What PRIDE fighters in their prime could compete in todays game?

[Threetrees]

You could be right. I think Arona and Rampage in prime could do quite well against DC. Hard to tell. LHW is so shit. DC is clearly better than most but not Jones. There's not a lot of elite LHWs he has been able to beat because there aren't many elite LHWs now.

Yeah we’re not far off right in this discussion

I just remembered that that tall white bald guy who KO’d shogun is like half a win from a title shot

I mean Arona would beat that guy I’m pretty sure, and I think Arona is massively overrated historically

 

[Threetrees]

Minowaman beats all the asses, even today

No shit

 

[StrikerKing]

Pride version of Bob Sapp dominates the current UFC Heavyweight roster - FACT.

LOL

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

Who are you thinking of as the best LWs?

I mean I’m thinking Kid, Hellboy, Gomi, Prime Crusher, Sakurai and I can’t see any of them competing

The LWs are just so much bigger, not to mention they’re all absurdly well rounded

Edit; I should mention when I think of lighter weights I’m thinking of all JMMA orgs not just PRIDE around the 2002-2007 type era

I edited my first post in this thread and added lists of fighters I think would do well in the UFC(competitive with top 20 or better)

 

[Threetrees]

I edited my first post in this thread and added lists of fighters I think would do well in the UFC(competitive with top 20 or better)

Top 20 or better is a good barometer

I was thinking top 10 personally, but i see your points

 

[brokenjaw]

ice cold Igor would work his magic in mw, lhw and hw

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

Top 20 or better is a good barometer

I was thinking top 10 personally, but i see your points

I think a lot of the guys I listed would be top 10 or would pop up occasionally in the top 10. Some like Schlit and Fujita and maybe Coleman and Randleman would be more top 15-20ish.

 

[GordoBarraBJJ]

Sure I don’t care
If you can get away with it, do it I say.

Then I'd say any of them would be competitive with the current LHWs' - I think a healthy, tainted supplement Shogun Rua beats Jon.

 

[Threetrees]

Then I'd say any of them would be competitive with the current LHWs' - I think a healthy, tainted supplement Shogun Rua beats Jon.

You’re wrong about that, but that’s okay. Shogun at his best was never as good as Jon Jones at his best. And it’s honestly not close. Like at all, we’re talking different classes.

 

[Koimpact]

If Rampage still gave a fuck he'd probably still be in the top 10 at LHW today

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

You’re wrong about that, but that’s okay. Shogun at his best was never as good as Jon Jones at his best. And it’s honestly not close. Like at all, we’re talking different classes.

I don't think you would say this if you understood the context of MMA in 2005 and saw Shogun run through Rampage(before he became one dimensional as he aged), beat Lil Nog then ran through Overeem and Arona on the same night.

 

[Threetrees]

I don't think you would say this if you understood the context of MMA in 2005 and saw Shogun run through Rampage(before he became one dimensional as he aged), beat Lil Nog then ran through Overeem and Arona on the same night.

You are mistaken. I started watching MMA in 2003 and the fighter I was most familiar with and most supportive of was Rampage - I started watching just in time to see him beating up Chuck, who I knew vaguely by name and lose to Wand in their first fight which was a more competitive than remembered bout.

So I know how good Rampage was, and I watched Shogun eviscerate him with no spoilers. ANd

But that, and your argument, speaks to how good Shogun was relative to his time. And the answer, in my opinion, was better than all of them. But I also know that a large part of what made Shogun appealing to me, was that similar t he was a flawed fighter who could be exploited but because of his dynamism and athleticism he could pull out wins off of crazy strikes and cool sweeps into GNP. I also know he was exceptionally smart even before coming to the UFC, for example besting Lil Nog with takedowns and rapid GNP because he knew they were close to even on the feet and in the pure grappling exchanges (Nog being more technical and a better boxer, with Shogun being more explosive and having better Muay Thai).

