Does it feel like the era of invincible champs is over?

[Lawrence]

Playing off of another TS thread on the front page, does it feel like alot of fighters taking belts these days seem either very beatable, or you only see really a 1 or 2 defense run in them?

When I was younger, the champs seemed like these untouchable world beaters like who the hell can even challenge this guy? GSP was invincible forever. I never thought I'd see Anderson lose. BJ at lightweight was a fucking savage for years. Khabib needs no words. Who saw anybody beating Jose? Jon vacated his title, but he cleared like three generations of LHW. Cain and Brock both seemed like the true heavyweight kings. Brock more so maybe less due to merit and more the way he steamrolled the guys he did fight.

Guys like Bisping, Jan, Eddie, even Robbie Lawler, Olivera, and dare I say Izzy... we'd seen those first 5 lose a ton of fights before they took the belt. Izzy seems to have a pretty clear blueprint on beating him. Obviously competition has gotten tougher, guys are more well rounded and fighters like Olivera have improved leaps and bounds. But if competition got so much tougher, what were guys like Eddie doing as champion anyway? Are we going through growing pains, or backwards?

Nostalgia is great but:

Cain lost his first title defense by vicious KO
Cain had only two title defenses after his second championship.

Brock had two title defenses.
Brocks longest career win streak is 4

I would argue that Cain and JDS at their peaks were the two greatest heavyweights, but their concurrent rise and fights against one another make All Time Great and GOAT pronouncements subjective..

 

[BowserGiga]

The era has just begun.

Khamzat, Yan, Askerov, Islam are all going to take it to the next level.

 

[jitzmonkey]

Petr Yan and Valentina are the only ones I can't see losing currently.

I believe that all of Yan's losses have been the result of stupid fouls (at least one costing him a point.)
So he seems to be the only one who can beat him(self)

 

[LincolnHawk1]

Your right in the sense that it appears there used to be more dominant champs, however a lot of that has to do with the competition catching up. Pro fighters now train in all forms of mma and treat it as their profession. The old iron sharpens iron as far as training goes it prevalent is where you have super gyms like ATT and AKA where there are so many good fighters training and sparring together. Coaches actually game plan and pick apart film like coaches do in other sports when studying opponents. Basically most of the top 15 guys in majority of the divisions are very well rounded now and game plan for their opponents. The era of lording over the division for 5+ years is mostly not going to happen now. Like Thomas brought up izzy last fight and said Whitaker gave him his toughest test last fight and obviously studied and improved upon watching Izzy last few fights. Said the blueprint is now out there on how to bear izzy at MW and will probably happen soon.

 

[Taric]

Lewis and Tai aren’t top3 HWs in the world right now. That would be Ngannou, Gane and Stipe. And those 3 would be top3 in any generation. They represent the evolution of the HW division.

Tai and Lewis are what Mark Hunt was at previous generations.

Gane is Cro Cop but with worse grappling.

 

[Shaddows]

You combined like 3 eras of fighters into one.

No there isnt as many dominant champs right now as there were over the last 15 years combined

How do you not see this?

Btw Bj defended his belt 3 times. He was not a dominant long reigning champ. Jesus Izzy is 20-1 and has defendes his belt more times than Penn did his entire career.

Fucking nostalgia

I disagree this is pure nostalgia.
BJ Penn was deemed #2 P4P best (behind Fedor) for a long time.
Perception is that he was unbeatable at his weight, and the reason he did not defend much was his foreys into other WC's (i.e. clashes with Hughes & GSP, or even Machida)...

I do agree his record did not reflect the perception.
He was as unbeatable (at LW) as Fedor or Silva was at MW (or Hughes was until GSP showed up and later GSP)...

 

[Shaddows]

As for the OP, I do think that this is on par with the times.
Dominant champions jumped ahead of most while the playing field was scattered all over the place.
Most fighters were not truly well rounded whereas now almost everyone is well versed on all 3 aspects of MMA.

So IMHO now it is harder to be so far ahead of everyone else.

 

[SalvadorAllende]

Valentina FTW.

Also Gynosanya pretty much cleaned MW

 

[textwarrior]

Playing off of another TS thread on the front page, does it feel like alot of fighters taking belts these days seem either very beatable, or you only see really a 1 or 2 defense run in them?

