Who's your favorite fighter?

[Magnum]

After Nog convincingly beat Randy, it kind of derailed his title shot plans. Randy's next fight is Brandon Vera at UFC 105.

The great thing about Randy is his "fire" to still compete. Like when we saw Cro Cop fight on the weekend it was just sad, he looked like he didn't want to be there. Looked like a shell of himself.

I'll always support Randy, I just hope he knows when his time is up so he doesn't go out like Cro Cop has.

 

[LFTWNG11]

Haven't had a chance to see any of UFC103... should finish downloading tonight

But I have read the reports on the 2 fights I was interested in. Being a long time Cro Cop admirer (2nd only to Fedor in Pride IMO), was keen to see him string another win together and make a charge in the HW division... well he couldn't be any further from that position!!!! I know he lost his first 2(or 3?) UFC fights and then won last time out, the consensus was he was getting used to the cage and was all set to show off in the cage. Then he gets picked apart in this fight, in which he looked lacklusture and disinterested (much like his first couple of losses in the cage). Very sad if you ask me, and highlights how much character someone like Couture has....

 

[Deej]

After Nog convincingly beat Randy, it kind of derailed his title shot plans. Randy's next fight is Brandon Vera at UFC 105.

The great thing about Randy is his "fire" to still compete. Like when we saw Cro Cop fight on the weekend it was just sad, he looked like he didn't want to be there. Looked like a shell of himself.

I'll always support Randy, I just hope he knows when his time is up so he doesn't go out like Cro Cop has.

You know that I used to say pride fighters were overrated in general, well crocop is the highest on the list for me. Remember that rumour about him saying he'd come to ufc take the belt and head back to pride? Plan got a little derailed by some of his own high kick medicine. Wand too, steroids, Shogun, all those massive reputations were not necessarily deserved in my opinion. I know they all were and still are tough bastards but the reps were above that, they were rungs above anything the ufc had, I may be wrong but i think even you said crocop would eat randy around when randy came back for the sylvia fight? I'd take randy by mauling over cropcop now then and anytime before. I hope I dont come across as a smart arse I probably do but I seriously think the pride reputations were inflated for a lot of fighters. It's funny that Anderson lost in pride jeez what he would do to those guys now.

 

[100action]

for mma it would be Peter Aerts, im a big fan of high kicks and none kick harder than the lumberjack; he makes the cro cop look like a pansy.

all time favourite would be Mike Tyson, watching him fight just casts a overwhelming feeling of inferiority and helplessness over you as a male because you cant fathom how much he is better than you, he would destroy any mma fighter and that includes people that can grapple like Fedor Emelianenko.

 

[drew_j]

for mma it would be Peter Aerts, im a big fan of high kicks and none kick harder than the lumberjack; he makes the cro cop look like a pansy.

all time favourite would be Mike Tyson, watching him fight just casts a overwhelming feeling of inferiority and helplessness over you as a male because you cant fathom how much he is better than you, he would destroy any mma fighter and that includes people that can grapple like Fedor Emelianenko.

Now THAT'S inflamatory.

/sit's back - eats popcorn.

 

[cuzzy_bandwagon]

for mma it would be Peter Aerts, im a big fan of high kicks and none kick harder than the lumberjack; he makes the cro cop look like a pansy.

all time favourite would be Mike Tyson, watching him fight just casts a overwhelming feeling of inferiority and helplessness over you as a male because you cant fathom how much he is better than you, he would destroy any mma fighter and that includes people that can grapple like Fedor Emelianenko.

lol i didnt know donny posted on big footy!!!

 

[Magnum]

You know that I used to say pride fighters were overrated in general, well crocop is the highest on the list for me. Remember that rumour about him saying he'd come to ufc take the belt and head back to pride? Plan got a little derailed by some of his own high kick medicine. Wand too, steroids, Shogun, all those massive reputations were not necessarily deserved in my opinion. I know they all were and still are tough bastards but the reps were above that, they were rungs above anything the ufc had, I may be wrong but i think even you said crocop would eat randy around when randy came back for the sylvia fight? I'd take randy by mauling over cropcop now then and anytime before. I hope I dont come across as a smart arse I probably do but I seriously think the pride reputations were inflated for a lot of fighters. It's funny that Anderson lost in pride jeez what he would do to those guys now.

I never said Cro Cop would smash Randy, I said he's smash Sylvia. It was you that believed Sylvia could beat Fedor though

See - http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5845960&postcount=36

In any case, I do agree CroCop was somewhat overrated in hindsight. At least when expecting to do as well inside the cage compared to that of his Pride fights.

