Top fighters, length of career and 'prime'

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Kvothe_the_kingkiller

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I got the top 10 fighters from this ELO site. No one will ever agree on the top 10. This isn't about who's top 10, so don't debate it here. Thanks.

Calculating career was mostly easy. I took the liberty of removing A Silva's two 1997 fights and GSP's one 2017 fight. Maybe you wouldn't, that's fine.

Prime was obviously harder and more subjective. The biggest problem was Couture. He either had 1 long prime with lots of losses, or several shorter primes. I decided he had 3 primes of 2 years each. It's the least worst answer IMO.

Jones and DJ are the only ones still going strong.

Is there a point? Not really. The many Gil conversations made me investigate it, so I thought I'd share.

Fighter, years fought, length of career, length of prime
GSP, 02-13, 11 years, 8 prime
Jones, 08-19+, 11 years, 10 prime
Aldo, 04-19, 15 years, 8 prime
Silva, 00-19, 19 years, 7 prime
Fedor, 00-19, 19 years, 9 prime
Hughes, 98-11, 13 years, 6 prime
DJ, 07-19+, 12 years, 6 prime
Penn, 01-19, 18 years, 6 prime
Randy, 97-11, 14 years, 6 prime (2*2)
Hendo, 97-16, 19 years, 10 prime
​
 
Most fighters actual primes are way less than those imo. On average I'd say you can pinpoint 3-5 year windows for almost all fighters where their skillset was clearly peaked (obviously this can't be properly evaluated until a fighter retires). People believe primes last longer than they actually do because these guys may still keep on winning even though their skillsets and attributes are visibly declining.
 
Natural Order said:
Most fighters actual primes are way less than those imo. On average I'd say you can pinpoint 3-5 year windows for almost all fighters where their skillset was clearly peaked. People believe primes last longer than they actually do because these guys may still keep on winning even though their skillsets and attributes are visibly declining.
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That's not an unfair conclusion. I went solely by when the loss or losses began. For example, I counted the Werdum loss as the end of 'prime' for Fedor, even though it was clear he started waning a bit before that.

But mostly I was looking for trends, not 100% accuracy.
 
Kvothe_the_kingkiller said:
That's not an unfair conclusion. I went solely by when the loss or losses began. For example, I counted the Werdum loss as the end of 'prime' for Fedor, even though it was clear he started waning a bit before that.
Click to expand...

Oh it's very subjective as you mentioned. Takes a very keen eye and a complete revisiting of their fights (ie watching only their fights in order) to start really determining that window.
 
You have around 10 years of good fighting years, after that it's all downhill

Of course we have outliers like Jones(the goat), Hendo, Mousasi etc
 
Natural Order said:
Most fighters actual primes are way less than those imo. On average I'd say you can pinpoint 3-5 year windows for almost all fighters where their skillset was clearly peaked (obviously this can't be properly evaluated until a fighter retires). People believe primes last longer than they actually do because these guys may still keep on winning even though their skillsets and attributes are visibly declining.
Click to expand...
Fedor is right now as skilled as he was in his prime. The body deteriorates and speed, power, reaction time, chin with that.

Jones is declining rapidly too. He will lose soon, if not his next fight.
 
Everyone's body and circumstances are different when it comes to talking about primes. All I'll say is that's a hell of a list of great fighters.
 
Natural Order said:
Most fighters actual primes are way less than those imo. On average I'd say you can pinpoint 3-5 year windows for almost all fighters where their skillset was clearly peaked (obviously this can't be properly evaluated until a fighter retires). People believe primes last longer than they actually do because these guys may still keep on winning even though their skillsets and attributes are visibly declining.
Click to expand...
Being in your prime vs being good and winning is two different things..... <36>
 
Pretty sure we will look back and say that Jones's true prime ended with his first suspension.
 
are you including andersons and jones steroid suspension time as if he was fighting the whole time?
 
Kvothe_the_kingkiller said:
I got the top 10 fighters from this ELO site. No one will ever agree on the top 10. This isn't about who's top 10, so don't debate it here. Thanks.

Calculating career was mostly easy. I took the liberty of removing A Silva's two 1997 fights and GSP's one 2017 fight. Maybe you wouldn't, that's fine.

Prime was obviously harder and more subjective. The biggest problem was Couture. He either had 1 long prime with lots of losses, or several shorter primes. I decided he had 3 primes of 2 years each. It's the least worst answer IMO.

Jones and DJ are the only ones still going strong.

Is there a point? Not really. The many Gil conversations made me investigate it, so I thought I'd share.

Fighter, years fought, length of career, length of prime
GSP, 02-13, 11 years, 8 prime
Jones, 08-19+, 11 years, 10 prime
Aldo, 04-19, 15 years, 8 prime
Silva, 00-19, 19 years, 7 prime
Fedor, 00-19, 19 years, 9 prime
Hughes, 98-11, 13 years, 6 prime
DJ, 07-19+, 12 years, 6 prime
Penn, 01-19, 18 years, 6 prime
Randy, 97-11, 14 years, 6 prime (2*2)
Hendo, 97-16, 19 years, 10 prime
​
Click to expand...
Question: does Jon Jones (or GSP, or Fedor), do you include the years they were retired/suspended as part of their careers? If so, wouldn't it make more sense to decrease those years?
 
That fight Jones had with Santos has convinced me he is out of prime. He's in a really weak division, but I wouldn't be surprised if he loses one of his next few fights to the younger guys.
 
Prime penn should end after he left his old team for a bunch of yes men.
 
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