BJ Penn and Randy Couture Overrated?

[AppliedScience]

Prime Fedor would still be top of the division now.

Obviously.

 

[315MMAFighter]

Randy definitely wasn't overrated. The man was fkng HW and LHW champ in the UFC for a reason

 

[Glove]

His record sucked, he lost a ton of fights, his striking was average at best, and people treated him like he was p4p top dog for a while. By the way, Ricco stopped him, and Liddell khtfo twice. Don't know what the fu#k you are smoking.

His record was better than most actually, 19-11 and he fought nothing but top ranked fighters almost for 15 years. Guy was a fantastic boxer actually with top notch wrestling and his losses to Liddell (who was the best LHW in the world at that time) and Ricco Rodriguez (best BJJ in the world at heavyweight) weren't blemishes. However i never viewed him as the top MMA fighter at any time in his career, i did view him as an excellent fighter whose resume was a who's who in MMA history. Guy's a complete legend.

 

[tasticles]

His record sucked, he lost a ton of fights, his striking was average at best, and people treated him like he was p4p top dog for a while. By the way, Ricco stopped him, and Liddell khtfo twice. Don't know what the fu#k you are smoking.

I wasn't going to give you his entire career in a post but when 95% of your fights are against killers your record is probably not going to be that good. Most fighters duck like crazy or their management has them avoid a lot of tough fights. Randy, Hendo, and BJ are the few that will fight anyone, anytime, any place and I have to give them a lot of respect for that. A lot of your favorite fighters have very inflated records. You can make almost anyone look like a world beater given the correct amount of mismatches. They not only fought the best but also beat a lot of the best too. Even the great Chris that everyone worships now isn't looking to move up to LHW or HW because he knows he will get fucked up and lose his stock if he does. I do take level of opposition into account. To each their own man. Randy had his share of losses but more than his share of quality wins which is more than I can say for most.

 

[jeff7b9]

Fuck that.


Both guys fought at the championship level for YEARS and did so in two weight classes.

Randy at one point in his career fought 12 out of 13 fights for a UFC belt.


BJ went UP in weight to destroy a 35-3, 5x defending champ Matt Hughes right in the middle of his prime.

BJ was 11-1-1 at LW before the Frankie Edgar fights.

BJ went up to HEAVYWEIGHT to fight Lyoto Machida to a split decision, he also went 2-0 in his career at MW. - Not bad for a chubby LW.

 

[ForbiddenSun]

Two of the most decorated champions in UFC history and yet you state they are overrated....my goodness.

I never stated they were overrated. Did you not see the question mark? I posed a question and let people debate.

I even said they were both deserved of the HOF and pioneers of the sport, but simply asked the question if you you should be considered an all time great with such a low win %.

There have been some good comments both ways. Some people put more stock in records than others. I agree context is important

 

[Snuc3315]

BJ fought better competition than Fedor. And it

 

[TheComebackKid]

In his first 20 fights Penn defeated 9 top 10 LWs, a GOAT WW, and a top 10 MW. He won two belts and defended them 3 times. His only losses at the time were to Pulver, Hughes, GSP, and Machida.

Hell no Penn is not overrated.

 

[karatekick1]

BJ is not overrated. Randy is. The godfather of TRT in MMA.

This

 

[TheComebackKid]

Fedor beat 5 former UFC HW champions.

In Fedor's career even the seemingly can easy fighter were somewhat justified.

In the case of Zulu, you have a huge undefeated guy who supposedly has great knockout ability. Then after Fedor beats him, the guy loses and loses. With Brett Rodgers you have a big HW who knocked out the then #2 HW in 22 seconds. You had a guy who made it look easy against the same fighter who had Fedor on his toes in the stand up moreso than any fighter Fedor would ever fight. Yes Rodgers tanked after the loss, but there was some justification.

Think about how Lesnar, and Carwin were given quick shots being huge guys. Pride did that with Sapp too, and Sapp didn't look weak against Big Nog either.

