Chuck Liddell is destined for eventual entry into the MMAMemories.com Hall of Fame because of many reasons, including the fact that in the Octagon, few have proven to be his equal. Liddell, a standout collegiate wrestler at Cal Poly, where he earned a degree on accounting, made his MMA debut as a UFC competitor in 1998, winning a decision over Noe Hernandez.

He worked his way up the ranks from there, beating people like Kevin Randleman, Vitor Belfort and Renato Sobral, and putting himself in a position where he could finally challenge for a UFC title. But in the light heavyweight ranks, then-champion Tito Ortiz seemed to be stalling things, to the point where his title was actually out into limbo. Liddell was matched in a fight for the “interim” title with Randy Couture, the former Oklahoma State All-American wrestler, and the two fought at UFC 43. In the first of an historic MMA trilogy, Couture got the better of Liddell, ending things in the third round. Liddell then suffered a disappointment in Japan, where Quinton Jackson knocked him out in a PRIDE Grand Prix event.

Liddell’s greatest moments were yet to come, however, as he went on a run that made UFC history.

It began with the highly-anticipated match with Ortiz, at UFC 47, where Liddell blitzed his opponent early in the second round for a TKO win. One year later, Liddell knocked out Couture in the first round to win the UFC light heavyweight crown. He then took Couture out again, this time in two rounds, to defend the belt. And in the rematch with Ortiz, at UFC 66, he won with a hard-fought third-round TKO. Proving the box-office appeal of the duo, it was, to that time, the most widely-viewed pay-per-view event in UFC annals.

Liddell finally lost his title in May of 2007 when he was knocked out by his old nemesis, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. And he suffered a big disappointment in his next bout when he was upset by Keith Jardine. But he had held his title for two years, and had gone in with two of the sport’s legends - Couture and Ortiz - and won four out of five bouts. he’s not through yet, as plans are for him to fight Wanderlei Silva, another legend, in UFC 79.

In addition to his prowess in competition, Liddell is also one of the key figures in helping to catapult mixed martial arts into a position where it has entered the consciousness of mainstream America. He has garnered much attention from major media, and done guest spots on popular television shows such as HBO’s “Entourage.” In terms of image-building, he has been a major asset to the UFC and the sport of mixed martial arts in general. And he has been a credit to the spirit that makes the MMA competitor the greatest on earth.

In the history of mixed martial arts, you may have to go a long way to find a pure heavyweight fighter as accomplished or formidable as the great Russian known as “The Last Emperor” - Fedor Emeliankenko.

A competitor with a broad background that includes judo, sambo, muay thai and boxing, with a sprinkling of just about everything else, Fedor made his debut in the sport back in January of 2000 and has lost only one bout since. And even that was a defeat by name only, as he was controversially (some say illegally) elbowed and cut by Tsuyoshi Kohsaka in a King of Kings tournament in Japan and was officially declared the loser only because he was not physically able to advance in the tourney. Given the opportunity to avenge that “defeat” in 2005, he scored a TKO win over Kohsaka.

Emeliankenko has beaten the likes of Mark Coleman, Mirko Cro Cop, Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera, Kevin Randleman, Gary Goodridge, Mark Hunt, Renato Sobral, Heath Herring, Sammy Schilt and others - one of the most illustrious rosters of conquests the MMA world has ever seen. Of his 27 wins, only seven of those opponents had managed to last the full distance against him. One of the more impressive victories on his resume was against the great veteran Coleman, the former UFC heavyweight champion, who he submitted in two minutes and eleven seconds on his way to winning the PRIDE heavyweight Grand Prix in 2004.

Fedor won the PRIDE heavyweight championship in 2003 with a decision over Noguiera and still holds that title to this day. He has also ventured outside of PRIDE in his quest to conquer new territory (his contract allowed him to do so, as long as the fight was on Russian soil). In April of 2007 he scored a first-round submission of Matt Lindland, a former UFC middleweight title contender, in a bout that was contested under the BodogFight banner. And just recently, he competed in the World Combat Sambo Championships and came home the winner.

