Are Today's HWs Really Better than Yesteryear's?

[kingJohn]

Cain, JDS, and Cormier are better than any HW from the past (yes Fedor included) the rest of the roster is similar in skill level though.

 

[Redhawks100]

Don Frye was not a natural heavyweight like Travis Browne. Yes, I am aware Frye became Captain America during his career but if you watch his earlier fights he looked like a much different fighter. Do I think Barnett could beat JDS? Its within the realm of possibility, yes. Its a fight I would like to see for sure.

Could Coleman beat Cain? Lets take Cain back to Colemans youthful, prime days, and allow head butts and you've got one hell of a fight right there.

Heath Herring is/was a fucking beast dude. He could be competitive with Struve, surely. As to who would win, that is why they fight. To find out. But he's not competed in years and may never return.

Yes, old HWs deserve respect and were indeed skilled, but the fact is many of the current HWs have much better training and are more well-rounded.

I honestly don't see any older HWs beating currents HWs, other than Fedor, CC, and maybe Nog. I think Arlovski and Sylvia would be smashed by the current UFC HWs.

 

[capnlarge]

I don't know which were better but it's almost a guarantee that any HW fight past the top 5 or 6 guys will either be the worst fight of the night or a 1st round knockout. The worst division to watch, by far imo...

 

[TX Fighter]

Present day cain and jds are two of the best hws ever.

Bigfoot dominated fedor, the best hw from 8 years ago. Cain ate bigfoot for breakfast, shit him out by noon, and had seconds for lunch.

 

[WrestlingIsReal]

Going straight down the 2003 list and pairing them off with the 2013 list, I came up with:

1) 2003 Fedor > 2013 Cain
2) 2003 Big Nog > 2013 Big Nog
3) 2003 Barnett < 2013 Barnett
4) 2003 Cro Cop = 2013 JDS
5) 2003 Sylvia > 2013 Travis Browne
6) 2003 Arlovski = 2013 Bigfoot
7) 2003 Herring > 2013 Mir
8) 2003 Coleman < 2013 Cormier
9) 2003 Wesley Correira < 2013 Werdum
10) 2003 Travis Wiuff < 2013 Overeem

I think it's pretty even overall.

NO! Arlovski in 2003 was a beast with insane KO power. he would have tooled BF way worse than DC did.

 

[Amerikuracana]

UFC? Yes. MMA? No.

 

[Amerikuracana]

Cain, JDS, and Cormier are better than any HW from the past (yes Fedor included) the rest of the roster is similar in skill level though.

I don't think so.. DC has 3 good HW wins, when he gets to 10 in a row come back and post what you posted and it will look better for ya. Cain and JDS are now that elite level, but they have a little ways to go before they are Fedor level.

 

[afm171]

Depends what you consider "yesteryear."

But if that includes when Wes Sims was a title contender, then god yes...

 

[rjmbrd]

For the most part, all athletics are iterative from their launch year. If you consider how much further along training and all of the tangential elements are, it is a no brainer.

Geroges is a better prepared athlete today than a prime Matt Hughes was. From what we've learned about coaching, cross training, nutrition, availability of high caliber training partners etc etc

So I think everyone should at least agree the preparation has taken a paradigm leap forward from ten years ago. Even with equal building blocks, we can make a better building.

 

[krelianx]

Fedor, Arlovski, Sylvia, Mirko, Ricco, Barnett and Couture were all excellent fighters who could be competitive today, maybe even champions.

 

[Peregrine01]

For the most part, all athletics are iterative from their launch year. If you consider how much further along training and all of the tangential elements are, it is a no brainer.

Geroges is a better prepared athlete today than a prime Matt Hughes was. From what we've learned about coaching, cross training, nutrition, availability of high caliber training partners etc etc

So I think everyone should at least agree the preparation has taken a paradigm leap forward from ten years ago. Even with equal building blocks, we can make a better building.

This is actually a very tough conclusion to draw.

It's absolutely true when we're talking about sports like swimming, track and field, and weightlifting where world records are broken pretty routinely. But it may be an entirely different case for dynamic sports such as MMA where a wide array of cognitive skills are required.

 

[Jodocus_Quak]

This is actually a very tough conclusion to draw.

It's absolutely true when we're talking about sports like swimming, track and field, and weightlifting where world records are broken pretty routinely. But it may be an entirely different case for dynamic sports such as MMA where a wide array of cognitive skills are required.

