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The Outsiders: Top 25 Lightweights Outside the UFC, Bellator, and WSOF

While most of the best talent is under the UFC banner and Bellator and WSOF have seemed scooped up the rest, there is still plenty of talent yet to be signed by the top promotions of the MMA food chain. These are not necessarily 'free agents' or even prospects, they are (mostly) top 100 ranked fighters who are navigating the nebulous seas of regional and international fight promotion for whatever reason.

Will anyone on this list be signed by a major US promotion in the near future? Your guess is as good as mine, but they should at least be considered if promotions hope to compete for top talent.

Lightweights (155lb)

RANK NAME RECORD AGE Last Promotion
22 Shinya Aoki 37-6-0-1 31 ONE FC/IGF (Asia/Japan)
26 Alexander Sarnavskiy 30-2-0 25 UVS (Russia)
33 Rick Hawn 19-4-0 38 Titan FC
38 Koji Ando 11-3-2 29 ONE FC (Asia)
43 Musa Khamanaev 15-3-0 27 Absolute CB (Russia)
52 Pat Healy 30-20-0-1 31 Titan FC
61 Mike Ricci 10-4-0 28 Titan FC
62 Satoru Kitaoka 35-13-9 34 Pancrase (Japan)
63 TJ O'Brien 20-7-0 28 Pinnacle Combat
65 Jesse Ronson 14-5-0 29 Provincial FC
68 Tom Gallicchio 19-8-0 ? MFC (Canada)
75 Joshua Aveles 20-10-1 26 KOTC
76 Ramazan Esenbaev 8-1-1 ? IGF (Japan)
77 Mateusz Gamrot 8-0-0 24 KSW (Poland)
81 Steven Ray 16-5-0 24 Cage Warriors (UK)
82 Darrell Horcher 11-1-0 27 Cage Fury FC
84 Ricardo Tirloni 18-6-0 31 Arena Tour (Argentina)
88 Mansour Barnaoui 11-2-0 22 BAMMA (UK)
92 Gleristone Santos 27-4-0 26 Titan FC
94 Gesias Cavalcante 19-8-1-2 31 Kungfu Union (China)
96 Vuyisile Colossa 7-4-0 32 ONE FC (Asia)
97 Ryan Dickson 10-2-0 25 Hard Knocks FC
99 David Khachatryan 18-2-0 27 Fight Nights (Russia)
100 Jacob Volkmann 17-6-0 34 Pinnacle Combat
101 Flavio Alvaro 48-10-0 37 Thunder Fight (Brazil)

Big 3 in Comparison

Promotion # Top 100 fighters Champ
UFC 63 Anthony Pettis
Bellator 8 Will Brooks
WSOF 4 Justin Gaethje
Titan FC 4 vacant

*All Rankings taken from Fight Matrix at time of writing. Promotions without a country listed next to it are considered US based.