Fedor has won the 2001 RINGS World Class tournament, in the Open division; the 2002 King of Kings heavyweight tournament, as well as the aforementioned 2004 PRIDE Grand Prix. Though he may not have experienced the widespread exposure of many of the UFC competitors, Emilianenko’s amazing body of work has won him the respect of avid MMA fans and the MMA media, where he is generally regarded to be the finest heavyweight fighter in the world today.

The UFC made overtures toward him, but when negotiations for a deal broke down, Emilianenko inked a multi-fight contract with the M-1 Global organization that is operated by veteran promoter Monte Cox, and will pursue bouts of major importance, bringing major purses. The rumor persists that one of those fights eventually might be a showdown with Randy Couture, who has recently announced his departure from the UFC. If the Fedor-Couture bout were to happen, it may be the most anticipated heavyweight fight we’ve yet seen in MMA.

When the list of great competitors in the so-called “lighter weights” in MMA is compiled, a name that must invariably be near the top is that of Matt Hughes, who has won the UFC’s welterweight title not once, but twice.

Like many great mixed martial artists, Hughes was a member of Miletich Fighting Systems, spearheaded by former UFC champion Pat Miletich. He already had a wrestling background, winning all-state honors in high school in his native Illinois and All-America recognition twice while attending Eastern Illinois University.

Hughes’ first big moment as an ultimate fighter came in 2001, when, at UFC 34, he scored a dramatic win over Carlos Newton to capture the UFC welterweight title. Hughes became a prolific champion, defending his belt successfully five times - against the likes of Hayato Sakarai, Gil Castillo, Sean Sherk, Frank Trigg and in a rematch with Newton - before the transplanted Iowa resident met his Waterloo of sorts in UFC 46, falling victim to a rear naked choke by B.J. Penn and losing his coveted title.

But Penn subsequently developed a contract dispute with the UFC and fled the organization, leaving his title behind. Hughes was a logical choice to fight for that vacant championship, and he used an armbar to submit Georges St. Pierre for that crown at UFC 50, becoming a two-time titleholder. In the process, he dealt St. Pierre the first loss of his career.

His stature brought perks, and one of them was a high-profile non-title match in May of 2006 against Royce Gracie, the legend who had emerged victorious in the first two UFC events in 1993-94. Hughes, in the prime of his career, easily defeated Gracie by TKO on strikes, and could have achieved victory earlier, if not for the fact that he feared breaking Gracie’s arm with a submission hold.

One of the most satisfying wins, however, had to be the rematch with B.J. Penn, which took place in September 2006, as Penn came back to UFC competition, With unfinished business, to say the least, Hughes took Penn out with a TKO in the third round of what was a grueling tactical fight which saw Hughes come from behind and wear Penn down. But two months later, Hughes’ second tenure as champion came to an end, when Georges St. Pierre hit him with his entire arsenal, including a head kick that figured hugely into the second-round TKO.

Hughes, now a man without a title, tuned up for a further assault on welterweight laurels by defeating Chris Lytle at UFC 68; shortly afterward, the welter title changed hands when Matt Serra beat St. Pierre. Immediately the public demanded a Serra-Hughes match, which had the potential of making Hughes an unprecedented three-time champion. But injury problems have forced Serra to the sideline, meaning a third fight with St. Pierre, for an “interim” title, has been inserted for the UFC 79 show in late December. If Hughes wins, he’ll be able to get his hands on Serra, who antagonized him quite a bit during the taping of The Ultimate Fighter 6. 

Now a legend in his own right, Hughes has sought to feed the sport by developing champions of his own. Toward that end, he has left Team Miletich and formed Hughes Intensive Training (H.I.T.), co-owned with, among others, EliteXC champion Robbie Lawler. We’ll be anxiously awaiting his next move.

The legacy of Tito Ortiz will include not only his long list of accomplishments in the ring, but also the mark he left on the sport from a marketing standpoint. He is one of those charismatic competitors who was instrumental in bringing the sport to new levels of popularity.

