Five Criteria for GOATness: Record, Dominance, Skill, Cheating, Competence in Judging

[Dickie Greenleaf]

You still don't understand that nobody cares about your opinion ?



Made this year with over 5 millions of views and you're still hating in Sherdog while Fedor got destroyed in his last fight, nobody watched his fight and nobody cares about him.

No one cares about my opinion? Who gives a shit about your opinion you lame ass loser lol? You're a typical shertard UFC fanboy chump and I'd bet anything you have never trained either. Clowns like you make this forum the smelly dump that it is- full of sport hating UFC fanboying scumbags. Shertards like you in terms of boxing fans would be the equivalent of imbeciles who shit on and disrespect the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler. Go back to your basement now boy. You're the dirt on the bottom of my Bruno Magli loafers.

 

[Fioretti]

Jon Jones and Anderson Silva are the only fighters accomplished enough to be considered "The Greatest". Nobody else comes close. If Jones defends the HW belt, it's hard to consider The Spider anymore.

They are far from anyone else in terms of greatness. PED shit is a cop out excuse for kids whose favey never got caught. The sport was built on juice. Juice guys.

 

[Fioretti]

I especially agree with the skill, more specifically well roundedness, for example guys like GSP and Jones has the most complete skillset that you can't really a find any glaring weaknesses, in their primes they can strike with the ground guy, outwrestle the striker, basically multiple ways to win and elite everywhere.

Whereas other guys like Anderson or Khabib are specialists, they have obvious weaknesses that the right matchup could take them out of their element, Anderson against a high level MMA wrestler with great sub defense (to take him down), or Khabib also against a high level MMA wrestler with good striking (to stuff his takedowns) would give both guys serious problems.

Silva's wrestling and ground games are criminally underrated, as is Khabib's stand up. These two are sooooo good in the other areas that it makes their (well above average) aspects seem like "weaknesses". Only because Silva is the best striker we've ever seen is his wrestling considered a "weakness". He has a 69% career TDD rate, and a 77% successful takedown rate.

Khabib is the best wrestler we've ever seen, so it overshadows his ridiculous striking defense. The man barely got touched on the feet. Granted, that may be a result of hesitance by his opponents and spamming takedowns, but his head movement and ability to avoid getting hit are pretty high level.

 

[Soggust]

this is absolute nonsense. when jones arrived, lhw was stacked with legends in their primes, and jones ran through everyone with ease. shogun, rampage, machida, evans, trt vitor—all former champions who were “in the mix” until jones came along. lw, by contrast, was practically a wasteland when khabib entered the title picture. still is, frankly. the idea that “lw is the deepest division” is just a dead meme left over from the ufc / wec merger.

Totally agree. This legit might be the first time I've really heard someone attacking Jones on his resume and I'm not sure I get that one lol.

Feels like if you want to get Khabib in the discussion, you would attack Jones + Silva on roids, but arguing Jones' resume might just be an even worse take than me comparing Khabib + DJ's 13 fight streaks.

 

[Deleted member 579182]

Silva's wrestling and ground games are criminally underrated, as is Khabib's stand up. These two are sooooo good in the other areas that it makes their (well above average) aspects seem like "weaknesses". Only because Silva is the best striker we've ever seen is his wrestling considered a "weakness". He has a 69% career TDD rate, and a 77% successful takedown rate.

Khabib is the best wrestler we've ever seen, so it overshadows his ridiculous striking defense. The man barely got touched on the feet. Granted, that may be a result if hesitance by his opponents and spamming takedowns, but his head movement and ability to avoid getting hit are pretty high level.

Khabibs wrestling is overrated af. What elite wrestlers did he beat with it again?

And as for his "ridiculous striking defence", diving at men's feet for half your career does not count as striking defence.

 

[Fioretti]

Khabibs wrestling is overrated af. What elite wrestlers did he beat with it again?

And as for his "ridiculous striking defence", diving at men's feet for half your career does not count as striking defence.

I agree that he isn't very proven against other wrestlers, but you can't really deny the effectiveness of his suffocating style. He averages 5+ tds per 15 mins. For comparison, GSP is a little over 4.

