Goodbye Fedor vs. Crocop: The HW division is on a whole new level now

[Fedor>Cain]

Its amazing really someone can watch MMA for so long but know absolutely nothing about it.

Its not just Fedor, Nog and Crocop I'd say, someone like Sergei for example I can see beating todays Stipe, maybe Aleks as well.

Could you imagine Stipe trying to box with prime Aleks?

He was so much faster than Stipe lol

 

[Deleted member 110072]

You missed the point completely.
Chael used Randy as an example (Randy Couture is actually Chael idol and mentor), you can put any other name from that era instead of Randy.

But want I am talking to, I have also showed you freaking Shogun Rua telling that mma has evolved, but nope, you won't change your mind.

If Chaels point is that Cormier would be favoured over Randy then no you can't just put any name from that era in his place because I think your dealing with very significant differences in style and IMHO overall quality of fighter.

As I said Couture was not a dominant HW in that era, his comeback was a great story and a fight with Fedor was hyped but as I mentioned his actual achievement at HW was not massive.

I think Cormier would be a pretty terrible matchup for Randy, the fight would most likely end up standing and he'd be facing a more powerful boxer with a better chin. Other fighters from the mid 00's would present entirely different challenges and the kind of generalised guff you fall back onto in this debate every time has little to say about that.

I mean seriously can we look at HW today and say that is a division that's advancing? anyone who doesn't have their head firmly jammed up Dana's arse can surely see that's not the case?

 

[Bubblun]

If Chaels point is that Cormier would be favoured over Randy then no you can't just put any name from that era in his place because I think your dealing with very significant differences in style and IMHO overall quality of fighter.

As I said Couture was not a dominant HW in that era, his comeback was a great story and a fight with Fedor was hyped but as I mentioned his actual achievement at HW was not massive.

I think Cormier would be a pretty terrible matchup for Randy, the fight would most likely end up standing and he'd be facing a more powerful boxer with a better chin. Other fighters from the mid 00's would present entirely different challenges and the kind of generalised guff you fall back onto in this debate every time has little to say about that.

I mean seriously can we look at HW today and say that is a division that's advancing? anyone who doesn't have their head firmly jammed up Dana's arse can surely see that's not the case?

I guess Shogun Rua has his head jammed up in Dana's ass too.

And Overeem too



These guys are all full of shit, right?

Selling themselves to the evil UFC, who has the purpose of destroying the great legacy of Pride, in 2019.
Hilarious.

 

[Deleted member 110072]

I guess Shogun Rua has his head jammed up in Dana's ass too.

And Overeem too



These guys are all full of shit, right?

Selling themselves to the evil UFC, who has the purpose of destroying the great legacy of Pride, in 2019.
Hilarious.

I don't begrudge fighters promoting themselves but Shogun is really the perfect example of this ultimately not being true isn't it? I mean you ask him if he's at his best ever and he'd probably tell you yes and I can see why it would be important for a fighter to believe that but lets be honestly its clear to anyone with eyes he isn't.

Yet again your argument falls back to bringing up people promoting todays product as "the best ever" and being totally unwilling to believe its possible they might have have an ulterior motive. The analysis rarely goes beyond that, its just some kind of magical "evolution" pixie dust that's there even if fights might look sloppy as hell, that's just because both guys are so evolved.

 

[Bubblun]

I don't begrudge fighters promoting themselves but Shogun is really the perfect example of this ultimately not being true isn't it? I mean you ask him if he's at his best ever and he'd probably tell you yes and I can see why it would be important for a fighter to believe that but lets be honestly its clear to anyone with eyes he isn't.

Yet again your argument falls back to bringing up people promoting todays product as "the best ever" and being totally unwilling to believe its possible they might have have an ulterior motive. The analysis rarely goes beyond that, its just some kind of magical "evolution" pixie dust that's there even if fights might look sloppy as hell, that's just because both guys are so evolved.

Actually if you read my posts, and boy, you read them over the years, I am actually the one giveing ALL the reasons why mma has improved.

I remember your reason in favour of Pride was, a couple of years ago, that Pride fighter's pay was better than the UFC TODAY.
Then I showed you that fighter's pay in Pride was better than the UFC at the time, but compared to what fighters make today it was peanuts.
You remember that right?


What is really hilarious is that there isn't a single logical argument is favour of Pride being the pinnacle of mma.

Sport being a decade old during Pride heyday CHECK


Fighters pay being vastly inferior compared to today CHECK


There isn't any argument except "my favourite fighters competed at that time and I can't let it go".

 

[Deleted member 110072]

Actually if you read my posts, and boy, you read them over the years, I am actually the one giveing ALL the reasons why mma has improved.

