For me being GM means being absolute elite, you are the grande scene. 1800-2000 means you have put quite an effort into sport and you are good at amateur level,.
And Tate was there. If there would be a politician, who is GM, i wouldnt say - no he is scrub, he never became world champ. I would count being elite chess player as a fact in his biography.
And same about Tate - for me he was elite kickboxer, one of the very best in the world. Doesn't matter if it is top10, top20 or top50.
For me stars of my national basketball league are still elite players, even if noone of them is in top1000 of the world and never ever as even close.
Erm...being a basketball player in the UK would not make you elite. I mean that is great they are elite to you, but the wider basketball community would not consider them elite.
Being a professional doesn't mean you are elite. It would be weird to call the worst player on the worst NBA team an elite, people would think you are silly, even though playing in the NBA does mean you are an incredible basketball player (far above that of a UK player for example).
Kickboxing, which has way less levels than basketball has something similar. Andrew Tate was very good at amateur kickboxing. He has solid accomplishments in Full Contact.
In prize fighting, K1 style kickboxing, the most mainstream form that most kickboxing and prizefighting fans associate with, he is not elite. Enfusion is a mid tier promotion (as in, at the very least a full tier below the top promotions in KB), and he fought there in its infancy when it had just started.
He was not much of an alumni for Showtime, he only had one fight there (which he lost). He was pretty much brought in on his accomplishments in enfusion and ISKA (which is not even the best amateur body). It's not like he fought up the rankings of Showtime, he was given a title shot because they needed guys around that size to fight for their belt.
Tate came at a time when weight classes were starting to organize and stabilize off of the ashes of the original K1's death which revolved too heavily around heavyweights. Tate was not a serious threat to the best fighters in the world at any point.
If you just call any fighter that has some ranked success elite, then you are essentially saying they are the same level as the very best guys. Kevin Holland and GSP can both be called elite (using your standard), but using that terminology you would think they are the same level.
And again, most of his accomplishments are in Full-Contact. While that is colloquially called kickboxing, it is basically a different sport from K1. He has not done much in K1 style at all.
Tate has close to no fights in any elite org, and no wins in any elite org (unless you want to count his win in K1 vs China which he did not fight someone even in K1). He is an amateur kickboxer.
