First of all, thanks for the crazy detailed response. I appreciate it!
I suppose this cuts to the heart of the GOAT debate, but I disagree with your assesment of Frankie/Mendes over Cormier. I understand the point that those guys are faster and have cleaner footwork and tigher technique, but to me that misses the point. All lighter weight fighters are more skilled than the weightclass above them, generally speaking. To compare fighters' resumes across weight classes we need to look at the relative strength of their opposition, not boil the opposition down to objectively-comparable technical skillsets.
That's where i just disagree, with all due respect.
There's no reason why big guys can't be as technical as small guys (the just can't be as fast!).
A shorthand way of comparing strength of opposition across weightclasses is to use the rankings at the time of the fight. This is imperfect because rankings get manipulated for ulterior reasons all the time, but it's a start. After that we have to somehow try and compare the relative strengths of the weightclasses, or at least the top ten, say, of those weightclasses. In this case, featherweight and light heavyweight, we have to come up with a shorthand assessment of how deep those weightclasses are compared to one another - here, again, I don't think measuring technical skill level is an effective method - of course the lighter fighters are going to be faster and more technically sound, that doesn't mean that those weightclasses are necessarily deeper.
I hate responding with so little to your actually thoughtful arguments, but here i refer to my first point and i'll add, that judging fighters by their skill (technical and tactical) is the only thing that counts - to me at least.
Athletic skills in relation to size play a role too, of course.
(Now before you say it's a double standard that here i "excuse" them not being as strong as the big guys while criticizing the big guys for having worse technique than the smaller guys: size doesn't decrease motor skill and coordination, but size obviously impacts power and speed).
The average weight of American males is about 200 lbs. This is roughly in the middle of 145 and 200 when you consider pre-weight-cut weights. We should conclude then there are roughly equal numbers of potential athletes in FW and in LHW. This, I would argue is evidence the weight classes are roughly equally deep. Further to this point, con
Wait... i don't get your maths!
A UFC 145er is ~160-165 pounds in the cage while having a six pack... i'd say if those guys were unfit, they'd be pretty much "the average american".
An ideal body for 205 however, is being ~225 pounds while actually being lean and that's far from average.
I also think it only makes sense to compare differences in talent pool, when the actual skills between divisions are pretty much equal to the point where it's almost/completely impossible to tell, who's actually more skilled, but this isn't the case if we compare 205 and let's say 145 or so.
