All Time GOAT poll

His wins are against much better fighters than who Silva and GSP beat. MMA has evolved so much since GSP and Silva were champs, it's almost incomparable. Don't let nostalgy blind you. Plus I'm sure izzy would be back stronger than ever.

The term "boring" described Izy fir several fights.




There's a reason why Silva was so exciting. Saturday wasn't boring and I'd argue it was Alex. He pushed the action but Izy fought hard too.
 
His wins are against much better fighters than who Silva and GSP beat. MMA has evolved so much since GSP and Silva were champs, it's almost incomparable. Don't let nostalgy blind you. Plus I'm sure izzy would be back stronger than ever.
Join date checks out.
 
No he’s not.

That’s one of the most wrong opinions I’ve seen on here and you should feel bad. Prime Silva and prime GSP would crush Izzy. Dumbest take yet wtf is wrong with you

Silva yes. GSP likely would have not taken that fight imo. He ducked Silva too. He fought Bisping with 1 eye. There's rumors he knew about the eye too.
 
Absolutely not.
  • Yoel was over 40 and coming off 2 losses for a title defense. And Izzy barely beat him!
  • Never defended against an elite wrestler like a Sonnen, Weidman, etc. (Vettori is an average wrestler)
  • Not nearly as long of a win streak in title fights as GSP or Anderson
  • Every bit as boring as some people say GSP is. Hasn't finished anyone since 2019
 
As an izzy fan..

No ..no he is not...

But hes one of the best MwS ever for sure ..he right behind Silva
Definitely, I'll give him that. He's the second best MW, ahead of Whittaker, Weidman, Franklin and others who defended their belt a few times.
 
White belts can make threads in the heavies? Has it always been this way?
 
Try again casual. Simply name the most technical striker Silva beat.

Then consider he got ko'd by weidman and dropped multiple times by Chael
Who’s the most technical striker Izzy beat? Oh right, Anderson who was in his mid 40’s and over the hill. Plus it was a lame sparring session where he caused no damage to him.

The second great striker he faced knocked him out Saturday night, defeating him for the third time.

The first Whittaker fight and Costa are the only two wins where he looked like a dominant champion. Fights like Romero and Cannonier proved nothing. Anderson danced around guys and knocked them out while GSP dominated 25 minute fights from start to finish. There’s a lot of champs who are better than Izzy.
 
Honestly for me it come down to Fedor or GSP.

Young GSP was a killer who was looking to finish you. After the Serra fight iirc, GSP's style became more like scoring and point fighting. But more than that perhaps his ability to control his opponent and be at the least risk for damage was GOAT level in that respect. In that way, GSP's argument for p4p GOAT is very much like that of Floyd Mayweather's to boxing. Takes the least amount of damage (for the most part, we all remember the Hendricks fight of course) and controls the opponent so effectively to the point where they never pose a threat to him no matter how good they are. That takes an incredible amount of skill even though GSP at whatever point started "playing the game" more than going in there looking to put you away first.

Other people can attest to or word it better than this but Fedor in his prime...he was the Terminator *everywhere*. Pride had the best HW division in the sport in Fedor's heyday and he not only went undefeated in it and came to *kill* you every fight but a lot of the time he would beat his opponent at their own game (off the top of my head submitting some of the best grapplers of his time in Mark Coleman and Kevin Randleman, ultimately outstriking prime Mirko Cro Cop in a dang ring in 2005, etc...a great many times he didn't play to his strengths in a fight, he played to YOUR strengths and showed you that he's better at them than you). No matter who it is, where the fight went, what the physical advantages were, you were always in an immense amount of danger of being son'd against Fedor. In his prime he always found a way to win, he always found a way to get his opponent out of there or to dominate them in the pursuit of a finish. He was a killer if there ever was one in the history of the sport despite him being so quiet and mild mannered.

All time and p4p I have to give the edge to Fedor Emelianenko in deserving that number one spot because not only did he have that insane undefeated streak but beat if not finished the best of his time in the HW division, and even post-Pride and post-prime if you will he still had some really good wins finishing Arlovski and Tim Sylvia, the previous two pioneers of the UFC's HW division while Fedor was tearing it up in Pride's.

Anderson Silva in his prime is obviously in the discussion too but I do think Fedor and GSP retrospectively pulled away from him a little in the GOAT discussion.
 
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Dunno where Izzy falls.

IMO, he lost to both Yoel and Bobby Knuckles in the rematch.

Definitely good but taking that into consideration and that puts him somewhere middle of a pack with a bunch of other MW's.
 
Definitely, I'll give him that. He's the second best MW, ahead of Whittaker, Weidman, Franklin and others who defended their belt a few times.
lol Franklin.

Menne and Tanner are top10 MWs ever by that same logic.
 
Honestly for me it come down to Fedor or GSP.

Young GSP was a killer who was looking to finish you. After the Serra fight iirc, GSP's style became more like scoring and point fighting. But more than that perhaps his ability to control his opponent and be at the least risk for damage was GOAT level in that respect. In that way, GSP's argument for p4p GOAT is very much like that of Floyd Mayweather's to boxing. Takes the least amount of damage (for the most part, we all remember the Hendricks fight of course) and controls the opponent so effectively to the point where they never pose a threat to him no matter how good they are. That takes an incredible amount of skill even though GSP at whatever point started "playing the game" more than going in there looking to put you away first.

Other people can attest to or word it better than this but Fedor in his prime...he was the Terminator *everywhere*. Pride had the best HW division in the sport in Fedor's heyday and he not only went undefeated in it and came to *kill* you every fight but a lot of the time he would beat his opponent at their own game (off the top of my head submitting some of the best grapplers of his time in Mark Coleman and Kevin Randleman, ultimately outstriking prime Mirko Cro Cop in a dang ring in 2005, etc...a great many times he didn't play to his strengths in a fight, he played to YOUR strengths and showed you that he's better at them than you). No matter who it is, where the fight went, what the physical advantages were, you were always in an immense amount of danger of being son'd against Fedor. In his prime he always found a way to win, he always found a way to get his opponent out of there or to dominate them in the pursuit of a finish. He was a killer if there ever was one in the history of the sport despite him being so quiet and mild mannered.

All time and p4p I have to give the edge to Fedor Emelianenko in deserving that number one spot because not only did he have that insane undefeated streak but beat if not finished the best of his time in the HW division, and even post-Pride and post-prime if you will he still had some really good wins finishing Arlovski and Tim Sylvia, the previous two pioneers of the UFC's HW division while Fedor was tearing it up in Pride's.

Anderson Silva in his prime is obviously in the discussion too but I do think Fedor and GSP retrospectively pulled away from him a little in the GOAT discussion.

Cool but this is what we lived, dude:

- Official sherdog p4p rankings during GSP championship years:

2012 - Silva #1
https://www.sherdog.com/news/rankings/Sherdogcoms-PoundforPound-Top-10-45047

2011 - Silva #1
https://www.sherdog.com/news/rankings/Sherdogcoms-PoundforPound-Top-10-36383

2010 - Silva #1
https://www.sherdog.com/news/rankings/Sherdogcoms-PoundforPound-Top-10-23166

2009 - Silva #1
https://www.sherdog.com/news/rankings/Sherdogcoms-PoundforPound-Top-10-17145

2008 - Silva #1
https://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/GSP-Moves-Up-P4P-List-But-Not-to-Top-12459

So Anderson was consistenly regarded as the superior fighter than GSP...
...during GSP best years.

You need a whole load of sherbro revisionism, based on fight finder and other kind of ratstats to come up with the conclussion you pretend here
 
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