The suits at UFC and Spike TV have selected the top 181 fights in UFC history and are leaving it up the fans to rank them.

As with virtually any “Best of” list, the bulk of the list was culled from recent memory.  2008 has the most fights and 1993 has only one. I think most of the early fights are kinda of boring by today’s standards - so I tend to agree with this one. The advent of time limits and rounds actually did a lot of good for the sport.

Selecting the best fights depends on how you define “best.” Best could be the fight with the most dominant performance, the biggest upset (Jens Pulver getting knocked out by a then unknown Joe Lauzon at UFC 63), the emergence of a superstar (Georges St. Pierre vs. Matt Hughes II at UFC 65), or the best back-and-forth (Sam Stout vs. Spenser Fisher 2 at UFC Fight Night 10), or the best finish (Scott Smith’s desperation K.O. of Pete Sell, a last effort thrown just before Smith crashed to the canvas himself at the Ultimate Fighter 4 Finale) , or you could go with the most historically important fight (Forest Griffin vs. Stephan Bonnar at the Ultimate Fighter 1 Finale, a fight that propelled the UFC towards mainstream popularity).

Forest Griffin vs. Stephan Bonnar will likely get the #1 spot. It was a bloody back-and-forth fight with two men who both showed impressive resolve to continue swinging to the very end. Plus, it has historical importance although that alone isn’t enough to qualify for the list.

I was shocked to see Ken Shamrock vs. Rich Franklin making the list. That should be 181. Shamrock was clearly outmatched, past his prime, and the fight was pretty boring.  They could have replaced that with Matt Hammill vs. Michael Bisping, the fight where the winner lost for reasons that still escape me, but still it was an much better fight than Shamrock vs. Franklin.

Ah well, at least they didn’t have the audacity to include the worst fight of the night ever - Shogun Rua’s weak victory over an aging Mark Coleman.  Hate to break it to Dana White but when you went with that decision you became a suit. But I imagine he already knows that.

Anyway, you can weigh in on your favorite fights at http://www.spike.com/ufc-100