There were two really ridiculous fights for the Pride HW champion in Fedor's run

1) By far the truest can fight, ... Yuji Nagata (pro wrestler) on the Inoki card
2) Egidijus Valavicius - A fighter who is solid, but not a viable fight for the Pride HW champ, again this fight happened in Rings during a Fedor contract dispute.

Actually Randy had a similar contract dispute with the UFC and fought in Rings during that time.

Just sayin....

I think most people assume Fedor fought easy opponents because he never fought in the UFC, and these people don't appreciate that Pride was greater than Bellator is today, that Pride was at the time as great as the UFC. Beyond that the remaining fighters Fedor fought after Pride (sans Hong Man Choi (again massive fighter), and Satoshi Ishii) were all UFC HW contenders/champions.

Stop it. Zulu, Ogawa, Nagata, Valavicius, old Coleman, old Randleman, Fujita, Choi, Goodridge, Lindland are all easy opponents.

 

[JKS]

I wouldnt say so, Randy and BJ's records were like that because they started out their careers in the UFC and stayed there for the majority of their careers and they rose to the top quickly meaning they would fight top competition pretty much every fight.

If we look at guys like Lyoto Machida for example who is 14-7 in the UFC, but he started out fighting some pretty average opponents. Randy and BJ never fought guys like Heath and Hoger in the UFC, take away those wins and Lyoto is 12-7 . Shogun is 6-8 for example. There are very few guys that fight top comp on a consistent basis and still have a very strong record.

 

[serr]

BJ Penn has a terrible win streak. The guy is nothing special. He fought tough competition but there are others that have fought harder. Dude was barely even a gate keeper. Bisping ranks higher than him in my books since he's only lost to guys on steroids which is even tougher competition than BJ Penn. I can't for the life of me understand this guy's fan base. What do they cheer on? He never beat the top 3, lost to Hughes, GSP, Edgar x 3, Diaz, pretty much everyone out there. He had one good streak in the early days of UFC, but as soon as competition got tough he lost every round. Name one big name he beat.

 

[chinarice]

BJ Penn has a terrible win streak. The guy is nothing special. He fought tough competition but there are others that have fought harder. Dude was barely even a gate keeper. Bisping ranks higher than him in my books since he's only lost to guys on steroids which is even tougher competition than BJ Penn. I can't for the life of me understand this guy's fan base. What do they cheer on? He never beat the top 3, lost to Hughes, GSP, Edgar x 3, Diaz, pretty much everyone out there. He had one good streak in the early days of UFC, but as soon as competition got tough he lost every round. Name one big name he beat.

Why troll? lol

 

[Snuc3315]

Stop it. Zulu, Ogawa, Nagata, Valavicius, old Coleman, old Randleman, Fujita, Choi, Goodridge, Lindland are all easy opponents.

Fujita, the guy who destroyed Bob Sapp, and Mark Kerr - .... you laugh. Well Kerr was barely beat by Vovchanchyn but was at one time a Brock Lesnar of sorts in mma. He was undefeated with UFC tournament wins. A huge HW developing striking and GnP skills from top trainers. Bob Sapp had rag dolled the Pride champion, and crushed all other opponents. He had also won K1 fights against the best K1 fighter in the world back to back. Fujita dismantled both guys, ..... Fujita is the one who "stole their souls". They weren't seen as intimidating after he crushed them.

Goodridge - a top tier K1 fighter, who had decent TD defense and grappling skills. Not assumed an easy fight at the time. ..... yes when he got old he sucked big time and lost like 10 fights. Fedor fought him when he was a respected and somewhat feared striker.

Coleman - former UFC, and Pride HW champion. A wrestler with a stronger pedigree than either Cain, or Daniel Cormier. Coleman wasn't really and old washed up fighter in their first fight. By the way Big Nog was arguably more washed up when Cain beat him. A fighter known best in mma as having punishing GnP. He wasn't good against submissions,.... are Cain and Cormier?

Randleman - was definitely not old when Fedor fought him. He had been UFC HW champion recently. Again, after Pride went defunct Randleman lost like 7 straight fights. Guess what Jens Pulver lost fight after fight, after fight. Still when BJ fought him, he was one of the best in the world. That is what counts.