As far as Khabib's ridiculous striking defense: that's serious bizzniss. He slips and moves very well. Rarely gets hit even when he's not spamming takedowns like an 8 year old on UFC 2 online.

 

[The Don]

Great points. Ultimately, though, it's hard to really pick a GOAT in MMA as I'm in the camp that the sport has evolved rather rapidly throughout the years.

Did the fighter have proven PED use in their career? If one cannot assume other fighters were in fact cheating without substantive proof, how does this affect a fighter's overall trajectory? Some people will say cheating once discredits one's entire record or eligibility for being considered. I am in that camp. Others will claim it only disqualifies consideration on those wins that a person was flagged for. Yet another, more lenient one, will claim that since it is likely everyone or most were cheating, PED flagging is irrelevant.

PED flagging is irrelevant IMO. For the reasons you've already stated. I think it's safe to assume everyone was and is on some sort of PEDs.

How did the fights themselves go? How consistently did the fighter come out on top in a decisive manner? How far ahead of everyone else was he/she, record aside? Khabib is a good example of a fighter that has very few title defenses relative to other fighters, so he does not excel on paper in terms of title reign although he was undefeated. But he was so overwhelmingly dominant in the fights themselves that he is taken to be one of the GOATS. Someone like Jones, who on paper has the best record also has a few controversial decisions (Gus, Santos, Reyes), which make people less certain of things.

With dominance, I think only very few people can stand up under this criteria. Only Khabib was as dominant as he was during his short reign as champion. But one could argue that he retired before contenders that would have given him some trouble were able to compete for the title.

The actual skillset of the fighter. Who was more and better rounded? Who excelled more in actual MMA skills. DJ and GSP are examples of superlative fighters that were extremely well rounded, on top of being dominant and having great records. Someone like Silva or Khabib, while not as well rounded, had superlative skills in a few areas that compensated for weaknesses in others. Someone like Cain was extremely skilled in most places, but didn't have the record to match it up.

This is probably one of the most rock solid criteria for these types of discussions. It will alienate some GOAT contenders of the list but that's what posts like these are trying to do.

Again, I believe that skill ceiling in the sport has drastically increased throughout the years. BJ Penn was considered to be a phenomenal, multi faceted fighter in his time. But when you compare his striking to the likes of Dustin, you can see how rudimentary BJ's striking was.

Does that mean we should take BJ out of the equation? I honestly don't know. Would that make GSP, Jones and Silva the only real candidate for GOAT discussions as they have aged the best?

 

[Lee_]

All of those are good except the judging, because that gets into subjective and highly debatable realm.

Not that other aspects aren't debatable, but that opens the door to claiming that way too many people are or aren't GOATs. It's too convenient of an excuse.

 

[Clark Rogers]

I just look at how long they were able to stay on top and what they were actually able to do while they were there.

That's kinda how I judge my women, too

 

[Fioretti]

All of those are good except the judging, because that gets into subjective and highly debatable realm.

Not that other aspects aren't debatable, but that opens the door to claiming that way too many people are or aren't GOATs. It's too convenient of an excuse.

Finishes >

 

[Goutfather]

This is probably one of the most rock solid criteria for these types of discussions. It will alienate some GOAT contenders of the list but that's what posts like these are trying to do.

Again, I believe that skill ceiling in the sport has drastically increased throughout the years. BJ Penn was considered to be a phenomenal, multi faceted fighter in his time. But when you compare his striking to the likes of Dustin, you can see how rudimentary BJ's striking was.

Does that mean we should take BJ out of the equation? I honestly don't know. Would that make GSP, Jones and Silva the only real candidate for GOAT discussions as they have aged the best?

i think mma evolved significantly since the early 2000’s, but not so much since the 2010’s. everyone is more well-rounded, no more specialists representing one style, etc. but fighters still get far from leaning on their favorite styles / techniques. look at adesanya, look at khabib. hell, even ben askren was one fight away from a title shot in ufc. and that’s just kind of how people are—they naturally gravitate toward certain techniques, and everything else is secondary.

the big difference maker in terms of skill is fight iq. and maybe it’s not really “skill” because it can’t really be taught. every now and then we will see a fight genius run through the ranks. those will be fewer and further between, but the goat conversation will focus on them going forward. jon jones gets talked about alot here because of his resume, but how about the fact that he became ufc champ after 3 years of training? he made it to the ufc in less than a year. he didn’t have time to learn every trick in the book, he is simply a fight genius. his resume reflects that.

