P4P McGregor > Jones ... easily
- Thread starter Ginn
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How many title defenses does Mcgregor have? How many does Jon have? Plus he's been doing this for YEARS and just turned 30 last month. He just smoked a future hall a famer and arguably the best pound for pound fighter in the sport (undefeated at heavyweight, cleared out his division other than Jones) in Daniel Cormier.
Plus, mma has EIGHT divisions now. There was a time when the UFC only had 1 champ (heavyweight), then 2 champs later that year (1997), added welterweight in 1998, Added lightweight and Middleweight in 2001, Welterweight and lightweight actually disappeared for 3 years when Bustamante left for Japan (2002-2005), and lightweight disappeared for 3 years after BJ Penn and Uno fought to a draw (2003-2006), which is why BJ fought Hughes for the Welterweight title in the first place. Featherweight and Bantamweight didn't exist until 2010. Flyweight didn't exist until 2012. Plus these belts are actually "trophies" (argued in court by the UFC) and aren't actual titles. There are no stipulations in place as to what you need to do to defend them, who you need to defend them against, under what situations you are stripped, etc. Its just a promoter trophy. So unlike the promoter bullshit your sold, most fighters in mma history didn't even have a chance to fight for these promoter trophies, and there is no set standard for how the belts are defended or stripped. I think the WWE title has more set rules than the UFC title does.
Plus, mma has EIGHT divisions now. There was a time when the UFC only had 1 champ (heavyweight), then 2 champs later that year (1997), added welterweight in 1998, Added lightweight and Middleweight in 2001, Welterweight and lightweight actually disappeared for 3 years when Bustamante left for Japan (2002-2005), and lightweight disappeared for 3 years after BJ Penn and Uno fought to a draw (2003-2006), which is why BJ fought Hughes for the Welterweight title in the first place. Featherweight and Bantamweight didn't exist until 2010. Flyweight didn't exist until 2012. Plus these belts are actually "trophies" (argued in court by the UFC) and aren't actual titles. There are no stipulations in place as to what you need to do to defend them, who you need to defend them against, under what situations you are stripped, etc. Its just a promoter trophy. So unlike the promoter bullshit your sold, most fighters in mma history didn't even have a chance to fight for these promoter trophies, and there is no set standard for how the belts are defended or stripped. I think the WWE title has more set rules than the UFC title does.
There's a few things that are huge that you're missing. Most of these wins have glaring issues.
Mark Coleman - Coleman was UFC Champion way back in the day when the talent was very thin. A few years later the sport evolved drastically. So counting Coleman as a former UFC champion is misleading.
To add to that Coleman was 39 and 41 when he fought a prime Fedor, their first fight taking place in 2004 and their 2nd fight taking place in 2006, Coleman is 52 now so do the math yourself if you want.
Mark Hunt - Hunt is a inconsistent fighter with a strong chin and KO power. The guy is good no doubt but is not a world beater and if Jones or even GSP had a guy who is 13-11 on their records as one of their best wins they'd get laughed at.
We all know the HW division is a different animal and to this day the same talent is there because the talent stream is not the same at HW as it is at the lower weight classes. Hunt who is 43 is a prime example of this.
Kevin Randleman - Another fighter who's similar to Hunt, Randleman is extremely inconsistent especially later in his career and went on long losing streaks. The guy finished his career with a 17-16 record and as the talent got better he started to lose more.
Renato Sobral & Ricardo Arona - Both guys were LHW's and not big LHW's at that. And now that I'm thinking of it Randleman was a smaller guy as well he could easily make LHW and if I'm correct fought the majority of his career there. Fedor beat a lot of big guys but the majority of them were absolute cans.
Kazayuki Fujita - This is one of those wins I don't know why people even bring up, it's like when someone mentions Ogawa as a notable win. Fujita is 15-12 and the best win of his career by FAR is Gilbert Yvel who only walked around at 225lbs. I haven't seen the fight but I'm sure Fujita just laid on the dude and managed to keep him down long enough to not get knocked out. Besides Yvel, Fujita is known for having a steel chin and getting battered by the likes of Reem and Wandy, oh and this can almost KO'd Fedor, had him doing the stanky leg
Arlovksi & Sylvia - While I do think these were both good wins for their time and in hindsight I do think it's important to note that both guys sort of fell off for a while or altogether after their fights with Fedor. Arlovski went on a 4 fight losing streak and Sylvia never really faced anyone of note (aside for Arlovski) after the Fedor fight. Fedor beat them but he didn't beat them at their peaks but during a downturn.
One thing that you said is Fedor had wins over 4 UFC champions. You mean 4 former UFC champions. Beating a champion and a former champ are 2 different things. Heck Aljamain Sterling has a win over a UFC champion. Some of the cans who knocked out Arlovksi have a win over a UFC champ, it's as if you're equating a win over a former UFC champion as a legit UFC title win or some extra accomplishment when it's no such thing, not even worth mentioning really.
Big Daddy is another win I don't know why people bring up. The dude was 17-13-1 when he fought Fedor and the majority of his wins was a bunch of cans. His best win was Valenteen Overeem or Don Frye. Besides that I don't know most of the guys he beat. The guy finished his career 23-22. If he fought in the modern era he wouldn't be a top fighter.
