When light heavyweight champ Rashad Evans defends his title against Lyoto Machida at UFC 98, the winner will be the champion of the UFC's most talented weight class. But might the winner also be the best fighter in MMA, regardless of weight class?I think you could make a pretty good case that the Evans-Machida winner deserves to be atop the pound-for-pound list, especially if it's a good fight that the winner takes decisively. But when I asked Evans about it on Tuesday's UFC 98 media call, he said he's not concerned about all that. And he said he thinks the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world is his training partner, UFC welterweight champion Georges St Pierre.
"I would say the best pound-for-pound is my teammate GSP," Evans said. "He's probably the best pound-for-pound. As far as whether Lyoto or I should be considered the best pound-for-pound, I don't know. I don't like to label myself. I'll leave that for other people to say."
My basic feeling is that the Evans-Machida winner is the champion of the toughest weight class in any MMA organization, and the only MMA fighter in the world who has compiled an undefeated record (Machida is 14-0 and Evans is 16-0-1) while consistently fighting the best competition in the world. That doesn't necessarily make the winner of this fight the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, but it certainly puts him in the conversation.
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