 

[The Don]

i think mma evolved significantly since the early 2000’s, but not so much since the 2010’s. everyone is more well-rounded, no more specialists representing one style, etc. but fighters still get far from leaning on their favorite styles / techniques. look at adesanya, look at khabib. hell, even ben askren was one fight away from a title shot in ufc. and that’s just kind of how people are—they naturally gravitate toward certain techniques, and everything else is secondary.

the big difference maker in terms of skill is fight iq. and maybe it’s not really “skill” because it can’t really be taught. every now and then we will see a fight genius run through the ranks. those will be fewer and further between, but the goat conversation will focus on them going forward. jon jones gets talked about alot here because of his resume, but how about the fact that he became ufc champ after 3 years of training? he made it to the ufc in less than a year. he didn’t have time to learn every trick in the book, he is simply a fight genius. his resume reflects that.

I think it evolved and has continued to evolve since then. The changes become more and more subtle as the skill ceiling continuously increases until the ceiling is reached.

BJ Penn was undoubtedly an exceptional fighter. You could make the same argument for Couture as well who came into MMA pretty late and did incredibly well. But if we keep having these GOAT debates we need to not forget what this acronym means. Greatest Of All Time. Which is difficult because of said improvements.

BJ Penn's striking is nowhere near as "advanced" as, say Porier's for example. Yet he achieved all that he did achieve with the tools he had. I look at this as a testament to how the game has changed since then. I can't see a prime BJ beating Porier or Gaethje or Khabib.

You could make the same argument as well for Couture. His striking was abysmal and honestly brute forced his way into clinches. Yet, he won both the light heavyweight and heavyweight titles being as crude as he was as an overall MMA fighter. You contrast that to Glover who I think has the most comparable style to Randy's and you can see the difference. Glover's a little more refined, has better striking and overall a better version I'd argue.

And Jones, I think he's the exception to the rule and why he is a very solid candidate for being the GOAT.

 

[Goutfather]

I think it evolved and has continued to evolve since then. The changes become more and more subtle as the skill ceiling continuously increases until the ceiling is reached.

BJ Penn was undoubtedly an exceptional fighter. You could make the same argument for Couture as well who came into MMA pretty late and did incredibly well. But if we keep having these GOAT debates we need to not forget what this acronym means. Greatest Of All Time. Which is difficult because of said improvements.

BJ Penn's striking is nowhere near as "advanced" as, say Porier's for example. Yet he achieved all that he did achieve with the tools he had. I look at this as a testament to how the game has changed since then. I can't see a prime BJ beating Porier or Gaethje or Khabib.

You could make the same argument as well for Couture. His striking was abysmal and honestly brute forced his way into clinches. Yet, he won both the light heavyweight and heavyweight titles being as crude as he was as an overall MMA fighter. You contrast that to Glover who I think has the most comparable style to Randy's and you can see the difference. Glover's a little more refined, has better striking and overall a better version I'd argue.

And Jones, I think he's the exception to the rule and why he is a very solid candidate for being the GOAT.

remember that photo of all the great ufc champs?

that was 2011 iirc. almost all those guys are gone, basically because they aged out.

but what’s really evolved since that time? i see new fighters mixing up the same skills, in different variations, with different strategies to suit their needs. and sometimes there are new fighters who do it better. but I don’t really think that means mma has evolved. it’s just different fighters fighting different fighters. I believe many of the guys in this photo would either be champs or contenders just by doing what they did in their primes.

lhw is the clearest example here. jiri and poatan (2 of my current favorites) are fighting for the belt that was vacated by jamahal hill. their weaknesses are well-known. yet somehow they made it to title contention. how would they fare in 2011? i am not sure they’d crack the top 5.

