The 10 UFC Fighters Who Are Most Fun to Watch

Stephen Thompson (left) kicks Jake Ellenberger.Brandon Magnus/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images

It's hard to pick just 10, especially given a burgeoning new guard of UFC action fighters.

That's what makes this job so hard. You think it's easy to narrow down the 10 UFC fighters who are the most fun to watch? I beg to differ, sir or madam. I beg to differ. So you want to be a slideshow writer...

The group we did end up selecting (plus the considerable honorable mentions list) pulls from a newer generation along with the more familiar contingent. Yes, purveyors of the spinning stuff figure prominently—we're not made of stone—but there is such a thing as an exciting grappler, and we have those as well. 

Be it for their individual fighting style, aggression, in-cage flair, finishing ability or some combination, these 10 guys and gals are must-see TV in the UFC. Extra weight given to fighters who are more active in current competition. After all, you can only be so exciting if you only fight once a year.

Dominick Cruz (left) and T.J. Dillashaw /Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images

Listed in no particular order:

• Joe Lauzon
• Anthony Johnson
• Ben Saunders
• Doo Ho Choi
• Charles Oliveira
• Lando Vannata
• Alistair Overeem
• Cody Garbrandt
• Carlos Condit
• Maximo Blanco
• Thomas Almeida
• T.J. Dillashaw
• Albert Tumenov
• Santiago Ponzinibbio
• Dominick Cruz
• Yoel Romero
• Fabricio Werdum
• Jason Knight
• Valentina Shevchenko
• Joanna Jedrzejczyk
• Max Holloway
• Nikita Krylov
• Jessica Andrade
• Demetrious Johnson

Yair Rodriguez likes to just "kick it," if you know what I'm saying. His favorite childhood game was kick the can. His favorite cereal is Kix. 

The 24-year-old Mexican sensation is 10-1 overall and 6-0 since formally joining the UFC in 2014. His kicks, to the head, the body and otherwise, are one of the most potent weapons in the featherweight division.

Witness the flying head kick he laid on Andre Fili last year. Or, as sad as it was, the devastation he visited upon B.J. Penn just two weeks ago.

He might have the most exciting kicking game we've seen in a young fighter since Edson Barboza broke onto the scene.

Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images

If you don't think Demian Maia is fun to watch, then I am sorry, but we can't be friends. You also might be visually impaired. Seek help. You need help.

The results speak for themselves. In his last four fights, he choked out Neil Magny, dominated Gunnar Nelson in a purported matchup of the UFC's two best grapplers, choked out Matt Brown and choked out Carlos Condit.

Maia, the best grappler in the UFC or any other MMA promotion right now, drags down each opponent like a calf roper, gets on his back and erases his will to live. When they finally break, he's right there to help with that vaunted rear-naked choke or whatever else is convenient to the moment. It's quite a thing to witness.

Also, it's ridiculous how the UFC keeps putting Maia off for a welterweight title shot. Give him his shot already.

Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images

Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone just suffered his first loss as a UFC welterweight when Jorge Masvidal blasted him out of the cage Saturday at UFC on Fox 23. But he's still one of the most exciting fighters on the UFC roster.

Cerrone's complex muay thai game has a deceptively simple goal: kick you in your freaking head. The move up to 170 pounds only added to the power in all of his strikes, and a more assertive wrestling game has introduced more diversity to his style. Previously, he mainly went for subs after a knockdown, at which point he was following a wounded opponent to the ground. He seems a little more deliberate about working that overlooked aspect of his game now.

It will be interesting to see how Cerrone responds to this latest setback. If history is an indicator, the answer will come soon, and it will come with a bang.

Nate Diaz (left) and Nick Diaz (center) /Gregory Payan/Associated Press/Associated Press

Hey, you have two fighters on one slide, this slideshow is fraudulent, etc.!

All right, just cool your jets. Nothing wrong with bending the rules a little bit, especially when the Brothers Diaz are involved.

If the reader requires an explanation as to why Nate and Nick Diaz are fun fighters, perhaps the reader is in the wrong corner of the internet. Suffice it to say that as long as one or both of these fighters is active, the UFC's fun quotient is substantially higher.