Yeah, in particular wrestling. Coleman was second in WC in 1991, 7th in the Olpympics in 1992 and was PanAm Champion. All above 100 Kgs. Cormier was third in WC in 2007, was a olympian and won PanAm too. All at 96 Kg. Wrestlers are not "better" today then they were in 1990. Karelin from the 80ies would still kill all competition.

This however, does not apply to boxing. The so called "golden era" of HW boxing was in the 70ies. But these guys were mostly blown up cruisers. The HWs from the late 90ies up until today are fully grown HWs (Klitschko, Lewis etc).

HW MMA fighters from the golden age (late 90ies to 2006) are complete HWs like today. There is no difference in height or weight. Thus, these parameters don't count. Skillwise there is no difference among at least the TOP 20, you can even make an argument that the yesteryears HWs were better. I call it the golden age of MMA.

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

Cro cop was the man in pride. Only Nog and Fedor were ahead of him and that fight with nogueira was a fucking miracle that Nog pulled out of nowhere. Look how he got handed in the ufc. And no, i dont care how many people tell me that his prime was until 2004 lo. Come on man. I'm not saying he was at the very peak of his career but he was 32-33. Not bad at all. Nogueira would have gone to the ground with Mir even if they fought 7 years ago GUARANTEED. And you know who's got the better jitz. Buy hey, we will never get to know, maybe you are right, maybe not. I'm just throwing my opinion about it. Better? absolutely. Much better? I don't think so.

That's the thing though, age isn't as important as how many fights he had which was nearly 100 fights. A 32-33 year old person that has nearly 100 fights is not in their prime.

People like to use Couture as an example of someone that fought well into their 40s but leave out the fact that he has far less fights and started fighting much later than someone like Cro Cop, those factors are more important.

 

[Taric]

Today HW's and yesteryears HW are the same damn people for the most part.

Pretty much.

 

[OmegaRugal]

Don't even respond to asinine comments. The fans who think fighters never change (for better or worse) throughout an entire career arc are delusional and not worth responding to.

Of course fighters change ... but you don't go from nearly the best in the world to "can't beat anyone in the UFC" in ONE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[OmegaRugal]

People who act like fighters are always at the same level through their entire careers are the ones playing make believe. This isn't a video game it's real life, fighters have primes just like any other sports athlete, or do you believe that Michael Jordan was at his best with the Wizards?

The gap between Prime Jordan and Wizard Jordan ... is it one year like Crop Cop???

No ... so your comparison is invalid.

People lose their prime SLOWLY ... not overnight like CroCop did.

 

[OmegaRugal]

Is there any older fighter that ISN'T over rated then? Because pretty much every single one of them hit a wall at the end of their careers and started losing a lot. Fedor, nog, cc, chuck, wand, rich, bj, hughes, and soon to be Anderson and gsp. You name em..

A stat that proved he's taken more punishment huh? You realise 95% of the punishment came from training right? You think he was just over rated at sambo too? Because he started losing at that too.

No ... Fedor was the best during Pride.

He was no longer the best after years of joke fights against HMC and avoiding the UFC.

But people wanted to pretend he still was lightyears ahead of everyone when that was no longer the case.

If Fedor would have gone straight to UFC ... he most likely would have lost a lot earlier than he did when he lost to Werdum.

So is Fedor overrated? ... he is somewhat since people still thought STrikeforce Fedor was still the best in the world while avoiding the new top talent at HW for YEARS!!!

 

[Taric]

Of course fighters change ... but you don't go from nearly the best in the world to "can't beat anyone in the UFC" in ONE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aside from Gonzaga, Cro Cop didn't do terrible in the UFC until 2010/2011. Kongo kneed him in the balls about 20 times in the fight, and won because of it. And Cro Cop gave JDS his toughest fight until Cain happened despite tapping out.

2007 Cro Cop was still beastly. He just got caught against a pure BJJ guy... Who knew Gabe could even throw high kicks. I sure as hell didn't.

 

[Mufasatheking]

Todays top3-20 >>>> 2003's top3-top20

People are going to get emotional over Fedor and Nog but for the most part yes todays is much better.

 

[EliteLurker]

Todays top3-20 >>>> 2003's top3-top20

People are going to get emotional over Fedor and Nog but for the most part yes todays is much better.

Pretty much this. Cain and JDS would murk all non Fedor HW's off the past. DC would beat most of them as well.