7 Fighters the UFC Should Build Its Future Around

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One of the main criticisms often levied at the UFC is that the promotion struggles to create stars. For years, the focus has been on the brand and the idea that those three letters will forever mean more than any individual who enters the cage.

While stars like Georges St-Pierre, Brock Lesnar, Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor have done their best to provide evidence counter to that assertion, the $4 billion the company fetched when it was sold earlier this year might be enough to suggest the "UFC-first" line of thinking has some merit.

Either way, the UFC needs stars to maximize its brand. It needs athletes to go out and sell fights, perform once the fights are sold and then start the whole circus over again once the fight is over. With St-Pierre and Lesnar likely gone, Rousey possibly going and McGregor already into his late-20s, it's never too early for the promotion to look to the future and see who might be next in line for stardom.

It's also worth considering that the UFC has been, and likely will continue to be, focused on becoming a global brand and accessing all parts of the world through its brand and associated stars. It will need names that can sell in North America, Brazil, Asia, Europe and Australia, and oftentimes will need niche stars who can sell in particular corners of those markets.

With that in mind, here's a list of folks who might be up to the task in the coming years.

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It's probably best to get the most obvious one out of the way first. After her run from 2015 to the present, it's almost undeniable that "12 Gauge" Paige VanZant is going to be showing up on posters and in promotional pushes for quite a while.

Though VanZant is coming off a quick and convincing loss to Michelle Waterson at UFC on Fox 22, she remains among the hottest mainstream properties that the promotion has at its disposal. After a lengthy run on Dancing with the Stars and a jumping-front-kick knockout in her first fight back, she positioned herself as a darling of the sport.

The perfect blend of scrappiness, skill and physical appeal, she's the type of athlete who has arguably greater effect on a red carpet or in an ad campaign than she does in the cage. She's a ready-made talent in those areas but more of a work in progress in the realm of combat.

Even so, she was making strong progress as a mixed martial artist until the Waterson bout and comes across as willful enough to bulldog her way into contention one day. She's young and athletic, and in a shallow division, that may be enough to catapult her to the top of the rankings in relatively short order.

In terms of a star for an increasingly diverse fanbase and future in the sport, VanZant is as good as the UFC will get. They've done a pretty good job of that so far and would be wise to continue to do so.

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Cody Garbrandt hit the cage at UFC 207 as a considerable underdog against the firmly entrenched champion Dominick Cruz, a bantamweight who showed unparalleled physical and mental toughness on his way to becoming arguably the best 135-pound fighter in MMA history.

In response to that underdog status, Garbrandt put a beautiful, thorough beating on Cruz, dancing around the stagnant champ for five rounds and only breaking his rhythm long enough to throw perfect combinations and talk a little trash.

It was a tour de force, and it happened in the co-main event slot of a Ronda Rousey fight—essentially the perfect forum for such a showing. People got to see a handsome young challenger set his division on its ear and look just about invincible in the process. As if that weren't enough, he tearfully gave his belt to a sick child in the cage after the match.

Is there really anything else that needs to be said about Garbrandt's potential star power? If you sat down and concocted the perfect athlete to market, "handsome guy who literally fights in the name of sick children" is almost too good to even imagine. It borders on a superhero origin story, really.

He may not be the most articulate guy, but even Cruz was quick to point out that Garbrandt is talented and has a "good heart." Given the nature of MMA and the stigma attached to it, talent and a good heart should be enough to get a man in front of some cameras.

It'll start when he coaches The Ultimate Fighter 25 opposite TJ Dillashaw this summer, but the UFC would be wise to expand his exposure from there.

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Max Holloway is coming off an interim featherweight title win over Anthony Pettis at UFC 206 and received a warm welcome upon his return to Hawaii. He's young, increasingly confident and has taken the mantel of Hawaii's fighting hope from the legendary BJ Penn, so he'd probably make sense as a featured face of the UFC in the future.

Among the young guns on the UFC roster, Holloway may be in rarefied air in terms of his fistic skills. There has been an evolution in his game over the past few years, as evidenced by his 10-fight win streak and date to unify his title with Jose Aldo's. He's an electric striker with legitimate stopping power and a highly gifted grappler who uses his long, rangy frame as well as anyone in his division once a fight hits the mat.

In terms of regional promotion within the U.S., Hawaii is one of the last places the UFC has left to conquer. The UFC has had the proud Hawaiian Penn for years, and others have lined up behind him to carry that flag. But the UFC never promoted there despite an appetite to see it happen.

Holloway could break that barrier for good, either with the aforementioned Aldo fight or with a bout down the line once the state has a more satisfactory infrastructure in place to regulate an event.

Either way, Holloway is a special athlete and should be treated as such moving forward. A fight in Hawaii being part of that treatment would simply be icing on the cake.

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Filling the gap that was left by The Korean Zombie (who is, thankfully, back from military service and out for featherweight blood once again), Dooho Choi looks to be the next big thing to buoy the Asian market.

