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It's obvious the era of fedor, silva, gsp, jon jones & bj penn was the golden age of MMA. For the sake of argument lets say this era ends Dec 2013 when ando shin cracks in half.
The age covid/dagestine era followed the connor era, and is a resurrgence of high level mma.
As fan now that I reflect on the rhonda and connor era it was absolute shit. Seems like a transitional phase where mma athletes were still trying to make bank taking protected fights and using antics from the wwe attitude era. It was an era where snake oil coaches and nutrionist could stay relevant as the science of training, weight cut and nutrition for mma had not been figured out.
It was absolute shit.
HW - you had a trilogy featuring jds vs cain which was the highlifght but fails and falls flat in comparison to the pride hw gp. Stipe and Overeem run the division but it feels like we are watching made in china hw matches. Brock fucked off back tot the wwf. compare stipe, overeem, the jds vs cain trilogy to say fedor vs nog or fedor vs cro cop or even frye and Takayama and it was just lacking.
LHW - jones clears the division out only to be sabotaged by his own personal problems. DC is seen as a fake champ beating up people jones went through or cans like volkan.
MW - this was a decent division after anderson and really carried the ufc. Wideman looked at one point to be a possible GOAT until USADA wsa brought in. Rockhold had an exciting style, romero was like a comic book hero, bisping has a wrestlemania moment. I think fans at the time were let down by 170 pound can named whitaker taking the title as he was under the radar at this time. He wasn't really appreciated until the next era (covid, dagestan) when it waws izzy division.
WW- people rallied around hendricks but post USADA he was a bust. Lawler and Rory were incredible fights. Both embodied a fighting spirt that has been missing at ww (aside form usman and belal) since. Those fights pretty much cut their careers short. However with all the great things tehy did, the division was put to sleep by woodley. Usman had a great reign following it up but the division probably in it's worst state at the time.
LW - after bj and edgar, this was in a state of flux. Bendo couldn't handle the pressure of being champ. Petis, rda and alvarez are not tier 1 fighters and it showed as tehy were not able to keep pace with the new evolution fo mma. Guys like Ceronne, Ferguson, and diaz are able to become legends because of how weak the division was - barbosa or kevin lee were considered impressive wins hten. . The division was so bad it was basically put on hold for connor to be engineered into a champ champ. With that said connor was so popular this division still had the biggest buzz despite it being filled with lower tier fighters. You can compare this era to khabib, islam and charles to see how much worse it was.
FW - Aldo had cleared this division out so there wsa no buzz. Fans hated aldo because they loved connor and tarred anything aldo did under the guise of PEDs. Of course losing to connor in 15 seconds didn't help. Connor eventually killed htis division putting it on hold. Max did a good job bringing it back after connor, but it is really volk that made this division a staple and helped move on past connor during the covid age.
BW - TJ reigns over this division. An unlikeable guy, overall pos, and on steroids his whole career. Cruz comeback is a good story. At this point fans havne't really warmed up to smaller fighters. The division didn'[t really take off until TJ busted and Yan terrified everyone coming up. TJ and cruz train incredibly stupid which shows the division was still building at this time. The division now is one of the best. TJ and cruz in their prime don't crap the top 5 of where the division is now.
FLW - excellent dominant champion who no one appreciated. The division struggled as people didn't take it seriusly. go to a bar during ufc ppvs and people will talk about how they can beat up DJ because he is a midget etc. This was the best time during this division. It's never really been accepted as shown by figgy and moreno fighting each other over and over for 2.5 years. Dana wanted to kill the division before covid, he probably should have.
Anyways looking back you can see this connor/rhonda era just seems like crap and a big notch down in quality when compare it to the predecessor golden age and the subsequent covid/dagestan era. A huge drop. I suppose it makes sense. We didn't have USADA in the golden age. Post USADA there is a transition and people are not training optimally (connor and rhonda rise). After sometime post USADA training is figured out and we are watching peak MMA now.
golden age
The age covid/dagestine era followed the connor era, and is a resurrgence of high level mma.
As fan now that I reflect on the rhonda and connor era it was absolute shit. Seems like a transitional phase where mma athletes were still trying to make bank taking protected fights and using antics from the wwe attitude era. It was an era where snake oil coaches and nutrionist could stay relevant as the science of training, weight cut and nutrition for mma had not been figured out.
It was absolute shit.
HW - you had a trilogy featuring jds vs cain which was the highlifght but fails and falls flat in comparison to the pride hw gp. Stipe and Overeem run the division but it feels like we are watching made in china hw matches. Brock fucked off back tot the wwf. compare stipe, overeem, the jds vs cain trilogy to say fedor vs nog or fedor vs cro cop or even frye and Takayama and it was just lacking.
LHW - jones clears the division out only to be sabotaged by his own personal problems. DC is seen as a fake champ beating up people jones went through or cans like volkan.
MW - this was a decent division after anderson and really carried the ufc. Wideman looked at one point to be a possible GOAT until USADA wsa brought in. Rockhold had an exciting style, romero was like a comic book hero, bisping has a wrestlemania moment. I think fans at the time were let down by 170 pound can named whitaker taking the title as he was under the radar at this time. He wasn't really appreciated until the next era (covid, dagestan) when it waws izzy division.
WW- people rallied around hendricks but post USADA he was a bust. Lawler and Rory were incredible fights. Both embodied a fighting spirt that has been missing at ww (aside form usman and belal) since. Those fights pretty much cut their careers short. However with all the great things tehy did, the division was put to sleep by woodley. Usman had a great reign following it up but the division probably in it's worst state at the time.
LW - after bj and edgar, this was in a state of flux. Bendo couldn't handle the pressure of being champ. Petis, rda and alvarez are not tier 1 fighters and it showed as tehy were not able to keep pace with the new evolution fo mma. Guys like Ceronne, Ferguson, and diaz are able to become legends because of how weak the division was - barbosa or kevin lee were considered impressive wins hten. . The division was so bad it was basically put on hold for connor to be engineered into a champ champ. With that said connor was so popular this division still had the biggest buzz despite it being filled with lower tier fighters. You can compare this era to khabib, islam and charles to see how much worse it was.
FW - Aldo had cleared this division out so there wsa no buzz. Fans hated aldo because they loved connor and tarred anything aldo did under the guise of PEDs. Of course losing to connor in 15 seconds didn't help. Connor eventually killed htis division putting it on hold. Max did a good job bringing it back after connor, but it is really volk that made this division a staple and helped move on past connor during the covid age.
BW - TJ reigns over this division. An unlikeable guy, overall pos, and on steroids his whole career. Cruz comeback is a good story. At this point fans havne't really warmed up to smaller fighters. The division didn'[t really take off until TJ busted and Yan terrified everyone coming up. TJ and cruz train incredibly stupid which shows the division was still building at this time. The division now is one of the best. TJ and cruz in their prime don't crap the top 5 of where the division is now.
FLW - excellent dominant champion who no one appreciated. The division struggled as people didn't take it seriusly. go to a bar during ufc ppvs and people will talk about how they can beat up DJ because he is a midget etc. This was the best time during this division. It's never really been accepted as shown by figgy and moreno fighting each other over and over for 2.5 years. Dana wanted to kill the division before covid, he probably should have.
Anyways looking back you can see this connor/rhonda era just seems like crap and a big notch down in quality when compare it to the predecessor golden age and the subsequent covid/dagestan era. A huge drop. I suppose it makes sense. We didn't have USADA in the golden age. Post USADA there is a transition and people are not training optimally (connor and rhonda rise). After sometime post USADA training is figured out and we are watching peak MMA now.
golden age
