Had he spent his prime in Pride, would Spider be considered...

DaPunkMinowaMan

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A potential GOAT?

...In a tougher environment, possible tournaments (2-3 fights per night) at openweight, tricky hardcore match-ups a la Wand vs HW Hunt on short notice...
 
Spider is up there in his prime already as a GOAT. But freak matches out of your normal weight classes don't do much to tarnish a GOAT. There's a reason for weight classes. And at his prime middle weight was one of the most stacked divisions.
 
No the competition was easier -Leben
 
Hell no.

He got easily finished in Pride and he wouldn't have gotten away with his boring wins like the ones against Cote and Maia. In Pride he would've gotten yellow carded in both of those.
 
even Jerry Rice used stickem. all GOATs have some kind of * even if they wern't caught because it is not natural to be at that high level of anything.

it also takes a singular drive to reach those heights so these types of athletes are willing to look over their own behavior.
 
In his heyday, plenty of people were calling him the GOAT. He's still top three for me, along with GSP and Fedor.
 
He was 31 when he made his UFC debut so age wise his prime was spent a bit in PRIDE
 
Depends how you mean, fighting at 185lbs(well 183lbs) or at 205lbs? in the former he fought Hendo anyway of course but I would say that a pre roofies Filho would be a bad style matchup for him.
 
It depends on whether he still would've gotten busted for PEDs and used the "dick pill" excuse. If you change one thing then other things change too, it's just a matter of degree.
 
He was 31 when he made his UFC debut so age wise his prime was spent a bit in PRIDE

He spent only 2 yrs in Pride [2002-04]

I would consider that he reached his technical prime by the end of his Pride run.

U could reasonably extend his physical prime till 2009.
 
It depends on whether he still would've gotten busted for PEDs and used the "dick pill" excuse. If you change one thing then other things change too, it's just a matter of degree.
Not relevant here.
 
Depends how you mean, fighting at 185lbs(well 183lbs) or at 205lbs? in the former he fought Hendo anyway of course but I would say that a pre roofies Filho would be a bad style matchup for him.
Pb is, he was not fightin´ at MW then, but at 170...
 
Spider is up there in his prime already as a GOAT. But freak matches out of your normal weight classes don't do much to tarnish a GOAT. There's a reason for weight classes. And at his prime middle weight was one of the most stacked divisions.
they dont tarnish, I agree, I would even say that a competitive loss would rather enhance a resume...

Still, a fight a la Wand vs Hunt can change a career...
 
UFC marketing made him the "goat" because they needed someone to compete against boxing. That's why they created the RJJ fight talk.

Anderson has 8 losses
Got raped by Chael Sonnen in his prime for 5,5 rounds.
Destroyed by Weidman twice.
Hurt like 3 times by pillowfisted past prime 37year old Bisping
 
Why not? As long as people are hypothetically changing past history that makes *everything* about the past relevant.
coz btw 2002 and 2009, the technological gap btw testers and juicers was ridiculous.
 
UFC marketing made him the "goat" because they needed someone to compete against boxing. That's why they created the RJJ fight talk.

Anderson has 8 losses
Got raped by Chael Sonnen in his prime for 5,5 rounds.
Destroyed by Weidman twice.
Hurt like 3 times by pillowfisted past prime 37year old Bisping
I consider that he was no longer in his prime by the time he fought Sonnen.
 
Pb is, he was not fightin´ at MW then, but at 170...

Hard to find details but I'm pretty sure he was fighting at least at 183lbs for all his Pride matches, his true WW(Pride called there official 183lbs division WW post Anderson) days were pre 2002 and you can see he's clearly carrying a lot more muscle than he was in Shooto vs Sakurai.
 
Hard to find details but I'm pretty sure he was fighting at least at 183lbs for all his Pride matches, his true WW(Pride called there official 183lbs division WW post Anderson) days were pre 2002 and you can see he's clearly carrying a lot more muscle than he was in Shooto vs Sakurai.
IIRC, he did fight at 170-175 in Pride [perhaps not the last fight against Chonan...]

In Shooto [2001, b4 his Pride debut in 2002], he fought under 168.
 
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