MMA Junkie‘s Danny Segura recently argued that with the acquisition of Yoel Romero, Bellator MMA has enough of the world’s best light heavyweight fighters to not just rival the UFC’s, but to make a rational argument for having the top five.

Here are the best five in the UFC:
Champion: Jan Blachowicz
1. Glover Teixeira
2. Thiago Santos
3. Dominick Reyes
4. Aleksandar Rakic
5. Jiri Prochazka

Bellator does not yet publish official rankings, but a reasonable guess is something like:
Champion: Vadim Nemkov 
1. Anthony Johnson
2. Yoel Romero
3. Ryan Bader
4. Corey Anderson
5. Phil Davis
Plus Lyoto Machida, middleweight champion Gegard Mousasi superfighting up, and several other world-class fighters.

Bellator acquired top light heavyweight talent from the UFC, and not when they were at the end of their career, as for example Anderson Silva now is. Johnson and Bader were #5. Romero was #4. Davis and Anderson were #6.

And there are head to head comparisons. The UFC’s #1 contender Teixeira lost to Johnson, Anderson, and Davis. #2 UFC contender Santos lost to Mousasi. And of course, it goes the other way too. For example, #5 UFC contender Prochazka beat Bellator’s current champ Nemkov in RIZIN in 2015.

At the peak of PRIDE, even UFC president Dana White conceded that they were a real rival. But the performance of Strikeforce fighters in the UFC, demonstrates conclusively that Scott Coker and matchmaker Rich Chou can find and develop talent that are among the greatest on Earth. Daniel Cormier, Ronda Rousey, Tyron Woodley, Cris Cyborg, Luke Rockhold, Miesha Tate, Jacare Souza, Jorge Masvidal, Alistair Overeem, and many others demonstrated conclusively that for the second time, not all the best fighters in the world were in the UFC.

But the UFC bought PRIDE and Strikeforce, assumed the contracts, and shuttered the organizations. And for years, all but a handful of the best fighters in the world were indeed in the UFC. That has changed. While you can argue that the UFC’s 205 division is still better than Bellator’s, it can for a third time no longer rationally be said the UFC has nearly all the best fighters in every division.

The elephant in the room for this discussion is of course Jon Jones. If he has truly left the 205 division for good, and is now a heavyweight, then he’s not relevant to the discussion. If he returns to the division, he is, at the least, the light heavyweight GOAT, and, by himself, ends the discussion about whose division is best. But for now, at the top of 205, there appears to be a degree of parity.