice, which isn't enough to hone one's cardio, that he generally had good cardio in other fights, and that McGregor was hardly known for his own endurance, it's a perfectly valid question. Sadly, we will never know. Mendes would suffer knockout losses to other elite fighters in Edgar and Volkanovski, sandwiched between a fine first round knockout of Myles Jury, and that was it for him. He goes down as one of the greatest fighters to never win a major championship of any kind, not even an interim belt.

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