He fights with a thrilling, chaotic style and already has hardcore fans excitedly awaiting his bouts—an excitement that may be greater than ever after his Fight of the Year candidate against Cub Swanson at UFC 206.

Asia has been tricky for the UFC, as the promotion has worked hard in Japan, China, Korea and other parts of the continent with mixed success. There was a time when each of the nations looked anxious to bear fruit for the UFC, but that time has largely passed. Now, attempts to plant a flag there have devolved into intermittent Fight Pass shows headlined by largely irrelevant names.

Choi could be the man to turn that around. He's young and on the rise, traits that have not been particularly evident in UFC's Asian athletes for quite some time. With Pride FC long gone and Rizin not exactly in the business of developing prospects, there has been something of a dearth of UFC-level combatants in recent years.

The Korean Superboy, with all the charisma he exudes, could solve that problem himself or at least spark a new era.

The next time you see Choi in the Octagon, it might be best if you're watching him in a Fight Pass match in Korea or somewhere nearby. There's a unique opportunity there to make him into something, perhaps on a marquee alongside Dong Hyun Kim in hopes of stirring up a little national pride. Asia enjoys the sport, but it's going to need a reason to enjoy the UFC, and Choi could provide one.

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Yair Rodriguez is the epitome of a "new-breed" fighter, as he's all athleticism and flash. He flitters about the cage slinging kicks, knees and elbows from all heights, distances and angles until he sees his man collapse from the onslaught.

It's about as artistic as MMA gets when he's doing his thing, and at 24 years old, he's only going to get better at doing it.

His most recent outing was the signature win he needed to get the world's attention, a savage destruction of the iconic BJ Penn. He simply outclassed Penn, a man who held tough in a heavyweight fight against Lyoto Machida years ago when he was regularly plying his trade as a lightweight.

No one has ever dissected Penn the way Rodriguez did, slamming kicks and straight punches into Penn's body and head, stopping him in the second round without taking on any water in the process.

Now the question is whether Rodriguez is the man to conquer his home country of Mexico and do for MMA what men like Julio Cesar Chavez did for boxing there. Cain Velasquez couldn't do it, either because he convincingly lost his only fight there or because his inconsistent appearances in the cage since hampered his appeal. But Rodriguez appears poised to take the next crack.

If he shows up there like he did against Penn, there's no doubt he'll be on the heels of Canelo Alvarez as the biggest combat athlete in the nation before long.

Etzel Espinosa-USA TODAY Sports

Alexa Grasso could work in concert with Yair Rodriguez to popularize MMA in Mexico. Grasso is a furious strawweight prospect who has been making a name for herself on independent circuits and in Invicta FC since 2012. She won her UFC debut in late 2016, is undefeated as a pro and quite evidently has the skills to become truly great if she stays the course.

A Guadalajara native, Grasso speaks eloquent Spanish and carries herself with a charming humility that is instantly engaging. For years many non-native-English-speaking athletes have struggled to cross over as a result of the language barrier, but Grasso is the rare exception who relies on exciting performances and expressive post-fight reactions and interviews to overcome said barrier.

Though she's a long way off in terms of skill, success and fight output, she's reminiscent of Anderson Silva and how he carried himself as his English improved over the years.

It has almost felt like a fait accompli that the UFC would kick in the door to Mexico at some point, and though the Cain Velasquez experiment largely flopped, it appears as though Grasso and Rodriguez have set the promotion up for another, likely more fruitful attempt.

Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard would be well advised to get to work on an FS1 card south of the border, where one can headline and the other can serve as the co-main event.

That would get some attention and set things up for bigger fights there as the UFC moves forward.

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Like it or not, Jon Jones remains the best to ever do it.

Sure he's gotten himself in trouble again and again and again. However he has beaten almost every light heavyweight of his era who matters, from the barely relevant to the super elite, and he's done it without ever being in any real peril in the cage.

Jones will return this summer after serving a suspension stemming from his apparent dabbling in sexual-performance enhancers, and you can expect that he'll do it with an eye on reclaiming his world title—a title he never lost in combat that is now held by his archrival.

It may take a tune-up fight before he gets a crack at gold, or he may simply jump right in and start gunning for champion and nemesis Daniel Cormier. But no matter what path he takes, the UFC would be wise to get him out for mass consumption as soon as he proves himself stable enough to handle the privilege.

He's among the best athletes in MMA, a genuine freak of nature with NFL-caliber genes and a resume that matches up with the most impressive in history. He's thoughtful when he allows himself to be and appears to have worked hard to become more comfortable in his own skin after years of admittedly trying to be everything to everyone.

This is a man who scored endorsement deals with Nike and Gatorade when he was fueled by pot and alcohol and was commensurately arrogant thanks to the success he was enjoying on those terms. A redeemed, palatable Jones who is getting the same results in the cage could conceivably reach a marketing pitch not yet seen in the sport. 

Handled correctly, there's gold in them hills for the UFC in the future.

Follow me on Twitter @matthewjryder