I reckon though, for the more '1 dimensional' (CroCop, Lesnar, Lindland, Coleman) fighters the rules/arena they fight in can make the biggest difference to a fighters performance. The cage+ufc rules (elbows to the head on the ground, no knees or kicks tho) are much better for wrestlers, where as in Pride ring+rules(restarts in the centre, no elbows to the head, but soccer kicks and knees to the head) are much better for strikers, guys like Cro Cop excelled. There are many reasons for this which I can explain if you can't see why.

In any case in a ring, under Pride rules, Cro Cop has a deserved badass reputation winning the OWGP. Hypothetically if he fought all his UFC opponents in Pride, he would have done much better I believe. He was just so confident in the ring, and Mirko is a very mental fighter, in the UFC, he lost all confidence, especially after GG scrambled his brain with that RHK!

I know you think that MMA doesn't exist outside the UFC, but there ARE different flavours of MMA. And yes I agree that if he is truly to be considered one of the best he should be able to fight in both arenas. Still, points to consider.

And Wand, well Wanderlei is just getting older. Same as Chuck. Wand was not overrated in his day. If you saw his run through Pride I think you would have put him up there just like everyone else did, he was a killer and the Pride rules suited him to perfection. He was getting past it even before he got to the UFC, he was coming off 2 straight losses going into the Liddell fight. Now he's gone like 6-1 in his last 7 fights, but that isn't representative of how much of a badass he was in his Prime. Regardless, Wanderlei Silva is a legend of MMA.

Also, that doesn't mean ALL Pride guys were overated just cos of a few dropping off.

Rampage, Henderson, Anderson, Big Nog, Fedor, Shogun, Overeem have all done well since leaving Pride. And remember the entire MMA game has gone up since then, the up and comers are might tougher fights for *everyone*. The UFC flag bearers from the time are also being beaten. Chuck, Tito, Hughes, Randy, Franklin etc are all having trouble amongst the modern MMA up and comers. This is to be expected as fighters get older and new blood comes in. Chuck 1-4, Rich 3-2, Hughes 2-3 Randy 2-3 in their last 5 fights etc.

At the time, the best heavyweights were in Pride, this is not opinion anymore, Fedor has domolished Sylvia and Ande, Nog has dominated Randy. Mir is the only one you could make a case for, beating Nog who was only 3 weeks removed from a week stint in hospital with a blown out knee. Even then Nog is getting past it, but I'd like to see a Mir/Nog rematch. And cos Mirko was hanging with the top guys in Pride and winning the OWGP, his reputation was deserved. What we have learned since then is that you cant just take someone from a ring and expect him necessarily to perform as well in the cage.

Same goes for Fedor, that's why I'll be keen to see him fight Rogers and see how he goes in the cage.

Also, if you have time go have a read of some of our old thoughts, its pretty interesting, a lot of my thoughts seem pretty similar to today, but now we know what has happened, it funny in retrospect
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=246077

 

[Magnum]

Mike Tyson, watching him fight just casts a overwhelming feeling of inferiority and helplessness over you as a male because you cant fathom how much he is better than you, he would destroy any mma fighter and that includes people that can grapple like Fedor Emelianenko.

No he wouldn't.

I'll let someone else argue the point though, I cbf.

 

[LFTWNG11]

With CroCop I thinks its mostly him being past it. He is not the fighter he was 5 year ago, without a doubt. Alot of it has to do with fighting in a cage as opposed to the ring, but also I think he is just unforutnate enough to have age catch up to him earlier than most. Guys Like Randy and Chuck, they have been able to battle on well into their thirties, I just think CroCop isn't one of those fighters.

The cage v ring theory is very true. Maybe the reason why Fedor decided to go to Strikeforce, it will give him 3 competative fights in the cage... then we may seem in the UFC with cage experience?

 

[Deej]

Ha ha sylvia to smash fedor jeez what was i thinking.

 

[Magnum]

lol, yeah that was a bit of a miss there Though, even I was suprised how fast Fedor dispatched Sylvia, I thought big Tim would definately be a challenge.

I reckon Big Tim (fully fit anyway) still has something to give though. Wonder if he ever makes it back to the UFC? He has a rock solid chin and is big and still has skills. I reckon he'd still match up reasonably well against guys like Kongo, Herring, Gonzaga, and I'd like to see a rematch with Mir. Yeah he got KO'd by a scrub in Mercer, but I think that was an anomaly as much as GSP/Serra was.

MMA is such a dynamic, evolving sport, anything can happen, and with hype and marketing people can appear bigger than they are. I think as time goes on though, experience can allow you to make better judgements just by watching a fighter a few times and using a bit of logic. And MMAath just doesn't work most of the time.