Lindland was another smaller guy that Fedor beat and Fedor always struggled with wrestlers (struggled with Coleman and Randelman) and without missing a beat was about to get taken down by Lindland before grabbing the ropes and reversing the position then proceeded to win the fight, I never forget that. The guy would have been in deep trouble for LHW's like Jones and Cormier, heck a prime Coleman would have given him major trouble.
Herring was a meh HW, a decent win but nothing to write home about.
Overall Fedor was a fighter who fought in an era where he was one of the most talented guys and crushed a lot of cans to pad his record. He had all-around skills in an era where most people were one dimensional or just didn't have his talent level. He was good no doubt but in this era he'd have to fight at LHW because the LHW's today are huge and the HW's of today are much more skilled overall.
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Mark Hamill says otherwise.
But yeah, Jones takes this, I'm not sure why this is even a question. Who has Jon ducked?
I'm still waiting on that Frankie fight Dana promised us.
I bet Conor never fights Khabib either.
Conor is fantaaaastic don't get me wrong, but I don't even think he's P4P top 5. He'll he's not even the best lightweight. I'm the biggest Diaz fan out there but Nate isn't exactly a worldbeater and he choked him on like 11 days notice. Fight Khabib, fight Tony, give Aldo his rematch at 155 and maybe fight Kevin Lee after all that when he's matured and rounded up his game, then they can MAYBE be compared.
I'm going to post this in every Conor thread from here to eternity. Also, any Floyd hate thread.
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You have some well thought out points... & I appreciate that... though I don't agree with all of them. It's significant that several of the top contenders he beat were LHW... but also consider that Fedor himself could've likely made LHW pretty easily if he wanted to.
Like I said, Fedor's place is probably one of the trickiest to figure because we're going back so far into the past.
Coleman beat prime Don Frye & Prime Dan Severn on the way to the UFC belt. That's legit. I'm pretty sure he beat Maurice Smith too. I think the judges overestimated Smiths effectiveness from the bottom. I hear you that Coleman was old when he fought Fedor... but in the 1st fight he had Fedor down twice & was beating the sh*t out of him until Fedor caught him in an arm bar. I don't think you can call age on that particular fight cause it didn't show up.... but either way he's legit & stays on the list.
you can't take Hunt off the list. He just got done beating Cro cop & Wand just prior to fighting Fedor. he was on fire at the time.
The trickiest thing about working out Fedor's GOAT list is having to look back & recognize the fighter's records at the time he faced them... so you can't make a point about Hunt's current record when we're talking about a fight that happened 10 years ago. You're doing that with almost every one of them.
Again with Fujita your looking at his life time record... but at the time Fedor was fighting him, Fujita was a big deal. I was never much of a fan, but I do recall the hype at the time of him being considered one of the best... & to be fair, all of his losses were to top guyz until his losing streak at the end of his career.
Jones - What you said about the "former" UFC champs going downhill after they fought Fedor, is also one of the main gripes about Jones' GOAT status. That said... Machida, Vitor, Gus & Teix hung in there after their jones loss for a while. The crowning achievement for Jones though is his 2 wins against DC. The 2 of them have just left the rest of the division in their wake... clearly the 2 best LHW's of this era... & Jones came out on top.
This was a good discussion & you definitely have good points... but I'm still seeing that Jones hasn't quite walked away with the undisputed GOAT title. He's young & I'm not doubting he will do it... but my point is that he hasn't done it quite yet. We haven't even broke down Spider, GSP & Mouse yet either. lol... They are all legitimately in the convo.
Mouse - Top contender wins Benevidez x2, Dodson x2, Moraga, Kyoji, Cejudo
Ali was legit going in... but he declined right after that. 3 maybe 4 of Mouse's title fights were by what would otherwise be non-contenders if Mouse hadn't all ready cleaned out the division. So a lot of people put him toward the back of the big 5. Maybe not though in light of the discussion we're having. 7 legit top contender wins are pretty impressive.
GSP's resume is similar to the point we made about people declining after losing to him... but also has some high level fighters that kept going afterward... like Jon Fitch, Jake Shieds, Condit, Diaz, & Pre-USADA Hendricks
Hughes & Koschek were both at the tail end of very long careers... & Serra bless for landing that shot... but he was on & off in his career & didn't contend much after those GSP fights. Penn was still a legit contender both times he fought GSP... though the second time was around a year prior to Penn's losing streak.
Spider - Strongest wins were Maia, Belfort, & Chael. Hendo was legit at the time & many years before his decline, so he definitely makes that list.
Franklin kept going after losing to Spider... though bar a couple of fights, his wins weren't that high in competition level. Deninitely a legit couple of wins though for Spider imo. I'd say something similar about Marquardt, Cote, & Leites. Which leaves Spider with quite a nice collection of respectable wins... especially considering the impressive way he did it most of the time.
This was an interesting twist on the GOAT topic to look at it like we did here. Still looks to me like a 5 way tie. if anything, it looks to me like Spider has a slight advantage atm
Shout out to Couture with 9 titles winz spanning 2 weight divisionz.
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