Does it feel like the era of invincible champs is over?

George Carlin

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Playing off of another TS thread on the front page, does it feel like alot of fighters taking belts these days seem either very beatable, or you only see really a 1 or 2 defense run in them?

When I was younger, the champs seemed like these untouchable world beaters like who the hell can even challenge this guy? GSP was invincible forever. I never thought I'd see Anderson lose. BJ at lightweight was a fucking savage for years. Khabib needs no words. Who saw anybody beating Jose? Jon vacated his title, but he cleared like three generations of LHW. Cain and Brock both seemed like the true heavyweight kings. Brock more so maybe less due to merit and more the way he steamrolled the guys he did fight.

Guys like Bisping, Jan, Eddie, even Robbie Lawler, Olivera, and dare I say Izzy... we'd seen those first 5 lose a ton of fights before they took the belt. Izzy seems to have a pretty clear blueprint on beating him. Obviously competition has gotten tougher, guys are more well rounded and fighters like Olivera have improved leaps and bounds. But if competition got so much tougher, what were guys like Eddie doing as champion anyway? Are we going through growing pains, or backwards?
 
You combined like 3 eras of fighters into one.

No there isnt as many dominant champs right now as there were over the last 15 years combined

How do you not see this?

Btw Bj defended his belt 3 times. He was not a dominant long reigning champ. Jesus Izzy is 20-1 and has defendes his belt more times than Penn did his entire career.

Fucking nostalgia
 
You combined like 3 eras of fighters into one.

No there isnt as many dominant champs right now as there were over the last 15 years combined

How do you not see this?

Btw Bj defended his belt 3 times. He was not a dominant long reigning champ. Jesus Izzy is 20-1 and has defendes his belt more times than Penn did his entire career.

Fucking nostalgia

Maybe bj was a bad example. But also, this thread is more about perception. Like when I would see who was fighting Jon or GSP or Anderson or Jose, I'd just be thinking "lamb to the slaughter"

Anytime I see someone who's fighting Izzy next I'm like they have a chance for sure. I think alot of people think he lost that last one.

Regardless of combining them, they all at least belong to one generation or another. Do you feel like we currently have a single champion with that invincible aura, where you can't look down the roster and find multiple people who you think might beat them?
 
Valentina Shevchenko is still in the UFC isn't she? Also Usman i don't see loosing anytime soon.

Usman has a whole stable of monsters he's about to deal with. Khazmat 100% might make easy work of him. Even if he doesn't, the fact I can say that at all means Usman doesn't have that aura.
 
Total bullshit thread.

Usman is a on a 9 year 21 fight win streak and with 5 title defences. How is that not dominant?

Izzy is still undefeated at MW, having a 22 fight win streak there and 4 title defences.

Volkanovski is on a 9 year 20 fight win streak with 2 title defences. His only loss came fighting 2 weight classes higher than he fights today.

Ngannou ran through top10 guys like they didn’t belong there with him, beat the UFC HW GOAT and defended his belt against a stylistic nightmare.

All of these guys are very close to becoming #1 all time in their divisions and some of them are top10 GOATs already.
 
Total bullshit thread.

Usman is a on a 9 year 21 fight win streak and with 5 title defences. How is that not dominant?

Izzy is still undefeated at MW, having a 22 fight win streak there and 4 title defences.

Volkanovski is on a 9 year 20 fight win streak with 2 title defences. His only loss came fighting 2 weight classes higher than he fights today.

Ngannou ran through top10 guys like they didn’t belong there with him, beat the UFC HW GOAT and defended his belt against a stylistic nightmare.

All of these guys are very close to becoming #1 all time in their divisions and some of them are top10 GOATs already.

First, we are only counting title fights.
Second, this is about the perception of whether or not you see them losing the belt anytime soon.

For instance, around the Thiago Alves fight I basically predicted GSP will retire with his belt.
 
Because back then, most title challengers were sacrificial lambs. 1 top dog, 10s of guys there to fill a highlight reel. The Joe Stevenson's, Patrick Cote's, Dan Hardy's of the world, that didn't have a very good chance of knocking off a BJ Penn, Anderson Silva, or GSP.
Now, there are numerous guys in each division who could go on a run and become champ. Back then, not really. Every division now is like late 2000's LHW. Too many guys for there to be a dominant champ. Liddell, Rampage, Shogun, Machida, Griffin, Hendo, Rashad. The sport has produced a much higher number of high quality fighters compared to the previous eras.
 