The great thing is we're still discussing it as hardcore as ever 3 years on. Imagine what the next 3 years will hold? Who knows? Maybe Todd Duffee will be be HW champ! hahah

 

[Deej]

I know you think that MMA doesn't exist outside the UFC, but there ARE different flavours of MMA. And yes I agree that if he is truly to be considered one of the best he should be able to fight in both arenas. Still, points to consider.

I'll do a more detailed reply a bit later but just wanted to clarify this, I look at the UFC as the AFL, and MMA is Australian Rules Football. Of course there is aussie rules played outside of the AFL but the AFL is the pinnacle of the sport.

 

[Magnum]

I'll do a more detailed reply a bit later but just wanted to clarify this, I look at the UFC as the AFL, and MMA is Australian Rules Football. Of course there is aussie rules played outside of the AFL but the AFL is the pinnacle of the sport.

Yep, now thats a fair enough enalogy and I agree with you in essence - currently as it stands the UFC is *THE* MMA brand worldwide, the would account for 80% of the talent in the MMA world. The main difference is that AFL have 100% of the top Aussie Rules talent. There are no Gary Abletts running around in the VFL. Also, Aussie Rules is consistent with rules and scoring etc. Many MMA orgs have different rules so this can muddle the evaluations further. A UFC fighter reliant on the cage and elbows on the ground, might have a MUCH harder time fighting in say Dream, just as Mirko had trouble in the Cage. Something else to consider in the analogy.

Also, just because they are the biggest, doesn't mean that other MMA orgs don't have "UFC worthy" (world class) fights with the 20% of fighters not in the UFC. Mousasi/Babalu for example was a world class fight, could easily put that straight into a UFC card, both fighters are easily UFC worthy, same with Fedor/Rogers and many others outside the UFC.

And Pride in it's heyday (2001-2006) was arguably the pinnacle of MMA, so someone like Fedor's accomplishments then were equally as good as anyone from the UFC's at the time.

But I will say as it currently stands, that unless you fight in the UFC, you can't RISE to #1 in the world without going there. For instance Mousasi could never get to #1 LHW regardless of who he fought outside the UFC. Even if Rampage went to strikeforce (apparently he's quitting fighting BTW!) and Mousasi destroyed him, he still couldn't claim it because the UFC LHW div is undisputedly the best in the world.

Obviously the exception is Fedor, who is already #1 and he's outside the UFC, but he earned his #1 in Pride earlier on which were the top dog for HW's worldwide (so as legitimate as the UFC is now). Now that the UFC heavyweight division is stacked, there is slowly starting to be (valid) argument that he should come and fight in the UFC to keep #1 spot. I say IF he's stopped fighting 'UFC level' fights outside the UFC, then he must do that to remain relevent. Until then as long as he's fighting top 10-15 guys of which there are only a few arguably outside the UFC(Rogers/Werdum/Overeem/Barnett). I'm praying that once his contract with M1 and Strikeforce finishes, he'll have experience in the cage, and can come to the UFC.

 

[Deej]

Out of interest magnum where do you rate dos santos now? Some serious punching power, not sure of his bjj but he's with nog so you'd think he'd have some ground game.

 

[Magnum]

I rate him ready to take the next step. Personally he's scratching top 10. Might even be in there.

Things we know:

His chin is good. He took some hard left hands straight down the pipe and kept coming.

His cardio is fine.

His standup is pretty good. Not as technical as possibly Kongo or even Cro Cop was, but he's got the ability to strike with pretty much anyone in the div. His knees and Muay Thai clinch were great too and put away Cro Cop.

His power is good. Demolishing Werdum, Struve and finishing CroCop is testament to this.

What we dont know:

His wrestling. I can't see it being all that flash, with only 4-5 years of MMA training. This might be his achilles heel, especially against the beastly wrestlers like Cain/Carwin/Lesnar

His BJJ. He's been training BJJ for less than I have, admitedly he's been working under the Nogueiras and probably a few more hours per week than I do, so it will be pretty good, he's a legit purple belt. I'm guessing with his chin, he might be able to put it to good use. But I'd think he'd need to be on top to work it, which might be difficult because of his wrestling.

I think a fight vs Kongo or the loser of Cain/Roy Nelson would be a good test. Personally I give him a decent chance against either, but he'd better better suited to Kongo...

Just inside the Top 10 for me. Probably give a good matchup to anyone in there Cain/Gonzaga/Herring/Kongo/Mir/Carwin... The top 10 at HW is a toss up for me aside from Lesnar and Fedor who I think are the best.

 

[drew_j]

Wait until he hits 28ish. Another 4 years of BJJ and Wrestling on a 6'4" frame and he'll sit nicely weitgh wise at HW. That's going to be scary. The days of the Randy Couture and Crocop are gone. We're going to need another division for the dudes under 230.