When I was younger, the champs seemed like these untouchable world beaters like who the hell can even challenge this guy? GSP was invincible forever. I never thought I'd see Anderson lose. BJ at lightweight was a fucking savage for years. Khabib needs no words. Who saw anybody beating Jose? Jon vacated his title, but he cleared like three generations of LHW. Cain and Brock both seemed like the true heavyweight kings. Brock more so maybe less due to merit and more the way he steamrolled the guys he did fight.

Guys like Bisping, Jan, Eddie, even Robbie Lawler, Olivera, and dare I say Izzy... we'd seen those first 5 lose a ton of fights before they took the belt. Izzy seems to have a pretty clear blueprint on beating him. Obviously competition has gotten tougher, guys are more well rounded and fighters like Olivera have improved leaps and bounds. But if competition got so much tougher, what were guys like Eddie doing as champion anyway? Are we going through growing pains, or backwards?

Yeah, but the era of Dagestan wrestling seems to be here.

 

[blaseblah]

First, we are only counting title fights.
Second, this is about the perception of whether or not you see them losing the belt anytime soon.

For instance, around the Thiago Alves fight I basically predicted GSP will retire with his belt.

So you predicted GSP would retire with the belt after only 2 title defenses and seeing him get knocked out by a lightweight? Who exactly do you see beating Izzy?

 

[drocsid]

It's been over for a while tbh

 

[Ozze]

An era as a whole when he had like Aldo, GSP, Anderson e Jones all reigning supreme I think so.
But there will always be dominant champions. Usman being a good case here.

 

[Vil7]

You combined like 3 eras of fighters into one.

No there isnt as many dominant champs right now as there were over the last 15 years combined

How do you not see this?

Btw Bj defended his belt 3 times. He was not a dominant long reigning champ. Jesus Izzy is 20-1 and has defendes his belt more times than Penn did his entire career.

Fucking nostalgia

I think any time a fighter is standup oriented like Adesanya their skillset is under much more scrutiny than grappling oriented ones even if they are a champion. I'm not sure if the attitude occurs elsewhere but it seems very prevalent in this forum.

 

[JKS]

I remember that most fans thought Anderson would lose eventually once he fought a very good wrestlers. In his first title defense he fought Lutter and had a tough situation. After that everyone thought that the first good grappler would beat him. And Andreson beat one after the other.

 

[George Carlin]

Oh? I wasn’t aware that they’d changed the results.

Thats such a lame comeback when you dorks use it. If someone lost a fight, it doesn't matter what the judges say if everyone knows what really happened. Lyoto didn't beat shogun the first time, Diego didn't beat kampman.

 

[George Carlin]

I think what we're dealing with here is TS has been an mma fan long enough now to FINALLY realize no one is unbeatable but is now thinking it's only because of the times lol. Last time I thought this was probably Vitor in the early UFC's before Randy smashed him...when I was a kid.

I grew up in an mma household. My whole family fights or teaches. I've been watching and going to fights since I was 11 or 12. I'm almost 30 now.

 

[George Carlin]

Whatever

People are very impatient

Every time a fighter loses,you swear it turns some mma fans' lives upside down

"oh this wrestler lost,does this mean wrestling is over in mma?"

"oh this brazilian guy lost,does this mean brazilians era of dominance is over in mma?"

"Oh this invincible champ lost does this mean no one will hold titles for a long time?"

"oh all the marketable fighters are gone,or not as good,does this mean the end for MMA?"

Always asking questions that could never be answered by anyone. Always impatient to just wait and see. People always cried and made babies everytime a star lost or was on the decline. Heralding the end of MMA when we lost chuck,and Randy. Yeah boy MMA sure ended after that,didnt it?

In closing,stop fuckin crying and asking dumbass unanswerable questions. These arent even worth thinking about.

Is your name charlie tho

 

[Dreyga Hates You Sherbums]

First, we are only counting title fights.

Anderson and GSP got titles fights two fights in their UFC runs. Most guys have to have anywhere from 6 to 10 wins in a row before they get titleshot.

It isn't a fair comparison.

 

[welcometohavoc]

Usman has a whole stable of monsters he's about to deal with. Khazmat 100% might make easy work of him. Even if he doesn't, the fact I can say that at all means Usman doesn't have that aura.

Khazmat is still unproven. But assuming he is legit, after him, who else is there? Edwards? Belal?

 

[George Carlin]

You dont think right. Or dont know anything about fighting

What am I supposed to say to you, you're clearly very popular on here. I'm not gunna argue and get dogpiled. Still fuk u tho kid