I disagree. I think Nate is easily better. He's beaten much tougher guys in a much more stacked division in much more dominant fashion (specifically Miller and Cerrone).
Who's the best fighter Nick has beaten? Gomi? Old and fat BJ? Old Frank Shamrock? A bunch of Strikeforce and EliteXC fighters who will be lowly UFC fighters at best?
Still, Nick is bigger than Nate, but regardless, he would weigh about the same as Nick to fight at LW for the belt. And even besides that, his wrestling defense is probably just as weak. If this fight actually happened, I wouldn't be surprised if Bendo took Nick down 9 times just like he did to his superior younger brother.
I just don't see how Nate is superior, Nick was giving very good opponents extremely hard fights back when he was just early 20's, he fought Sherk RIGHT before he became a champion, and Nick arguably won that fight.
Yes, he beat Gomi, but that was back when Gomi was one of the top ranked guys in the world, when Nate beat him, Gomi wasn't even close to the level he used to be.
IMO, Condit is a more polished version of Cerrone, Nick would have done the exact same thing to Cerrone if not worse because he uses more variety in his strikes than Nate does.
Nick also arguably beat Condit, who I just said is better than Cerrone, and I'm sure
most would agree that Condit is better than Cerrone at everything.
But hey, they're both great fighters (Nick and Nate) but when you watch their videos of them training together in the gym it looks like Nick is better, especially at boxing.
And people are hating on BJ Penn, but what they don't look at it that BJ fought Fitch, Diaz and Rory. All extremely good fighters, Fitch always being a top guy, Diaz being a top guy, and Rory known as a monster in the division and some believe "the heir to the throne" of the Welterweight division. Yes, Nick beat BJ, non-prime BJ, but looking at BJ since his fight against Frankie (rematch) BJ has looked awful. So if we're going to degrade Nick's win, why don't we degrade Frankie in the 2nd fight, and Rory?
On a technical aspect, BJ is one of the very most skilled fighters around, his gas tank is just god awful now, but he's put up a fight even when he was gassed. BJ has always gassed, even in his prime, but his cardio WAS better back then, he gassed against GSP in the 2nd fight, Matt Hughes, Jens Pulver, Gomi, and many others.
It's BJ's fault for being the way he is and not working on the right things, any fighter having a win over him at any time of his career is a great achievement.