A standout high school athlete who wrestled at Golden West College (a junior college) and later at Cal State-Bakersfield, Ortiz’s first contact with MMA came as someone who was actually readying another fighter - the tremendously popular Tank Abbott - for a superfight against Vitor Belfort in UFC 13. For that card, Ortiz was listed as an alternate, and as luck would have it, someone dropped out, pressing Ortiz into action. After getting past Wes Albritton in the first round of the tournament, Ortiz was beating up Guy Mezger pretty good and had him bleeding. At that moment the referee stepped in and brought Mezger to the doctor, who examined him and let the fight continue. In effect, that official, John McCarthy, had saved Mezger from defeat. Ortiz, who had thought victory was his, was later caught in a guillotine and had to submit.

As it turns out, that was only a temporary setback.

In UFC 19, Ortiz got his revenge over Mezger, and after losing a middleweight title shot to Frank Shamrock in September 1999, he went on a roll. Ortiz grabbed the light heavyweight crown over Wanderlei Silva at UFC 25 and defended that championship no less than five times. In one of those title defenses, he beat Ken Shamrock, scoring the first of three high-profile victories over the living legend of mixed martial arts.

Randy Couture beat Ortiz to win the light heavyweight title in UFC 44, and an Ortiz comeback was derailed by a second-round KO loss to Chuck Liddell in UFC 47.

He failed again in a title try when Chuck Liddell stopped him in three rounds at UFC 66, but Ortiz helped accomplish something that in the long run, was far more significant for the UFC and entirety of mixed martial arts. That Liddell-Ortiz fight became the biggest pay-per-view event in UFC history and one of the biggest events of any kind for the year. It truly put the UFC on the sports map and the industry map, as MMA was now here to stay as a major player in the pay-per-view world.

Some people who are familiar with both boxing and MMA draw comparisons between Ortiz’s drawing power and that of Oscar De La Hoya, in that he will bring “eyeballs” and more recognition to an event, whether he wins or loses. Ironically, Ortiz purchased De La Hoya’s Big Bear training camp for $2.1 million and uses it as his own training center.

The book on Ortiz is obviously not closed yet. At age 32, he’s still got a lot of butts to put in seats, and a lot of prospective opponents to put on their butts.

B.J. Penn is part of a great tradition of mixed martial artists from the Hawaiian Islands. And he is also part of a great history of students who have been trained in the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu by the Gracie family. In fact, Penn became so proficient in that discipline that he achieved the distinction of being the first non-Brazilian to go to Rio and win the black belt category of the World Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championships.

From there B.J. began a career that has seen him go down in history as one of the great pound-for-pound competitors, plying his trade successfully over a number of weight divisions.

He started in the UFC in the early days under the stewardship of Zuffa LLC. He fought for the lightweight title in his fourth fight, losing a decision to Jens Pulver. Subsequently Pulver gave up the title, and Penn once again found himself on center stage, fighting Caol Uno for the vacant crown. But the two fought to a draw, and the UFC suspended the division. So Penn simply moved up to welterweight, and a year later he fought Matt Hughes, who had cleaned out the division. Penn choked Hughes out to win the title, then his career took a strange turn.

Penn, announcing that his UFC contract had run out, went to the K-1 organization to fight, but he wasn’t going to be able to take his newly-won title with him. He was in fact stripped by the UFC. But in K-1, he was a standout performer, competing at welterweight, middleweight, even light heavyweight, scoring wins over the likes of Rodrigo Gracie and Renzo Gracie in the process.

Penn reconciled with the UFC and came back for UFC 58, losing a decision to Georges St. Pierre in a welterweight elimination bout; but then St. Pierre went down with injury, thrusting Penn into a rematch with Hughes with the title on the line. This time, Penn’s luck gave out, as did his stamina, after a rib injury sapped his breathing power in the second round. Hughes stopped him in the third round, ending those title dreams, at least for the time being.

But now that he has come back to avenge his loss to Pulver, Penn has positioned himself once again for a shot at glory. In early 2008, he will be squaring off against Joe Stevenson for the UFC’s interim lightweight title in England; the winner of that bout will face Sean Sherk, who had been suspended from action due to steroid use.