If you are Bas Rutten you could probably look back at your MMA career and be proud. Bas Rutten did some amazing things during the early days of MMA and no one can take that away from him. He does have some regrets, though, such as not fighting the consensus great of the time, Rickson Gracie. That doesn’t mean that he never tried, just that the Rickson fight never came together for Bas Rutten. [source]
Is there one fighter you never faced off against, but wished you had?
“Rickson Gracie. At the time everyone was saying he was the greatest so I actually challenged him. People twisted the whole thing and tried to say it was because I didn’t like him. But I had nothing against him, I just wanted to find out who was the best.
“And I would have loved another rematch against Ken [Shamrock], after improving my ground skills. It almost happened in Pride, and I would have come out of retirement, but he declined. He said we’d already done it twice and didn’t need a third.”