Whether it's the in-cage taunting, the high-volume boxing or the elite-level jiu-jitsu, the Diaz brothers know how to put on a show.

No fighter in today's UFC has a bigger cult following than the little man with the hands of stone, Mr. John Lineker dos Santos de Paula.

Lineker, as he is known in his professional life, charges forward and tries to knock your head off, and he is pretty doggone amazing at it, too. Thirteen fights in the UFC, five big knockouts, all at flyweight, where knockouts are at a premium.

The Brazilian was on a six-fight win streak, including an excellent, five-round battle with John Dodson, and it took the best fight of T.J. Dillashaw's career to knock him into the loss column.

Other than that, Lineker's biggest foe is himself, or more specifically the scale, which has returned higher-than-desired numbers a UFC-record five times. 

But make no mistake: Lineker will have another day. Odds are he will punch that day very hard in the head, and that day will fall down.

Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

Raise your hand if you've ever seen a boring Tony Ferguson fight.

Sloppy, perhaps. Boring, no. Nine knockouts and eight submission wins on his ledger attest to that.

He might be the most underrated action fighter on the entire UFC roster, at least among the better-known claimants.

Ferguson raises the slugfest to an art form. He's insanely aggressive but in every phase, not just one specialty area. Stand-up, ground and clinch all come together seamlessly and are each backstopped by a genuine threat of violence.

He also fights with great creativity, improvising like an MMA Steve Carell in the scramble or in the pocket. 

Ferguson's March 4 date with Khabib Nurmagomedov is one to circle in red on the old calendar.

Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports

Have you ever noticed that Conor McGregor has good intangibles?

Oh, it's true. He's got some confidence. "Swagger" is what young people call it sometimes. His final stat lines to this point have been just as fun, if not more so, than any full-length mink or money-green Lambo. 

Just look at the flash with which he fires that lightning bolt of a left cross. No one can stand up to it, even Nate Diaz, who avoided the knockout but hit the canvas more than once during their two encounters last year. And he just commands range with so much mastery that it's downright poetic out there sometimes.

I also heard something about how he was considering a boxing career? I don't know, details are sketchy.

What is certain is that whenever we do see McGregor in the cage again, it will be a fun occasion.

The Lioness only has one speed, and that speed is speed.

Six of Amanda Nunes' eight UFC contests ended in the first round, and only one went the distance. But that's not even the kind of speed I'm talking about.

Nunes is a bundle of fast-twitch. Her hands and feet are tremendously quick; that's what makes her so explosive. That quickness is a perfect complement to the natural aggression she displays from the second the opening horn sounds. She charges forward and gives no quarter, punching with precision and power while staving off most takedown attempts—73 percent of them, to be specific, according to her UFC profile page.

After she dispatched Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey in a combined four minutes and four seconds, the world took notice. The women's bantamweight champ is here to stay, and she's here for fireworks.

Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson is relatively new to this conversation. He's making up for lost time.

Ever since the picture-perfect head kick that finished Dan Stittgen in his 2012 UFC debut, Wonderboy has been tearing up journeymen and contenders alike. 

His background as a world-champion kickboxer has, to date, translated beautifully to MMA. That's thanks in large part to great cage awareness and excellent footwork. 

Footwork isn't fun, though. What's fun are the long-range kicks and punches he fires off from the perimeter, perfectly set up, timed and spaced to deliver maximum power to the temple or chin. It's a laser-guided precision striking game that, to date, has worked to devastating effect.

Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

And here's Mister Fifth Round to round things out.

Robbie Lawler is in an uncertain state, both because he hasn't competed since July and because his chin may now have a discernible shelf life after all of those wars. Tyron Woodley capitalized with a first-round knockout to take Lawler's welterweight title. Then again, Woodley hits pretty hard, so, yes, uncertain.

None of that matters much in the context of this list, though. Lawler's tremendous power and toughness, and the slow burn with which he brings it to bear, make him irresistible from a fan perspective. Nothing more fun than hearing that Sam and Dave riff. Forget "Face the Pain"; this remains the real MMA dog whistle.