maybe we’re talking about different time frames. the early 2000’s were like a primordial era of mma. i agree about bj penn and randy couture. they are definitely relics of the past in terms of skill. penn hasn’t been champ since 2010, and randy since 2008. that was a time frame where things evolved rapidly (late 2000’s, early 2010’s). by the time gsp left, the blueprint for a well-rounded mma fighter was pretty well-established. and how many generations / waves of fighters have passed through since then? we had a lawler era, a woodley era, a usman era, and now an edwards era. were they really doing anything different than gsp? or are they just different fighters fighting different fighters?

jones definitely seems to be the exception. that’s why i think the goat conversation over time will center on these exceptional cases. assuming mma is still around in 100 years, we may see a few “generational” talents like jones. if we’re really lucky, we’ll see them fight each other.

 

[The Don]

lhw is the clearest example here. jiri and poatan (2 of my current favorites) are fighting for the belt that was vacated by jamahal hill. their weaknesses are well-known. yet somehow they made it to title contention. how would they fare in 2011? i am not sure they’d crack the top 5.

I think their cases are different because of how they came into title contention. I think you may have misremembered the landscape in LHW a little bit. Jones was the one who vacated the the belt if I remember things correctly. Jan won the vacant title off Reyes, Glover won it off Jan and Jiri won it off Glover. The only reason why Alex is fighting for the title is, essentially because of his past with Izzy. He was sling-shotted into title contention against Izzy and snowballed from there.

I also believed that if talking about 2011 specifically, I think both would surprise us if they were given the same favorable match ups they were given now. Alex I'd favor against Shogun, Evans and Machida. Maybe even against Rampage. He'd have a lot more problems against wrestlers though.

that was 2011 iirc. almost all those guys are gone, basically because they aged out.

And that's what makes these discussions both hard and entertaining. Going by that very iconic picture, who, if we can somehow de-age them can remain competitive in today's current landscape? Jones is still going at it. GSP makes a great case, could a prime Aldo be able to beat Volk or Max? Could a prime Silva beat Periera? Izzy? Whittaker? Could a prime Cain beat Ngannou? We don't know.

 

[pankrat]

And that's what makes these discussions both hard and entertaining. Going by that very iconic picture, who, if we can somehow de-age them can remain competitive in today's current landscape? Jones is still going at it. GSP makes a great case, could a prime Aldo be able to beat Volk or Max? Could a prime Silva beat Periera? Izzy? Whittaker? Could a prime Cain beat Ngannou? We don't know.

Silva was competitive with Izzy at 43 years old, after a career-ending injury and ton of miles on his body...and under USADA....yet you question if he would remain competittive even in his best version?


...
Since the early '10s, WMMA has improved dramatically.
Talking about male MMA, it has not "evolved" that much in the elite, specially in upper weight-classes. Much less to the point of questioning if those guys would be even competitive today.

 

[The Don]

Silva was competitive with Izzy at 43 years old, after a career-ending injury and ton of miles on his body...and under USADA....yet you question if he would remain competittive even in his best version?


...
Since the early '10s, WMMA has improved dramatically.
Talking about male MMA, it has not "evolved" that much in the elite, specially in upper weight-classes. Much less to the point of questioning if those guys would be even competitive today.

I didn't ask if he would remain competitive. I was arguing if he could beat the opponents I've mentioned. We're arguing who the Greatest Of All Time here is. Of course Silva will remain competitive. He's a phenomenal striker who beat JCC Jr in a boxing match at 45 years old. But when we're going to try and determine who the GOAT is we must put them under the strictest criteria and hypotheticals.

And I would argue that it has. BJ Penn was considered the greatest lightweight of all time for a while. His striking was praised for a while. But I'd be hard-pressed to agree that his striking would hold up well against the current lightweight elites.

