Do you value prime or longevity?

[george14]

Curious as to whether a heavier emphasis is put on prime or longevity when rating a fighter. Obviously things get factored in such as: dominance, downfall, title defenses, opposition, etc. But let's say the 2 fighters finished with the same record and title defenses, but Fighter A was murking people during his peak stretch where as Fighter B lost and regained the title a few times.

I guess an example that comes to mind is someone like Randy Couture who never put together huge winning streaks and won/lost the title many times. Opposed to someone like maybe Chuck Liddell who was dominant then was reduced to almost a laughing stock by careers end.

Not necessarily comparing those two head to head, but from a career standpoint which do you value more?

 

[McBlaze]

 

[Tamriel Terror]

longevity is pretty difficult to come by. a guy staying on top or in the top ten for years. Example: Fedor, Barnett, GSP

 

[ElCasca]

Long primes like Silva and Fedor

 

[superpunch]

Any WW champ of 1 fight will be remembered more than the #2 for 10 years (Jon Fitch)

 

[ZuffaExecutive]

Hmm for me Shogun would be the perfect example of someone in there prime in pride and then when they lost some of there explosiveness they became a lesser fighter.Or Anderson for longevity

I personally value the prime of Anderson long term but its always fun to say how would so and so of this period do against a modern day fighter

 

[JAGDPANZER209]

Vitor gets high marks for both.

 

[chitoortiz]

Both

 

[SlicerDM]

Longevity trumps all considering it's the hardest trait to maintain.

 

[laleggenda27]

A sustained period of dominance is the goal. I'll look at 2 different fighters than you mentioned: BJ Penn and GSP. In my mind, BJ's absolute peak (training under Marinovich) was head and shoulders ahead of any other LW in history. That version of BJ may have been the best p4p fighter ever, in my opinion. But it was short-lived. On the other hand, GSP had a long, sustained run of dominance. He wasn't finishing people (often times not even threatening a finish), and he caught plenty of hate for it. Comparing the two, I'd argue that GSP was the far greater. In distinguishing between levels of greatness, I put an emphasis on longevity. As we've seen in recent years, the hardest thing about being champion (or being on top in general) is holding onto it. We see champions getting beaten by lesser opponents quite regularly. It puts into perspective just how great long-reigning champions are.