Fighters who may have been your favourite, if you watched in their prime.

Shogun for sure. I didn't really notice him till his first Machida fight. I love sakuraba now, even though he was before my time. I think if i had known about him back then, I would love him even more.
 
BJ Penn is still my favorite.
 
Mark Hunt. Really earned my respect eating all those JDS shots. I hope he kicks Bigfoot's ass.
 
After reading through, I saw some guys that I've never heard about that came up multiple times:

Igor + Rickson.

Other good fighters that this thread reminded about would have to be Crocop. I also saw his footage when I was getting into MMA and I was really looking forward to seeing him put up some crazy battles in UFC but that never came to fruition.

Also, a thought just came to my mind about Big Nog. I've seen his fight vs Fedor but outside of that, I don't really know why he's revered as a legend. Maybe he would have been a dude who I would have liked to watch fight in his prime.
 
Also, I was just looking over Genki Sudo's profile on wikipedia. He seems like he would have been quite the character.
 
Myamoto musashi is one fighter i was too young to follow live. Other than that i'm good.
 
i been lucky enough to be around since the offset near enough, but i do wish i'd had access to the earlier Shooto shows, Shoot Boxing, early Japan mma basically.
Guess I'm talking about guys like Kawaguchi, Yuichi Watanabe, Naoki Sakurada, Yuki Nakai, Kazuhiro Sakamoto.

and Rickson of course
 
Igor. A relatively small HW with nuclear warheads for hands and an agressive style.
 
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Marco Ruas even when he entered the UFC I think he was past his prime
 
Mach Sakurai, I guess it's noteworthy that I did watch him throughout all his PRIDE fights (and his UFC ones), however at the time of his reign supreme (in shooto) I either couldn't get a hold of the tapes or I just hadn't gotten into MMA just yet.

After the car crash he just became so mediocre. Still my favorite fighter (well atleast one of them). I guess this doesn't count towards the thread but whatever.
I don't even think I can name a fighter that "would have been" if I had watched them in their prime, mostly because footage is available everywhere nowadays.
 
Thanks for making me remember how old I am, you asshole haha

I was trying to remember back, and I honestly missed Rickson's fights in Japan, and the absolute first couple UFC's. In that time period, you really didn't miss much. But I would say Rickson because he's the only fighter I am intrigued by of that era that I didn't see later (not much later). I caught most of Ken, and Royce, and Oleg, and then Kerr and Coleman. But trying to remember that far back makes you realize how old you are now. douche. hah.
 
Jocke said:
Mach Sakurai, I guess it's noteworthy that I did watch him throughout all his PRIDE fights (and his UFC ones), however at the time of his reign supreme (in shooto) I either couldn't get a hold of the tapes or I just hadn't gotten into MMA just yet.

After the car crash he just became so mediocre. Still my favorite fighter (well atleast one of them). I guess this doesn't count towards the thread but whatever.
I don't even think I can name a fighter that "would have been" if I had watched them in their prime, mostly because footage is available everywhere nowadays.
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Good call, glad to know I'm not the only other 'old ass' here haha. im just passed my mid 20s and I still feel old on here bc no one remembers heath herring ffs, much less a guy like gary goodridge, mo smith, pete williams, etc...

I first remember Mach in the Anderson fight, but he was already p4p #1 by then.
 
GodZirra said:
Good call, glad to know I'm not the only other 'old ass' here haha. im just passed my mid 20s and I still feel old on here bc no one remembers heath herring ffs, much less a guy like gary goodridge, mo smith, pete williams, etc...

I first remember Mach in the Anderson fight, but he was already p4p #1 by then.
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Fucking Gary man, I remember starting to watch PRIDE back in the day and couldn't get over the fact that his "style" or martial art experience was "Arm-wrestling". Lol.

Also, I prefer the old MMA to modern MMA (though I still enjoy watching modern MMA obviously). It had alot more flair and the style vs style shit was alot more fun.
 
I've always thought that I'd have much more respect for Fedor if I didn't start getting hardcore into MMA once he was in Strikeforce losing 3 in a row

Because of that I was always one of those guys that thought Fedor fought cans his whole career and that he shouldn't be GOAT. now that I'm a more hardcore fan I take that back but I still have trouble appreciating his reign when I discovered him on a losing streak
 
Mad Villain said:
I've always thought that I'd have much more respect for Fedor if I didn't start getting hardcore into MMA once he was in Strikeforce losing 3 in a row

Because of that I was always one of those guys that thought Fedor fought cans his whole career and that he shouldn't be GOAT. now that I'm a more hardcore fan I take that back but I still have trouble appreciating his reign when I discovered him on a losing streak
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Well, he did fight alot of cans. I think the problem is alot of Fedor GOAT believers want him to have a perfect record (just like it was a perfect record minus the elbow incident).

The thing is though that while Fedor faught alot of cans, he also faught alot of contenders and he still beat them all, and that's whats important to look at, not the padding. If a guy has a 20-0 record and has faught 20 cans and then gets a title shot, wins the title and keeps defeding it for 10 fights in a row, whether or not he padded his record he obviously was a rightfull title holder. I feel the same with Fedor.

And yes, I definately think he's a GOAT.
 
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