Shogun’s run in 2005 was the best MMA run a fighter ever had in such a short time
Until Jon Jones’ run where he almost single handily demolished what was, to that point, the highest profile division in the sport if we included the names from both PRIDE and the UFC.

I can say all this and still acknowledge that despite being the best in his era, he’d get absolutely dominated by Jon Jones.
And also I think DC. WHich is not a knock on Shogun, if the sport has evolved it’s evolved at the very top and at the very top I’m taking the tow guys who at LHW are in a class of their own. Both historically and in contemporarily.

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

You are mistaken. I started watching MMA in 2003 and the fighter I was most familiar with and most supportive of was Rampage - I started watching just in time to see him beating up Chuck, who I knew vaguely by name and lose to Wand in their first fight which was a more competitive than remembered bout.

So I know how good Rampage was, and I watched Shogun eviscerate him with no spoilers.

But that, and your argument, speaks to how good Shogun was relative to his time. And the answer, in my opinion, was better than all of them. But I also know that a large part of what made Shogun appealing to me, was that similar t he was a flawed fighter who could be exploited but because of his dynamism and athleticism he could pull out wins off of crazy strikes and cool sweeps into GNP. I also know he was exceptionally smart even before coming to the UFC, for example besting Lil Nog with takedowns and rapid GNP because he knew they were close to even on the feet and in the pure grappling exchanges (Nog being more technical and a better boxer, with Shogun being more explosive and having better Muay Thai)

I can say all this and still acknowledge that despite being the best in his era, he’d get absolutely dominated by Jon Jones.
And also I think DC. WHich is not a knock on Shogun, if the sport has evolved it’s evolved at the very top and at the very top I’m taking the tow guys who at LHW are in a class of their own. Both historically and in contemporarily.

This is where you go wrong, you're treating the Shogun that Jones fought as if he's the same one that had 2 good knees in 2005. He also got rocked by the very first shot so we don't even know how that fight would go if that didn't happen. Shogun had blown out his knee 2 or 3 times by the time he fought Jones and it's pretty important to have good knees with a style like Shogun has. Jones fought a lot of guys after they started to decline, Shogun, Rampage, Belfort and Glover were all passed their primes when Jones fought him. Machida and Rashad were in their primes when Jones beat them though.

 

[Threetrees]

This is where you go wrong, you're treating the Shogun that Jones fought as if he's the same one that had 2 good knees in 2005. He also got rocked by the very first shot so we don't even know how that fight would go if that didn't happen. Shogun had blown out his knee 2 or 3 times by the time he fought Jones and it's pretty important to have good knees with a style like Shogun has. Jones fought a lot of guys after they started to decline, Shogun, Rampage, Belfort and Glover were all passed their primes when Jones fought him. Machida and Rashad were in their primes when Jones beat them though.

No. I’m not
You made a statement assuming I held my opinion because I lacked proper historical context. I did not, and I do not. I hold my opinion because I’ve seen the best of both of them, and the best of both of their best wins.
And even still the only argument you’re making is about who has a better career. I don’t think that that’s particularly debatable, but that’s not even the issue.

The issue is who is the better fighter. Ignoring for a moment that at the time Shogun, who I think was like 30 or something, was thought to be entering a second prime where he learned to fight differently and explode when needed (there were even comparisons to Anderson who experienced, albeit different, but multiple knee surgeries early in his UFC tenure culminating in a double knee surgery prior to fighting Luttle learned to change his style from a pressure clinich based fighter to a long ranged counter boxer - and many people thought Shogun had turned a corner and done the same after wins over Chuck and Machida) I am not, in fact, making an argument about Jones being better than Shogun because he beat him. I’m saying that Jones is better than Shogun at his best, because he is - and to me, and I assume most, it’s fairly obvious to see which fighter is better. Whether or not you agree is up to you, it’s a subjective argument, but it is not one I make because I somehow don’t know how good Shogun is. You’re making the mistake of taking someone saying X is better than Y as them saying Y is bad.

