Should Fedor be acknowledged for fighting at two weight classes, like GSP, McGregor, Silva?

[ChickenBrother]

DISCLAIMER: This is not another "Who is the GOAT?" thread. Personally I have GSP, Fedor, Silva, Jones in no particular order and yes, a case can be made for Mighty Mouse, Aldo, Khabib, DC, Cejudo being in the mix.

But fighting and winning above ones primary weight class earns legacy and style points for fighters like GSP, McG, Silva.

Does Fedor belong on that list for finishing Zuluzinho and Hong Man Choi at Super Heavyweight? Zuluzinho was... a Rubenesque fellow but HMC was a dangerous 364 lbs physical specimen when they fought. And on fight night both were much larger than any athlete who could have made 265.

 

[Charyot]

No

 

[BobblyStruggles]

Idk, I think HW is a completely different category from other weight divisions. "Double champ" doesn't sound as badass as "Baddest Man On The Planet".
SuperHeavy also never really had an established weight division.

 

[Reign009]

Fedor's best wins were the likes of Cro Cop, Big Nog, etc. Guys close to his size. The ones like Zuluzinho and HMC were more along the lines of freakshow fights.

At HW, speed, athleticism, and cardio aren't as common and therefore an advantage.

 

[Masturbin]

You're the goat ts

 

[Necrocrawler]

If he had dropped to lhw to face Henderson, maybe yes.

Saying that due to freak show fights against lower lvl opponents (during a time he should have been facing high tier ones) don't justify that.

 

[Fioretti]

Nope

 

[D'z]

Half the OP was what you came here to not talk about.

 

[Chomsky Honk]

It had always been part of Fedor’s mystique that he was a pretty undersized HW. I feel like he’s always been getting bonus points for fighting larger opponents from the MMA community.

 

[Greg House]

He should be acknowledged for not cutting weight and fighting anybody no matter the weight. Heavyweight champion should matter more than 2 division champion. Fedor could have fought on middleweight today, Paulo Costa probably walks around at a higher weight than he did.

Also, GSP was terrified of Anderson in their primes and never went up. He cherry picked Bisping because he was the weakest champion in the history of that division. Then never defended it against the real top fighters like Romero and Whittaker. Only his fanboys see this win as a career defining victory.

Conor is a hypejob. He claimed he was much bigger than the others 145ers when he fought there. And wouldn't make that weight now. Didn't defend shit. He had the balls to risk everyrthing moving up when GSP, Anderson and the rest were playing it safe though

Silva never won the 205 belt and was never #1 at 170. He fought forrest, bonnar and Irvin. But wouldn't fight Shogun or Jones for some reason. He also could have gone down for the mega fight with GSP. Never did.

tldr: Baddest man on the planet is more important than being a 2 division champ

 

[ChickenBrother]

Idk, I think HW is a completely different category from other weight divisions. "Double champ" doesn't sound as badass as "Baddest Man On The Planet".
SuperHeavy also never really had an established weight division.

Fedor's best wins were the likes of Cro Cop, Big Nog, etc. Guys close to his size. The ones like Zuluzinho and HMC were more along the lines of freakshow fights.

At HW, speed, athleticism, and cardio aren't as common and therefore an advantage.

It had always been part of Fedor’s mystique that he was a pretty undersized HW. I feel like he’s always been getting bonus points for fighting larger opponents from the MMA community.

He should be acknowledged for not cutting weight and fighting anybody no matter the weight. Heavyweight champion should matter more than 2 division champion. Fedor could have fought on middleweight today, Paulo Costa probably walks around at a higher weight than he did.

Also, GSP was terrified of Anderson in their primes and never went up. He cherry picked Bisping because he was the weakest champion in the history of that division. Then never defended it against the real top fighters like Romero and Whittaker. Only his fanboys see this win as a career defining victory.

Conor is a hypejob. He claimed he was much bigger than the others 145ers when he fought there. And wouldn't make that weight now. Didn't defend shit. He had the balls to risk everyrthing moving up when GSP, Anderson and the rest were playing it safe though

Silva never won the 205 belt and was never #1 at 170. He fought forrest, bonnar and Irvin. But wouldn't fight Shogun or Jones for some reason. He also could have gone down for the mega fight with GSP. Never did.

tldr: Baddest man on the planet is more important than being a 2 division champ

But all weight classes are arbitrary delineations. Even in lower divisions, you can see 20 lbs disparities on fight night. Yes HW has always been different and for 99% of athletes, there is diminishing returns on size above ~230ish lbs.

Obviously there was no SHW belt in play but Fedor v. HMC and Nog v. Sapp to me were conceptually similar to Nunes over Cyborg at 145. Cyborg was a unicorn outlier who lorded over a non-existent division - even today, the official UFC rankings list exactly one fighter at women's FW LMAO. When they fought Fedor and Nog respectively, HMC and Sapp were gigantic, jacked dudes who likely would have decapitated any other fighter >300 lbs at the time.

 

[Shay Brennan]

He should be acknowledged for not cutting weight and fighting anybody no matter the weight. Heavyweight champion should matter more than 2 division champion. Fedor could have fought on middleweight today, Paulo Costa probably walks around at a higher weight than he did.

Also, GSP was terrified of Anderson in their primes and never went up. He cherry picked Bisping because he was the weakest champion in the history of that division. Then never defended it against the real top fighters like Romero and Whittaker. Only his fanboys see this win as a career defining victory.

Conor is a hypejob. He claimed he was much bigger than the others 145ers when he fought there. And wouldn't make that weight now. Didn't defend shit. He had the balls to risk everyrthing moving up when GSP, Anderson and the rest were playing it safe though

Silva never won the 205 belt and was never #1 at 170. He fought forrest, bonnar and Irvin. But wouldn't fight Shogun or Jones for some reason. He also could have gone down for the mega fight with GSP. Never did.

tldr: Baddest man on the planet is more important than being a 2 division champ

I agree but Silva did fight at Lhw multiple times and honestly looked as good as he did at Mw. He finished all of his opponents viciously.
He was also never really fond of fighting fellow Brazillians.
Overall, going up and winning multiple bouts against game opponents might be better than just winning the belt and vacating. I
Legacy wise it's not but we've gotten a pretty good glipse of how good Anderson was at lhw.

 

[textwarrior]

DISCLAIMER: This is not another "Who is the GOAT?" thread. Personally I have GSP, Fedor, Silva, Jones in no particular order and yes, a case can be made for Mighty Mouse, Aldo, Khabib, DC, Cejudo being in the mix.

But fighting and winning above ones primary weight class earns legacy and style points for fighters like GSP, McG, Silva.

Does Fedor belong on that list for finishing Zuluzinho and Hong Man Choi at Super Heavyweight? Zuluzinho was... a Rubenesque fellow but HMC was a dangerous 364 lbs physical specimen when they fought. And on fight night both were much larger than any athlete who could have made 265.

Heavyweight is the broadest range of weight from 220 and up.

 

[ChickenBrother]

You're the goat ts