Note before looking at Lindland and Ogawa, remember Anderson had a fight against James Irvin, and Patrick Cote. Neither was really deserving of a title fight, but neither opponent was necessarily seemingly easy. Neither were the following two opponents AT THE TIME OF THE FIGHT.

Lindland - suffered a narrow split decision loss to Rampage. Has the greatest wrestling pedigree of any UFC fighter, ever. Rampage was considered the top UFC fighter at the time for beating Chuck. It wasn't an easy fight at the time, it wasn't fit for a Pride HW champ, but then Pride was defunct.

Ogawa - Former Olympic silver medalist, undefeated with a winning streak in Pride going into the fight. A beloved pro wrestler given a fight due to his stature culturally ..... we know the UFC never does anything like that right (okay I agree Lesnar looked amazing, still Ogawa had the pedigree and the wins)? Seriously few people thought Fedor would lose that fight, but Ogawa had some credentials anyway. Being a world great wrestler, Judo, BJJ, K1 fighter garnered automatic contention in Prides system at the time. Ogawa had easier opponents, but he was undefeated at the time.

I never said Zulu wasn't an easy fight, but he was an unknown, and being huge and undefeated made the fight somewhat justified given how mma often works at HW.

Choi seems like an easy opponent, I don't consider him that. The guy was like a knee wrestling champion, and a K1 regular, he outweighed Fedor by like 100 lbs. When you think of it, he gave Fedor more trouble than Tim Sylvia,.... It isn't appropriate for a champion, but again Fedor wasn't in the UFC, and I don't think it was necessarily and easy fight.

I didn't disagree that the other two were easy fights,.... contract dispute fights.

 

[serr]

Why troll? lol

Not trolling. The guy had one good streak and it was in the early days of the sport. After his first 10 fights he was mediocre at best. He beat nobody. He lost to Frankie Edgar 3 times and Edgar is ranked 3rd. He got crushed by anyone that was any good.

 

[giusti825]

Both would get destroyed by current top fighters of their divisions.So yes,kinda

But depends on how you "rate" them really. I mean if the majority considers BJ top10 GOAT,yes he is heavily overrated

So would jens pulver, pat militech, frank shamrock and mark coleman.

It doesn't mean overrated.....old happens.....

 

[andnowweknow]

Not trolling. The guy had one good streak and it was in the early days of the sport. After his first 10 fights he was mediocre at best. He beat nobody. He lost to Frankie Edgar 3 times and Edgar is ranked 3rd. He got crushed by anyone that was any good.

nah, you're trolling. It's either that or stupid. You can pick.

 

[Bmartin89]

BJ Penn has a terrible win streak. The guy is nothing special. He fought tough competition but there are others that have fought harder. Dude was barely even a gate keeper. Bisping ranks higher than him in my books since he's only lost to guys on steroids which is even tougher competition than BJ Penn. I can't for the life of me understand this guy's fan base. What do they cheer on? He never beat the top 3, lost to Hughes, GSP, Edgar x 3, Diaz, pretty much everyone out there. He had one good streak in the early days of UFC, but as soon as competition got tough he lost every round. Name one big name he beat.

Get back to me when Bisping wins 2 titles in 2 weight classes.

 

[giusti825]

I only ever saw BJ getting his ass beat all the time.

How the hell did you get a legacy account if you started watching mma in 2011.

 

[chinarice]

Not trolling. The guy had one good streak and it was in the early days of the sport. After his first 10 fights he was mediocre at best. He beat nobody. He lost to Frankie Edgar 3 times and Edgar is ranked 3rd. He got crushed by anyone that was any good.

That's pretty neat that you truly don't understand how awesome BJ Penn was during his prime.

From 2001-2009 he lost to Jens Pulver who was someone that was actually in his weightclass. Every other loss is to WW and LHW former champs. 2 of those 3 guys are the #1 and #2 WW of all time.

He started his MMA career in the UFC, that's how good he was. Not sure what you classify as good but Michael Bisping's career is nothing compared to BJ Penn's.