 

[pankrat]

I didn't ask if he would remain competitive. I was arguing if he could beat the opponents I've mentioned. We're arguing who the Greatest Of All Time here is. Of course Silva will remain competitive. He's a phenomenal striker who beat JCC Jr in a boxing match at 45 years old. But when we're going to try and determine who the GOAT is we must put them under the strictest criteria and hypotheticals.

Obviously we dont know if he would beat or not, as we dont know when two modern contenders get matched up, just look at the recent Whittaker vs Dricus upset.
But he certainly could, and Im pretty sure that odds would have him, at worst, as a very live underdog.

And I would argue that it has. BJ Penn was considered the greatest lightweight of all time for a while. His striking was praised for a while. But I'd be hard-pressed to agree that his striking would hold up well against the current lightweight elites.

Well, BJ was able to give competitive fights standing to GSP and even Machida, apart from many others closer to his size. While his technique specially in terms of footwork wasnt that much refined, he was still inmensely talented (timing, speed, power, chin) with decent technique of his own.
And its not as if guys as Chandler or Dariush have a very scientifical striking neither.

Furthermore, BJ also managed to take round off Jon Fitch via TDs until run out of gas. How many modern LWs do you see outwrestling Fitch?

Apart from that, I think it's fair to compare fighters with guys his size, not just with guys who happened to fight in his same weightclass in different eras, because by that logic you end up comparing Sakuraba with Jon Jones instead of modern WWs, which would be the fair comparison, or Jens Pulver with Jalin Turner instead of modern BWs, as he should be compared.

 

[Goutfather]

I think you may have misremembered the landscape in LHW a little bit. Jones was the one who vacated the the belt if I remember things correctly. Jan won the vacant title off Reyes, Glover won it off Jan and Jiri won it off Glover. The only reason why Alex is fighting for the title is, essentially because of his past with Izzy. He was sling-shotted into title contention against Izzy and snowballed from there.

did jamahal hill become the undisputed champ, or was that just a dream?

Alex I'd favor against Shogun, Evans and Machida. Maybe even against Rampage. He'd have a lot more problems against wrestlers though.

i would favor him against none of those guys. he’d have the best shot vs rashad, but he’s a very good wrestler. i don’t think pereira’s reflexes match up well with prime machida. watch the first round of machida’s jones fight (that was arguably on the wrong side of machida’s prime). jones lost that round and would have lost the fight if he hadn’t changed his approach on the fly. you can see jones’s coaches telling him this on the stool. machida was the worst matchup for an aggressive standup fighter.

And that's what makes these discussions both hard and entertaining. Going by that very iconic picture, who, if we can somehow de-age them can remain competitive in today's current landscape? Jones is still going at it. GSP makes a great case, could a prime Aldo be able to beat Volk or Max? Could a prime Silva beat Periera? Izzy? Whittaker? Could a prime Cain beat Ngannou? We don't know.

prime aldo would have a shot vs volk, but imo volk is better. he beats holloway.

prime silva beats pereira. we saw how past-prime silva was competitive with izzy, and he’d have no problem with whittaker. prime silva was scary accurate and his reflexes were unrivaled.

prime cain would probably beat nggano. actually the fact that francis was able to become champ shows how unevolved hw is. he’s like a more athletic version of shane carwin, but with worse striking and rudimentary wrestling. hw has always kind of lagged behind other divisions in terms of talent though. stipe imo is the most “evolved” of the hws and he is way past his prime.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

 

[World eater]

did jamahal hill become the undisputed champ, or was that just a dream?

i would favor him against none of those guys. he’d have the best shot vs rashad, but he’s a very good wrestler. i don’t think pereira’s reflexes match up well with prime machida. watch the first round of machida’s jones fight (that was arguably on the wrong side of machida’s prime). jones lost that round and would have lost the fight if he hadn’t changed his approach on the fly. you can see jones’s coaches telling him this on the stool. machida was the worst matchup for an aggressive standup fighter.

prime aldo would have a shot vs volk, but imo volk is better. he beats holloway.

prime silva beats pereira. we saw how past-prime silva was competitive with izzy, and he’d have no problem with whittaker. prime silva was scary accurate and his reflexes were unrivaled.

prime cain would probably beat nggano. actually the fact that francis was able to become champ shows how unevolved hw is. he’s like a more athletic version of shane carwin, but with worse striking and rudimentary wrestling. hw has always kind of lagged behind other divisions in terms of talent though. stipe imo is the most “evolved” of the hws and he is way past his prime.

