During the last few years within the UFC we have seen many of the long term champs either get beaten or nearly beaten or made to look average. Now I've seen allot of people claim on this forum that the rest of mma has advanced beyond the likes of Anderson silva, George st Pierre, BJ penn, fedor ect and these outstanding individuals, would be troubled or beaten, in there primes, by the majority of the top 10 of there divisions.
I have heard posters claim that prime Bj penn would of been easily beaten by yair, prime Gsp would be beaten by the majority of the top 5 of his division, and that Anderson silva and fedors skill set are no longer adequate to be champions if they were in there primes today.
There are a number of reasons why these argument is flawed.
There is not one outstanding individual who has taken the place of these outstanding champions. No one from this 'new breed' of fighters has really laid a claim too the belt. The divisions they vacated are all now tightly contested, with these so called new breed, regularly losing too older veterans. Woodly has loses to jake shields, Nate, Rory McDonald, all of which have multiple loses.
Micheal bisping is the middleweight champion, clearly this shows how the division has either got weaker or stayed the same, even if we take into account the circumstances of his title win, we can clearly look at the rest of the division and see there are no outstanding individuals within it. The lightweight division has McGregor who, whilst excellent has a loss to an old school nate at 170lb and has yet to solidify his authority on the division. Bj pens most recent loss to Edgar clearly shows his decline, and the likes of Rodriguez has had close fights with Bruce Leeroy, who is clearly no wolrd beater.
The heavyweight division is perhaps the most obvious example of a lack of a new breed of fighter, with many of the top 10 being from an early generation of fighters. Fedor has wins over a few of the top 10 of the division, who are still competitive with the likes of cain and jds, despite being much older. Even tho the heavyweight division favours older fighters when compared to other divisions, this further emphasises that the skill level of fighters has not dramatically increased.
To avoid Mma math, I do not want to go into too much detail on particular matchups and how they demonstrate a very even matchup between the so called new and old school mma fighters. However it is evident that there are no outstanding dominant champions in the divisions where the long term champs have declined. To avoid the argument that 'the whole division has gotten better, that's why there are no dominant champions' I would suggest looking at the fight records of the top 10 fighters within each division, which clearly, as stated shows fighters of the new breed with loses to old school fighters.
Clearly, and I would of thought obviously, the reason these champions are no longer relevant, is due too there age and physical decline. This can be obviously attributed to a physical decline when looking at these once outstanding fighters reccords once they suffer there first loss - they go on a downhill skid from there. This suggests that rather than the whole division suddenly catching up with them, the more likely alternative is that they themselves have declined. Examples of this are silva loosing to weidman, bisping and Cormier. Bj penn losing to Edgar, Diaz , Rodriguez. Fedors loses, to werdum,Bigfoot, Henderson. To assume there was a huge improvement in competition is simply ignorant.
To conclude, it seems obvious, that whilst the standard of mma is certainly improving, this is not the reason for the decline of these great champs and in there prime they would still be at the top of there divisions.
I have heard posters claim that prime Bj penn would of been easily beaten by yair, prime Gsp would be beaten by the majority of the top 5 of his division, and that Anderson silva and fedors skill set are no longer adequate to be champions if they were in there primes today.
There are a number of reasons why these argument is flawed.
There is not one outstanding individual who has taken the place of these outstanding champions. No one from this 'new breed' of fighters has really laid a claim too the belt. The divisions they vacated are all now tightly contested, with these so called new breed, regularly losing too older veterans. Woodly has loses to jake shields, Nate, Rory McDonald, all of which have multiple loses.
Micheal bisping is the middleweight champion, clearly this shows how the division has either got weaker or stayed the same, even if we take into account the circumstances of his title win, we can clearly look at the rest of the division and see there are no outstanding individuals within it. The lightweight division has McGregor who, whilst excellent has a loss to an old school nate at 170lb and has yet to solidify his authority on the division. Bj pens most recent loss to Edgar clearly shows his decline, and the likes of Rodriguez has had close fights with Bruce Leeroy, who is clearly no wolrd beater.
The heavyweight division is perhaps the most obvious example of a lack of a new breed of fighter, with many of the top 10 being from an early generation of fighters. Fedor has wins over a few of the top 10 of the division, who are still competitive with the likes of cain and jds, despite being much older. Even tho the heavyweight division favours older fighters when compared to other divisions, this further emphasises that the skill level of fighters has not dramatically increased.
To avoid Mma math, I do not want to go into too much detail on particular matchups and how they demonstrate a very even matchup between the so called new and old school mma fighters. However it is evident that there are no outstanding dominant champions in the divisions where the long term champs have declined. To avoid the argument that 'the whole division has gotten better, that's why there are no dominant champions' I would suggest looking at the fight records of the top 10 fighters within each division, which clearly, as stated shows fighters of the new breed with loses to old school fighters.
Clearly, and I would of thought obviously, the reason these champions are no longer relevant, is due too there age and physical decline. This can be obviously attributed to a physical decline when looking at these once outstanding fighters reccords once they suffer there first loss - they go on a downhill skid from there. This suggests that rather than the whole division suddenly catching up with them, the more likely alternative is that they themselves have declined. Examples of this are silva loosing to weidman, bisping and Cormier. Bj penn losing to Edgar, Diaz , Rodriguez. Fedors loses, to werdum,Bigfoot, Henderson. To assume there was a huge improvement in competition is simply ignorant.
To conclude, it seems obvious, that whilst the standard of mma is certainly improving, this is not the reason for the decline of these great champs and in there prime they would still be at the top of there divisions.