Best UFC Career without ever being champ

Just a conversation for shits and giggles.

Wondering who you all think has had the best UFC Career while never being a UFC Champion.
Here's a list of possible nominees for starters:

Urijah Faber
Florian
Sonnen
Diaz
Fitch
Koscheck
Leben
Mendes
Bisping
Kampmann
Marquardt

I am sure I am missing someone... probably someone from back in the day.
However, I am going to go with Urijah Faber.
He's never had a UFC belt. He is 6-2 in the UFC, with his only losses in title fights.
He hasn't had a belt in any organization since 2008. In that span he is 0-5 in title fights and 9-0 in non-title fights in two different weight classes.

Kenflo

Yeah Florian is the first name that pops into my head, but I'm sure there's somebody else I'm forgetting. I don't really lend much credibility to Faber's record of "only losing in title fights". He gets offered more title shots than anybody I can remember, so I'm not really all that impressed with his record of beating a few middle of the pack fighters and then being handed yet another title shot.

Yeah, fair enough.
I just think it's quite a stat to 9-5 in your last 14 fights and all your losses are in title fights.
However, much of that was in a different org so doesn't add as much relavence to this subject.

Florian:
Since going to lightweight he's had 14 fights (all against pretty top level guys at the time save for Kit Cope).
His only losses were to Sean Sherk, BJ Penn and Gray Maynard (two were title fights).
Then at FW, he is 1-1 with the loss to Aldo in a title fight.

Faber and Bigg Rigg

Wasn't Florian at MW or WW when he fought Kit Cope?

I'm going with Florian. I became a big fan after season 1 of TUF...he looked terrible on the show and then upped his game by leaps and bounds and started kicking ass. I still feel like he's the most improved fighter to ever come from the TUF roster.

And on top of all that right after his first post TUF fight I messaged him on myspace and he messaged me back thanking me for the the support. That went a long way with me.

Triggerman99 wrote:

Wasn't Florian at MW or WW when he fought Kit Cope?

Yeah the title fight with Sherk was the first 155 lb fight in to UFC. Kenny was not ready for a title shot at that point and was just kind of thrown to the wolves.

Dave Tank Abbott
Nick Diaz
Gary Goodridge
Jeremy Horn

shouldnt hendo qualify for this too?

No, Dan Henderson was a (although sort of forgotten) UFC champion, beating another future UFC champion (Carlos Newton) for his title.

chris lytle

Werdum?

Snake Five wrote:

No, Dan Henderson was a (although sort of forgotten) UFC champion, beating another future UFC champion (Carlos Newton) for his title.

i dont think that tournament really counts as being a champ. hendo is not written down as a ufc champ in any sources ive looked up.

Dan Henderson is a whiney tool, that's why he doesn't count.

Bisping, ken-flo ,Dan hardy and chris lytle.

Triggerman99 wrote:

Dan Henderson is a whiney tool, that's why he doesn't count.

I thought about Hendu, but his UFC career really hasn't been that good. He barely has a winning record in the UFC (6-5?).
If you take away that one day in 1998 under the wierd one 15 minute round tournament style, he's only 4-5. Plus, I feel Carlos Newton kicked his ass in that fight.

Since coming back to the UFC he started 0-2 in back-to-back title fights in two different weight classes.
Then he put on the best streak of his UFC career and won 3 fights in a row (paul harris, barely franklin, and hendu bomb bisping). But then he decided to leave the UFC so he could get completely owned by Jake Shields in Strikeforce.
He came back again to win a decision over Rua, but then went on to lose 3 in a row.

Merry Christmas everyone!
even to the blasphemous one that called hendo a whiney tool   

I don't know I've always counted tournament champions as champions, although I'll be damned if I count TUF winners as UFC champions.

Well it's different, though. To use this example, Henderson fought and defeated other UFC fighters to be crowned the tournament champion. TUF fighters aren't yet UFC fighters, nor are they fighting and defeating other UFC fighters. So in essence, they aren't really champions of anything. They just earned the right to fight for the UFC by winning that tournament.