Media Bisping questioning whether Alex Pereira is Top 5 all time at LHW

[HP_Nut]

Best ever at LHW & GOAT at LHW are 2 different things. Best ever list is like, prime for prime, who you think would win or beat everyone/almost everyone at LHW. GOAT is actually resume based, based on your actual career accomplishments at LHW. Alex is definitely not top 5 at LHW GOAT, you could make a case he is 1 of the best ever at LHW, that is more subjective. GOAT, Alex just doesn't have the career resume at LHW to make a strong case. I'm a big Alex fan, but I do think LHW during Alex's time is diminished, not as deep as it used to be

 

[The Siege]

Why would DC be above him?

DC only has 7 LHw wins, to alex 6. Alex is 5-0 in LHW title fights. DC is 4-2

One more LHW win and they are tied on wins with alex having more defenses and no losses.

Barely surface level analysis. Its great to copy and paste numbers, but no one in the division is in the same stratosphere of the Jon Jones that beat DC twice.

For the record, Alex is a phenomenon, an exciting fighter who is willing to step in anytime (no doubt a product of his Kickboxing career ), and someone with game changing power paired with technical ability. A very scary combo.

However, he is fighting in a wasteland of a division left after Jon Jones held dominion for basically a decade. He is fighting in a division where old man Glover, as much as I love him, was able to win the belt while a younger version of himself couldn't win it and was only able to get to one title shot.

This is why the talking point of "he beat X number of former champions" is more marketing than not. Still an impressive feat, but not all champions are created equal. His best win in the UFC to date is Izzy when he was a Champion. Izzy had 6 title wins, 5 being defenses at MW. You can beat 5 guys who played hot potato with the belt and it would not count as much as beating a guy who held the belt for 5 defenses.

The quality of the division and opponents is constantly discussed when comparing fighters in different eras. There is a lot of recency bias with Alex, and I get it, he is exciting, but in the division he has only 4 wins, 2 against the same opponent. All primarily strikers, his overwhelming strength.

Is it his fault that there are no opponents of the quality of LHW during Jon's reign? No, but that is still a factor to consider when trying to rank him.

Can he pass DC and the rest of the elite LHWs during Jon's day? Yes, he needs to keep beating new comers of all styles, rack up those defenses.

My opinion? He should go for achievements that have never been done. Go try to grab a third belt. No one is going to be LHW GOAT or MW GOAT anytime soon, HW can still be done. Get the third belt, defend at HW to break the record, and he will be in a league of his own.

 

[Duck Dodgers]

Some of you have never seen someone defend a title more than once.

 

[Hassan Mouzine]

Hill was coming after a long time of inactivity, Jan was geriatric, and Jiri had his legs chopped off at 300 and a week of prep. You can't just paint over context when it is convienent for Poatan.

i wasnt painting anything, you are going against my post while I was merely stating that he got his facts wrong.
he was EXAEGERRATING Poatans achievement at lhw and I pointed that out. ypu didnt even read who or what I was quoting and claim that im painting over context 'when it's convenient for poatan'

to the first guy: get your facts straight, to you: learn how to read before you react

 

[FlyingDeathKick]

I don't think you can rank him top 5 when he has a total of 4 fights at 205 against 3 opponents. Too soon for that imo.

 

[LampShade94]

Jones
Shogun
Chuck
Wanderlei
Maybe Pereira takes number 5. I can't see him above these 4 though, yet.

 

[akeller901]

Rumble and Gustaffson are way superior to anybody that Poatan has stepped into the cage with at LHW. Also, holding DC back over his loss to Jones at LHW is petty. Poatan hasn’t shown to handle anyone with genuine wrestling capability yet so it’s clumsy to say he wouldn’t get dismantled. Not to mention, LHW is in its weakest state ever. People like Glover that couldn’t crack it as champ in prior years were able to crack it in this era despite being geriatric.

So yes, context is everything. By your logic that means Bendo is better than Khabib if he retired after Gilbert….

Rumble and Gus are the two most overrated fighters maybe of all time. Their biggest accomplishments are losing to the elite of the division

 

[akeller901]

Alex is kind of in a weird spot, kind of like Aldo. If he continues doing what he’s doing, he won’t stay and rack up wins at LHW, but move up to HW. He might not be the GOAT of one division but what’s he’s accomplished/ could accomplish in multiple divisions is what will add to his legacy when it’s all said and done.

 

[Islam Imamate]

His resume seems a lot better than it really is because he got a bit rushed into title fights though of course he deserves much credit for making the most of those opportunities. Guys like Rampage and Machida may have only had one title defense but back then LHW was a shark tank and they have wins over many great fighters over many years.

 

[Doctor Grudge]

At the end of the day, Alex has only beaten 3 LHWs, with 4 wins in total. Are there more than 5 LHWs with more than 4 quality wins? Yeah.

When Alex's career is done, he might be a top 5 LHW, but as of now, I'd say no.

To me the top 3 is Jones, Cormier and Rua. After that you still have legends like Silva, Liddell, Courture etc. Those guys got a lot of great wins and still aren't 100% top 5.

Someone like Rampage has beaten more championship level guys than Alex has. Off the top of my head he beat Chuck twice, Arona (basically a PRIDE champ), Henderson and Machida all reasonably within their primes. That's better quality and quantity than what Alex has done at 205.

