Cain Velasquez career retrospective, thoughts?

[ThePimblettEra]

Imo prime Cain would likely wreck any HW that ever lived.
Just a hunch.
Shame his career never fully materialised.

 

[Hdfi]

top-notch GnP skills, prime Cain was a force to be reckoned with.

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

One of the most overrated HWs ever, a good chunk of his ranked wins are JDS and Bigfoot x4.

He didn't fight that many times and didn't fight that many different styles. He only ever fought 2 HWs with good submission games, past his prime Big Nog and prime Werdum. People like to assume he had great submission defense, but it was only ever tested against Werdum so it's really hard to gage how he would have done against HWs with good sub grappling that weren't past their primes.

People overrate him based on perceived potential.

 

[Frank Kain]

Cain did us all a favor derailing the Brock train. Cain definitely could’ve been the all time best. Werdum’s jab and Thai clinch really stopped Cain cold in their fight, tho, not unbeatable.

 

[DebtCollectorMMA]

If you're not Gen Z you agree Cain is the HW Goat

 

[DebtCollectorMMA]

his gas tank was beyond human (like bizarrely beyond human), and couldn't put a string of healthy fights together to develop a GOAT legacy.

Werdum is such a joker xD

 

[johny ringo]

Good career. He gave it his best shots.

 

[OneOfOne]

Cain had a very good career. He tallied 9 top 10 wins and 4 UFC titles. Thats good enough for top 5 HW all time. However, it still feels like he left alot on the table due to injuries. His real legacy is being one of the P4P best peak fighters we've ever seen.

 

[Black Blood]

Cain sucked the air and the life out of the HW division for years. Coulda been one of the greats but never got there.

 

[jk7707]

biggest "what if" in HW history. Injuries and only fighting JDS and Bigfoot during his prime hurt his legacy.

 

[Qays Stetkevich]

Overrated as shit.

Very good fighter, but people putting him into the pantheon of heavyweight greats need to look at his resumé again.

Exactly this. I always thought he was overrated> Not meaning that he was bad, but that fans just adulated him and placed him way too high on the pantheon as you say. He absolutely could have been a legend if he didn't both lose several high profile fights and get chronically injured.

 

[Lepo Lepo]

Too many rematches in his career. Wish there was more variety at his peak. Even then, was hilarious seeing him destroy Bigfoot twice.

 

[Lionheart7167]

Best UFC HW ever in theory, second best in practice.
I think most assume Cain, had he been healthy and not plagued with injuries would smash just about anyone (including Stipe).
We can't go on assumptions though. Stipe has a better record, both in terms of records and opposition so he's number one.
I think a prime Cain would have mauled a prime Stipe, but that's neither here nor there.

 

[Sweater of AV]

Cain had a very good peak but his time at the top was too short and was mainly centered around fighting two guys.

It’s a shame he was often injured but that’s the way it goes.

 

[heavy_hands]

Too many rematches in his career. Wish there was more variety at his peak. Even then, was hilarious seeing him destroy Bigfoot twice.

great fighter for sure, top 5 ufc hw. but yeah a lot of rematches, not very active…would have been great to see him fight guys like Arlovski, Carwin, Mir around 2009-2012

 

[NationWideNinja]

One of the most overrated guys ever in the sense that people put him on GOAT lists or call him the best HW ever.

Sure he was a beast in his prime but his record is basically JDS x2, and besides that all his wins are kinda meh. Kongo, Ben Rothwell, the corpse of Nog, Lesnar, Bigfoot x2, and Travis Browne.

His pressure was insane, but he was defensively extremely sloppy. He gets tagged and finished by Ngannou while closing the distance in exactly the same way even if he was in his prime. Kongo had him rocked real bad multiple times in their fight as well.

 

[Fight Professor]

That's a 30 minute video .

Are the cliffs just that Cain is greatest HW ever?

I'd have to disagree. And I'm not watching that video.

At some point Cain was a favorite over anyone in MMA.

But I agree that greatness requires more accomplishments.

 

[ultra321]

glass cannon...

 

[Egészségére!]

I plan on doing a similar video for Fedor, Werdum, Francis and Stipe and maybe Igor Vovchanchyn. Any anecdotes or cool shit about these dudes I should mention?

Good stuff man. Props for putting it out there. I used to work in video production & editing in LA a few years back & respectfully recommend a better mic/cleaner audio & shortening it up a bit. But I enjoyed it & look forward to the next one.

 

[Belaya Smert]

thoughts?