Chuck Liddell vs. Today's MW's.

[Medulla Omoplata]

Regardless of size Chuck would likely do better in today's LHW division given how barren that landscape is.
Chuck's skillset shouldn't hold up today, but IMO his physical attributes would let prime chuck hang with todays top LHW. I mean we're talking Anthony Smith, Thiago Santos, Jan Blachowicz, Corey Anderson, Ilir Latifi, Jimi Manuwa, Glover Texiera.

Recency bias is real. Prime Chuck had speed, power, good TDD and aggressiveness. He wouldn't dominate by any means but he could easily go 50-50 if you ran him through the gauntlet I mentioned above.

 

[Maaj19]

I think Gas might have trouble cos of the size difference. Costa gets fucked up tho. The rest beat Chuck

 

[Moonwalker95]

Chuck fought at lhw

............

 

[Zebra Cheeks]

Regardless of size Chuck would likely do better in today's LHW division given how barren that landscape is.
Chuck's skillset shouldn't hold up today, but IMO his physical attributes would let prime chuck hang with todays top LHW. I mean we're talking Anthony Smith, Thiago Santos, Jan Blachowicz, Corey Anderson, Ilir Latifi, Jimi Manuwa, Glover Texiera.

Recency bias is real. Prime Chuck had speed, power, good TDD and aggressiveness. He wouldn't dominate by any means but he could easily go 50-50 if you ran him through the gauntlet I mentioned above.

You didn’t name any of the folks I consider top lhw’s.
Volkan
Gus
Jon Jones
Reyes

I don’t think he wins any of the four fights above, and additionally like you said he probably goes 50-50 against the guys ranked 5-10. Compare that to being the LHW champion? It’s quite a difference

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

Regardless of size Chuck would likely do better in today's LHW division given how barren that landscape is.
Chuck's skillset shouldn't hold up today, but IMO his physical attributes would let prime chuck hang with todays top LHW. I mean we're talking Anthony Smith, Thiago Santos, Jan Blachowicz, Corey Anderson, Ilir Latifi, Jimi Manuwa, Glover Texiera.

Recency bias is real. Prime Chuck had speed, power, good TDD and aggressiveness. He wouldn't dominate by any means but he could easily go 50-50 if you ran him through the gauntlet I mentioned above.

I think he would do much better than 50/50 with those guys. Corey Anderson, Latifi and Manuwa would get smoked by Liddell in his prime. Glover, Santos, Jan and Smith would be toss ups but I think even in those he wins more than loses.

 

[Medulla Omoplata]

You didn’t name any of the folks I consider top lhw’s.
Volkan
Gus
Jon Jones
Reyes

I don’t think he wins any of the four fights above, and additionally like you said he probably goes 50-50 against the guys ranked 5-10. Compare that to being the LHW champion? It’s quite a difference

I guess if you want to count 4 guys as the top LHW then no he wouldn't hang, but I figure extending "top fighters" to the 10-15 best in the world is fair, in which case Chuck would likely be competitive.

 

[Medulla Omoplata]

I think he would do much better than 50/50 with those guys. Corey Anderson, Latifi and Manuwa would get smoked by Liddell in his prime. Glover, Santos and Smith would be toss ups.

He easily could go better than 50/50 but he was a brawler, I'm not going to give him better odds than that.

 

[fightfan70]

current Anderson silva could beat prime chuck all day.

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

He easily could go better than 50/50 but he was a brawler, I'm not going to give him better odds than that.

Santos and Smith are brawlers too but they have much weaker chins same for Manuwa. Volkan and Reyes are also kind of similar agressive strikers.

 

[GordonMMARamsey]

I dont like his chances against 90% of the MW's in the UFC.

 

[stinkynecklace]

Nah. Chuck I don't think Chuck could make 185 and still be able to fight very well. Sure, he didn't cut the most weight at 205, but I'd counter that he never really blew up between fights and stayed in shape somewhat. Yeah, he is only 6'2", but he has some pretty wide shoulders.

And I would guess that he cut 15-20 pounds to make 205. All fighters generally understate how much weight they cut. And he was drawn out a bit at weigh-ins.

I was thinking the same thing as you, but I looked up the face off between Chuck and Franklin, and Franklin was bigger! It was a tough cut for Franklin, but he was obviously very successful at MW.

 

[beastman]

Yeah, I mean it depends on quite a few things. Are you just plucking him from 03' and placing him in the ring or is he a prospect who started training in 2010 instead of 1997?

If you still had him as a kid with a wrestling and karate background who wrestled D1 at Cal Poly and had a 20-2(or so) kickboxing record you'd still have him as a decent prospect who could develop into a hell of an MMA fighter if certain things came natural to him.

He'd probably train like a new school fighter instead of a late 90's-mid 00's fighter who went full throttle in stand up sparring 5 days a week. He'd probably be with a different gym. He'd probably work on different areas of his game.

Many still forget that he KO'd other guys who'd likely succeed in today's MMA if they had today's training. He KO'd Alistair Overeem in an epic fight, KO'd an insane wrestler in Randleman, KO'd a well rounded fighter in Guy Mezger, KO'd Randy, KO'd Tito, KO'd Babalu, decision against Vitor, ect

 

[Zebra Cheeks]

I guess if you want to count 4 guys as the top LHW then no he wouldn't hang, but I figure extending "top fighters" to the 10-15 best in the world is fair, in which case Chuck would likely be competitive.

Oh for sure chuck could be a competitive guy against ranks 5-15. The dudes still talented, but I guess these things always depend how you look at it. I believe he would mold to the times to a certain extent but I never pegged chuck as a hard worker, which many of the modern guys are.

 

[pankrat]

He beat Amar Suloev, who despite undersized was a better striker than most guys you listed

 

[orgazmo]

I feel like LHW is shallow right now and would be much easier to ascend than MW, except for Jones really