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

No. I’m not
You made a statement assuming I held my opinion because I lacked proper historical context. I did not, and I do not. I hold my opinion because I’ve seen the best of both of them, and the best of both of their best wins.
And even still the only argument you’re making is about who has a better career. I don’t think that that’s particularly debatable, but that’s not even the issue.

The issue is who is the better fighter. Ignoring for a moment that at the time Shogun, who I think was like 30 or something, was thought to be entering a second prime where he learned to fight differently and explode when needed (there were even comparisons to Anderson who experienced, albeit different, but multiple knee surgeries early in his UFC tenure culminating in a double knee surgery prior to fighting Luttle learned to change his style from a pressure clinich based fighter to a long ranged counter boxer - and many people thought Shogun had turned a corner and done the same after wins over Chuck and Machida) I am not, in fact, making an argument about Jones being better than Shogun because he beat him. I’m saying that Jones is better than Shogun at his best, because he is - and to me, and I assume most, it’s fairly obvious to see which fighter is better. Whether or not you agree is up to you, it’s a subjective argument, but it is not one I make because I somehow don’t know how good Shogun is. You’re making the mistake of taking someone saying X is better than Y as them saying Y is bad.

Read what I bolded in your last post. You acted as if the Shogun that Jones fought was the same Shogun from 2005 before he had 2-3 major knee injuries. Shogun's knee blew out in his previous fight to fighting Jones. Not everyone recovers from major knee injuries let alone multiple ones in a few years timeframe.

Besides all of that Jones was able to rock Shogun immediately and I can't remember if Jones was ever able to do that to anyone else in his career and it would be unlikely to happen in a prime vs prime match up.

You are saying they are very far apart in skill based on Shogun having bad knees and getting rocked with the very first strike thrown in their fight.

 

[Local Plata]

USADA would wreck them.

 

[Rum]

This is where you go wrong, you're treating the Shogun that Jones fought as if he's the same one that had 2 good knees in 2005. He also got rocked by the very first shot so we don't even know how that fight would go if that didn't happen. Shogun had blown out his knee 2 or 3 times by the time he fought Jones and it's pretty important to have good knees with a style like Shogun has. Jones fought a lot of guys after they started to decline, Shogun, Rampage, Belfort and Glover were all passed their primes when Jones fought him. Machida and Rashad were in their primes when Jones beat them though.

True, UFC Fucked Knees Shogun has always been a shadow of PRIDE Shogun, and not from the defeat to Bones either - the start of the decline had been apparent well before that in his debut against Forest and his terrible performance against 438yo, mostly-retired Coleman.

In Pride, fully mobile Shogun was an absolute destroyer but his knees started to fuck out near the end of that run and he was more or less a 50-50 fighter right from his UFC debut. Even in some of his UFC wins - like the rematch with Ancient Coleman - he wasn't half of the fighter he was in PRIDE.

When he got favourable style match-ups, like Liddell or Machida - he could still fake it to some extent, but they were just teases of what he once was.

There's a VERY good reason that Bones was the comfortable favourite even though Shogun held the strap when they fought, and it wasn't just that Shogun was coming in cold of yet another surgery lay-off.

 

[Threetrees]

Read what I bolded in your last post. You acted as if the Shogun that Jones fought was the same Shogun from 2005 before he had 2-3 major knee injuries. Shogun's knee blew out in his previous fight to fighting Jones. Not everyone recovers from major knee injuries let alone multiple ones in a few years timeframe.

“He’d get” is a declarative statement about the future or a hypothetical.
It is not a reference to past events.

So again. No. I didn’t.

 

[codfather]

Prime Shogun and Hendo would be top 5 at light heavyweight.

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

“He’d get” is a declarative statement about the future or a hypothetical.
It is not a reference to past events.

So again. No. I didn’t.

I understood what you said, but you seem to be basing your opinion on how they would do in a prime vs prime fight on Jones fighting a Shogun with bad knees that got rocked immediately. Otherwise you wouldn't say "Shogun at his best was never as good as Jon Jones at his best. And it’s honestly not close. Like at all, we’re talking different classes."