When you say prime Machida beats Perreira and prime Silva beats Perreira, are you talking of Perreira today or prime Perreira of 2017-2021 where he went like 10-0 against the top kickboxers of the world? I know it’s a bit of a moot point because he wasn’t a pro mma fighter back then, but if he started mma earlier and we actually saw a prime Perreira in UFC it would have been even more impressive. I’d still take prime Silva over him, but Machida against prime Perreira, not so sure.
Anyway, kudos to you, Pankrat and the don for actually having an interesting conversation on the topic.

 

[D 1 Wrestler]

Since evaluating things like P4P rankings and GOATness is fairly arbitrary, here are five criteria to evaluate fighters in relation to one another.

Record - This has a few factors. The most obvious one is looking at the number of wins and losses, the quality of competition relative to a given epoch and division depth, and also absolute terms (who overall beat the best quality competition, regardless of quantity). We can evaluate competition in terms of how many ranked wins one had, champions or former champions, P4P ranked fighters, what was the combined record of opponents, and whether the opponents were in their prime or not, among other things.

Also we look at who the fighter has lost to, and whether the losses were avenged or not, and the conditions under which these losses took place, e.g. Fedor's loss to TK was a fluke cut, just as Jones' DQ loss; GSP's loss to Serra was more significant, though he avenged it decisively;, Cain's loss to Werdum was definitively impactful... This category also includes titles won and title defenses: how many titles won, how many title match wins, how many weight classes? How many title defenses did they have? This factor is complicated by the introduction of primes and point in career: should Penn's record after his reign and prime count as significantly? Should pre-prime records be factored in, and if so how heavily? Since it is hard to determine with any fair sense just when a prime ends and begins, this makes things difficult and always controversial (e.g. was Fedor past his prime when he lost to Werdum?).

Dominance: How did the fights themselves go? How consistently did the fighter come out on top in a decisive manner? How far ahead of everyone else was he/she, record aside? Khabib is a good example of a fighter that has very few title defenses relative to other fighters, so he does not excel on paper in terms of title reign although he was undefeated. But he was so overwhelmingly dominant in the fights themselves that he is taken to be one of the GOATS. Someone like Jones, who on paper has the best record also has a few controversial decisions (Gus, Santos, Reyes), which make people less certain of things.

Skill: The actual skillset of the fighter. Who was more and better rounded? Who excelled more in actual MMA skills. DJ and GSP are examples of superlative fighters that were extremely well rounded, on top of being dominant and having great records. Someone like Silva or Khabib, while not as well rounded, had superlative skills in a few areas that compensated for weaknesses in others. Someone like Cain was extremely skilled in most places, but didn't have the record to match it up.

A fourth, crucial but controversial one:

PEDs/cheating: Did the fighter have proven PED use in their career? If one cannot assume other fighters were in fact cheating without substantive proof, how does this affect a fighter's overall trajectory? Some people will say cheating once discredits one's entire record or eligibility for being considered. I am in that camp. Others will claim it only disqualifies consideration on those wins that a person was flagged for. Yet another, more lenient one, will claim that since it is likely everyone or most were cheating, PED flagging is irrelevant.

Yet a fifth, related to record, is more finnicky still:

Incompetence/Competence in Judging: If a fighter has a loss on their record, or multiple losses, as a result of incompetence in judging, corruption, or sheer loopholing, should they be penalized? Should the one unduly rewarded be rewarded? Should terrible decisions be amended? Should we take Diego's loss against Pearson against him? How much does Yan's loss to Aljo via DQ detract from his record?

This is dumb, khabib had non dominating difficult wins early in his career while Jones was decimating people. You mention Jon's struggles against Reyes and Santos but how many title fights had that been compared to khabib. You cannot compare the two, Jones is miles ahead. Also khabib vs tibau goes under judging incompetence