Bas Rutten is the most underrated heavyweight of all time

FireKidWS said:
Well, to defend TS, he’s never talked about on here.

Then again, this is UFC discussion.

I’ll never frown on a Bas Rutten thread though.
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His argument with Jason Delucia (linked in a post above) was a classic.

Someone explain to TS who Delucia is.
 
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L0ki said:
If Bas is in there, Ken Shamrock would have to be.

I forget which fight it was but Ken subbed him like 9 times. Bas had to grab ropes to have the hold broken until Ken finally sunk it in the middle of the ring.

I met Bas and love the guy, but there's more than 10 HW's that come to mind when putting together an all time HW list.

As much as I like Ken, I honestly don't see him in there, either.

He was definitely a well rounded fighter very early in the game.
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Bas won 22 straight fights after the Ken loss and his ground game improved leaps and bounds.
 
L0ki said:
If Bas is in there, Ken Shamrock would have to be.

I forget which fight it was but Ken subbed him like 9 times. Bas had to grab ropes to have the hold broken until Ken finally sunk it in the middle of the ring.

I met Bas and love the guy, but there's more than 10 HW's that come to mind when putting together an all time HW list.

As much as I like Ken, I honestly don't see him in there, either.

He was definitely a well rounded fighter very early in the game.
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I agree that there are likely ten heavyweights above Rutten in an all-time heavyweight list, but citing the Ken Shamrock fights as the reason why is disingenuous at best given how early the fights were in Rutten's MMA career (Rutten didn't even have a year's worth of MMA experience when he first fought Ken).

When Rutten really started focusing on submissions he won his next 7 out of 8 fights by submission, one of which was against Suzuki (who'd submitted Ken twice).

I could see Rutten being in the top fifteen for all-time heavyweight though.
 
loyalyolayal said:
Any of you finished the 27 min all round workout set? The one where you do 55 knee tuck jumps in the end?
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I dont think Ive ever done that, and it sounds like something I would remember lol

as I said the guy just used to use it so his warmup wouldnt last too long, he liked to stick to set times but had horrible timekeeping lol
 
He’s usually top 10 on both ELO and opinion polls, and almost never outside the top 15.

I think he’s rated about right.

Casuals have also never heard of Ricco, Rizzo, Igor, Kerr or Funaki, and many haven’t even heard of UFC centric fighters like Severn. They are a bad yardstick to measure Bas’ under/over rated ness by.
 
While I am not sure on his p4p/goat status, he was one of my favorites in the early days and was an animal in his day. He's influenced my training on a technique that I feel like is still not used enough, body shots/liver shot.
 
acannxr said:
I agree that there are likely ten heavyweights above Rutten in an all-time heavyweight list, but citing the Ken Shamrock fights as the reason why is disingenuous at best given how early the fights were in Rutten's MMA career (Rutten didn't even have a year's worth of MMA experience when he first fought Ken).

When Rutten really started focusing on submissions he won his next 7 out of 8 fights by submission, one of which was against Suzuki (who'd submitted Ken twice).

I could see Rutten being in the top fifteen for all-time heavyweight though.
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Maybe.

Had a great time acting a fool with him just....

I'll pop off names of who I think are top 10 or 15 to test.

Fedor. Cro Cop. Nog. Murr. Barnetto. JDS. Reem. Werdum. *Cain. DC. Timmeh.

That's just a quick run down but yeah, maybe Bas an be in the top 15 or 20 somewhere.
 
SHAZAM said:
Hes actually super overrated.
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yup, he lost that Randleman fight clearly it was the biggest robbery, also he retired after that even before the fight he looked tense like he didnt want to be there. Bas real intention was to become an action star in Hollywood so he did some set up fights in Japan many of those Pancrase were fishy fights, with no striking with closed fists.

Then he did two fights in UFC, he retired stating health reasons but then he came back to fight some slow overweight Native American and couldn't even drop him cold while throwing with all his might into the punches.

Bas is popular because of his personality and he can seduce and entrance people with his funny persona so they start believing he was a top ten great.

He is not even on Frank Shamrock level, Frank did more for UFC, if Bas fought the likes of Don Frye, Tank Abbot, Vitor, Tito Ortiz, Coleman, etc and won now that would be a different story.
 
What? He's one of the most overrated HWs of all time lol.

He was well-rounded before his time, but his championship was a robbery, and he simply doesn't have the depth to warrant seriously discussing this. He happened to be funny and personable, and has an aesthetically pleasing record, but that's it.
 
TidWell said:
Then he did two fights in UFC, he retired stating health reasons but then he came back to fight some slow overweight Native American and couldn't even drop him cold while throwing with all his might into the punches.

.
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This is silly logic.

Bas had 30 fights when he came to the UFC. Pro-wrestling matches or no, that is wear and tear on the body.

Also, what does him coming back for giggles SEVEN YEARS LATER (and looking very much the old man he was) have to do with quitting the UFC because he was supposedly afraid of losing?
 
Bas was scary, and ruthless. One of the greats no doubt, that's a shame he fought so early in modern MMA.
 
Bas wasn’t a good fighter

He wouldn’t be top 50 nowadays
 
top 10 GOAT HW? HW has historically less fighters at the top, so it could be possible to maybe squeeze him in at the bottom.
 
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