Sherdog’s Top 10: Most Influential Fighters

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5. Maurice Smith

With Smith, we reach the real trailblazers of the sport, fighters who launched new styles and popularized entirely new skill sets. In Smith’s case, that combination of skills led to the birth of the sprawl-and-brawler, a durable and venerable model that still finds regular success at all but the highest levels of the sport today.

The premise was and remains simple. If a skilled striker could learn to defend takedowns and picked up enough grappling knowledge to avoid being blasted with punches or submitted on his or her back, then suddenly the entire sport changes from one dominated by ground fighting to one in which striking is a valid option. Boxing, kickboxing, muay Thai, karate, wushu and every other striking art then become potential bases for mixed martial artists, so long as the practitioner knew enough defensive wrestling and grappling to survive outside their specialty.

Smith, like many other MMA pioneers, had extensive experience -- six bouts -- in Pancrase, a cauldron of seething innovation that formed so many fighters and future coaches. He went 2-4 in those six Pancrase outings and added another pair of losses in Rings before finding real success. That first moment of serious triumph came against Marcus “Conan” Silveira, an enormous and skilled Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt with extensive experience. Smith managed to survive into the third round against the future American Top Team founder and knocked him out with a head kick. Less than a year later, Smith squared off with UFC heavyweight champion and Olympic wrestler Mark Coleman. In a grueling fight, Smith managed to stuff many of Coleman’s takedowns, wear him down with an active guard and do enough damage on the feet to take a decision.

Although Smith lost the title to Randy Couture after a single defense and never again reached the highest levels of MMA, the lesson was clear: If strikers could learn to wrestle or wrestlers could learn to strike, the combination would be devastating.

Number 4 » Dirty boxing is simple enough as a concept -- tie up with your opponent in the clinch and then go to town with short knees and punches -- but the grappling knowledge necessary to make it work, particularly while pressing up against the cage, should not be understated.