We are in an era where the HW division is weaker than the HW divisions from the previous two generations spanning back to 2004. Derrick Lewis and Tuivasa are top 3 HWs today. They wouldn't be top 10 in 2013 and they woudlnt be top 10 in 2005.

The LHW division is also weaker today than the last two generations. Today's version of Glover Texeira is the champion at 43 years old and took the belt from a 39 year old journeyman Jan. Not to mention journeyman MWs like Anthony Smith still hanging around the top 5 at LHW. Today's Glover and Jan wouldnt be champions from 2011-2015 and they wouldn't have been champs from 2005 -2010. Anthony Smith wouldn't even be in the top 5 in the last two generations.

The MW division today is weaker than the MW division from the previous generation from 2010-2014. Guys like Vettori wouldnt be title contenders from 2010-2014 when you had Anderson, Hendo, Vitor, Jacare, Weidman, Romero, Rockhold and Bisping.

I don't know why but the talent level is lower today across the board. The smaller divisions are a lot better today. LW is better than ever. BW is better than ever but these guys also make a lot less money than the big guys. The bigger athletes are obviously seeing more opportunities in other sports.
 
We are in an era where the HW division is weaker than the HW divisions from the previous two generations spanning back to 2004. Derrick Lewis and Tuivasa are top 3 HWs today. They wouldn't be top 10 in 2013 and they woudlnt be top 10 in 2005.

The LHW division is also weaker today than the last two generations. Today's version of Glover Texeira is the champion at 43 years old and took the belt from a 39 year old journeyman Jan. Not to mention journeyman MWs like Anthony Smith still hanging around the top 5 at LHW. Today's Glover and Jan wouldnt be champions from 2011-2015 and they wouldn't have been champs from 2005 -2010. Anthony Smith wouldn't even be in the top 5 in the last two generations.

The MW division today is weaker than the MW division from the previous generation from 2010-2014. Guys like Vettori wouldnt be title contenders from 2010-2014 when you had Anderson, Hendo, Vitor, Jacare, Weidman, Romero, Rockhold and Bisping.

I don't know why but the talent level is lower today across the board. The smaller divisions are a lot better today. LW is better than ever. BW is better than ever but these guys also make a lot less money than the big guys. The bigger athletes are obviously seeing more opportunities in other sports.
Lewis and Tai aren’t top3 HWs in the world right now. That would be Ngannou, Gane and Stipe. And those 3 would be top3 in any generation. They represent the evolution of the HW division.

Tai and Lewis are what Mark Hunt was at previous generations.

There plenty of talented skilled HW on the roster right now like:

Volkov
Blaydes
Rozenstruick
Aspinall
Romanov
Pavlovich

HW isn’t weaker than it was before, it might actually be much stronger as evident by the fights between fighters of this era and the previous one.
 
Lewis and Tai aren’t top3 HWs in the world right now. That would be Ngannou, Gane and Stipe. And those 3 would be top3 in any generation. They represent the evolution of the HW division.

Tai and Lewis are what Mark Hunt was at previous generations.

There plenty of talented skilled HW on the roster right now like:

Volkov
Blaydes
Rozenstruick
Aspinall
Romanov
Pavlovich

HW isn’t weaker than it was before, it might actually be much stronger as evident by the fights between fighters of this era and the previous one.

Lmaaaoooo Tuivasa and Lewis are one dimensional brawlers. They wouldnt be top 3 in any era except this one and neither would the rest of the one dimensional guys you listed. It's hilarious how today's UFC fans can't accept the fact that the last two generations of HWs had more skill and more depth in talent. Lewis and Tuivasa wouldn't be top 10 in 2005 and they woudlnt be top 10 in 2011. Saying otherwise doesn't make it true because facts win.
 
Volk is that guy right now. He beat the greatest fw of all time twice in his prime (although the fights were close) . Yair and kattar are the only guys in the top 10 that might give him trouble on the feet, but I don’t think either of them could beat him over 5 rounds.
 
Volk is that guy right now. He beat the greatest fw of all time twice in his prime (although the fights were close) . Yair and kattar are the only guys in the top 10 that might give him trouble on the feet, but I don’t think either of them could beat him over 5 rounds.

Volk lost to Max once.
 
Hsp,Anderson and Jones and do, maybe usman ate generational fighters.
 
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