 

[StrikerKing]

Best ever at LHW & GOAT at LHW are 2 different things. Best ever list is like, prime for prime, who you think would win or beat everyone/almost everyone at LHW. GOAT is actually resume based, based on your actual career accomplishments at LHW. Alex is definitely not top 5 at LHW GOAT, you could make a case he is 1 of the best ever at LHW, that is more subjective. GOAT, Alex just doesn't have the career resume at LHW to make a strong case. I'm a big Alex fan, but I do think LHW during Alex's time is diminished, not as deep as it used to be

I can't believe the amount of people who can't seem to grasp this concept. I don't even see how GOAT rankings can even be discussed for Alex when we have no idea how his future at LHW is even going to play out.

 

[maximus__]

Weird take. Gustaffson lost to most of the top 5 in his era, losing to Jones x2, DC, Anthony Johnson and even Anthony Smith. The Pride guys were great, but ran into Jones when they came stateside and never got to establish themselves as great because they all alternated wins and losses against each other.

Dc is definitely up there, but Pereira has straight up destroyed everyone except Jan whilst being initially a MW coming up.
Alex holds 4 wins over recent champions, 3x violent KO inside a round or two. The only person he even struggled against was Jan who he dropped a round to via control time only. For comparison Jones had 6 wins against LHW champs in his initial run.
Jan was also barely surviving in that fight by the end of it and was lucky it was only 3 rounds. I think Alex finds his chin if they run it back again, but Jan hasn't been fighting whilst Alex notches up defences.

Bisping beat Rockhold via left hook and then notched up a defence by the most undeserved title shot just to give him a chance. He then proceeded to get finished by GSP and Gastelum within the space of a couple weeks. I wouldn't be saying bad things about a guy who is racking up defences against top 5 guys like Pereira is. It's not his fault the rest of the division can't get past Jiri and Jan.

 

[Gamer2k4]

Why would DC be above him?

DC only has 7 LHw wins, to alex 6. Alex is 5-0 in LHW title fights. DC is 4-2

One more LHW win and they are tied on wins with alex having more defenses and no losses.

Are we talking Alex Pereira? And MMA? I have no clue where you're getting his numbers from, but they're not accurate.

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

Alex isn't even in the top 7.

Hed definitely beat the shit out of those old scrubs like chuck tito etc, so yes

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

1. Jones
2. Shogun
3. Wand
4. Chuck
5. DC
6. Rampage
7.Lyoto
8. Nemkov
9. Rumble
10. Gus


All ahead of Poatan all time. All were either champions or have better wins over LHWs.

 

[wrb]

Weird take. Gustaffson lost to most of the top 5 in his era, losing to Jones x2, DC, Anthony Johnson and even Anthony Smith. The Pride guys were great, but ran into Jones when they came stateside and never got to establish themselves as great because they all alternated wins and losses against each other.

Dc is definitely up there, but Pereira has straight up destroyed everyone except Jan whilst being initially a MW coming up.
Alex holds 4 wins over recent champions, 3x violent KO inside a round or two. The only person he even struggled against was Jan who he dropped a round to via control time only. For comparison Jones had 6 wins against LHW champs in his initial run.
Jan was also barely surviving in that fight by the end of it and was lucky it was only 3 rounds. I think Alex finds his chin if they run it back again, but Jan hasn't been fighting whilst Alex notches up defences.

Bisping beat Rockhold via left hook and then notched up a defence by the most undeserved title shot just to give him a chance. He then proceeded to get finished by GSP and Gastelum within the space of a couple weeks. I wouldn't be saying bad things about a guy who is racking up defences against top 5 guys like Pereira is. It's not his fault the rest of the division can't get past Jiri and Jan.

Honestly I think he lost the Jan fight, I have watched it a bunch and its hard to give him that one however it's the reason he is where he is now as a loss would of derailed his career coming of the violent Izzy KO. (Which for some reason was never mentioned by the media when he fought Jan soon after the incident) I am not saying he is not one of the best of all time, I am saying its shortsighted to not look at that fight for what is and push for rematches when possible instead of weight class jumps. This is not specific to Alex as there are many identical incidents like this in the top 5 of every weight class going back years.

 

[Follow99]

Shogun above Poatan
DC not

 

[kahymo]

Alexander should consider a comeback at 205

it would be a great fight

 

[NationWideNinja]

Why would DC be above him?

DC only has 7 LHw wins, to alex 6. Alex is 5-0 in LHW title fights. DC is 4-2

One more LHW win and they are tied on wins with alex having more defenses and no losses.

Lmao you just making up fights in your mind? Alex has 4 LHW fights, of which 3 were title fights.

 

[maximus__]

Honestly I think he lost the Jan fight, I have watched it a bunch and its hard to give him that one however it's the reason he is where he is now as a loss would of derailed his career coming of the violent Izzy KO. (Which for some reason was never mentioned by the media when he fought Jan soon after the incident) I am not saying he is not one of the best of all time, I am saying its shortsighted to not look at that fight for what is and push for rematches when possible instead of weight class jumps. This is not specific to Alex as there are many identical incidents like this in the top 5 of every weight class going back years.

I think it's a good example of power winning him the fight. I don't disagree that Jan did well on the feet, but the entire fight it felt like their was a huge power difference on Pereira's side and Jan was actively trying to do enough just to point fight and stay safe. At times it felt like Jan was actively avoiding the fight and I think that cost him the close rounds. I think Alex won that fight comfortably but would have no issues with a rematch if Jan hadn't just pulled out of his most recent fight back in Jan vs Rakic to get shoulder surgery. Jan won't be fighting for ages as far as I know and needs another fight against a top contender because he hasn't fought in ages.

If Alex ends up fighting Ank and wins, I don't really see a reason to hang around for him at 205 unless Izzy wins and wants to come up. Who else is he going to fight that ? Why not head up to HW, he matches up extremely well against the entire division and Jones has struggled multiple times against tall, rangy strikers that can match his reach. They are the same age.