I remember your reason in favour of Pride was, a couple of years ago, that Pride fighter's pay was better than the UFC TODAY.
Then I showed you that fighter's pay in Pride was better than the UFC at the time, but compared to what fighters make today it was peanuts.
You remember that right?

What is really hilarious is that there isn't a single logical argument is favour of Pride being the pinnacle of mma.

Sport being a decade old during Pride heyday CHECK

Fighters being pay being vastly inferior compared to today CHECK

There isn't any argument except "my favourite fighters competed at that time and I can't let it go".

I'm sure what people are earning at the top of the sport today is significantly more than in Pride although those figures you quoted for the Pride US event are very questionable as Japanese orgs had a rep of paying fighters little directly for such shows to allow them to avoid tax. What would be more important though is orgs invested in talent, how proactive they were in signing fighters up early from other sports and a large percentage of the talent at HW in Pride came into the sport in those fashion, something I do not think you would see happen today.

The only detail I remember you going into was that debate about Fedor's submission of Coleman(who is hardly right at the top of the HW division of that era either) the 2nd time being a result of the latter's terrible ineptitude yet it was quickly pointed out that Jon Jones made almost exactly the same mistake vs Vitor.

In terms of training someone like Fedor was a near Olympic level Judoka working with Olympic level boxing trainers and world class kickboxing trainers, he had the setup he needed to get as good as his talent would allow.

Just a guess here but you train at a BJJ gym don't you? I'm guessing this gym gives you very similar kind of hype right? I mean in terms of sport BJJ I can believe it as the talent base their is growing but HW MMA? you really do need to be massively one eyed to think that's happening in terms of skilled young fighters.

MMA isn't a sport you can relate directly to soccer or basketball which have a very well established system of talent development, its a much smaller niche sport that depends on getting fighters to switch from other sports and IMHO its a sport where the dominant promoter has failed to invest very much in new talent for many years which hits the higher weightclasses were talent in natural rarer.

Calling this out isn't fanboyism its a desire to see quality action in the higher weight classes consistently as we did in the past.

 

[Bubblun]

I'm sure what people are earning at the top of the sport today is significantly more than in Pride although those figures you quoted for the Pride US event are very questionable as Japanese orgs had a rep of paying fighters little directly for such shows to allow them to avoid tax. What would be more important though is orgs invested in talent, how proactive they were in signing fighters up early from other sports and a large percentage of the talent at HW in Pride came into the sport in those fashion, something I do not think you would see happen today.

The only detail I remember you going into was that debate about Fedor's submission of Coleman(who is hardly right at the top of the HW division of that era either) the 2nd time being a result of the latter's terrible ineptitude yet it was quickly pointed out that Jon Jones made almost exactly the same mistake vs Vitor.

Just a guess here but you train at a BJJ gym don't you? I'm guessing this gym gives you very similar kind of hype right? I mean in terms of sport BJJ I can believe it as the talent base their is growing but HW MMA? you really do need to be massively one eyed to think that's happening in terms of skilled young fighters.

MMA isn't a sport you can relate directly to soccer or basketball which have a very well established system of talent development, its a much smaller niche sport that depends on getting fighters to switch from other sports and IMHO its a sport where the dominant promoter has failed to invest very much in new talent for many years which hits the higher weightclasses were talent in natural rarer.

Calling this out isn't fanboyism its a desire to see quality action in the higher weight classes consistently as we did in the past.

There are x10000 mma fighters, gyms, coaches today.
Almost everyone around the world has access to a variety of martial arts that covers every aspects of the fight game.

First russian bjj black belt promoted in 2011
https://www.bjjee.com/interview/exc...st-bjj-black-belt-bjj-in-russia-is-expanding/

You can bet Fedor had not access to bjj ground fighting, and it was not his fault.
You can bet the level of wrestling in mma gyms in Europe sucked, and the muay thai in America was shit.

I am from Europe so I followed closely every fighter from Europe that made it at the highest level.
I remember Tarec Saffiedine in an interview said that he went to America initially to train because at the time the level of grappling in Europe was bad, but during his last fights he started training at home because the level has increased a lot.
Call it evolution, call you what you want, the level has improved all around the world.


By quality action you mean fights like these?



Because it is easy to look like a god fighting cans.
Your heroes weren't as good as you think they were.

Fighters today on average have more skills and a better understanding of the mma game, and it also means exploiting the rules and make the fight boring if necessary.
But the idea that Pride fights were always super exciting is also wrong, we see so many crazy fights today but rarely remember them because the fighters involved aren't named "Chuck Liddell" or "Shogun Rua".

 

[Deleted member 110072]

The actual number of MMA fighters really doesn't tell you the whole story does it? I mean I could pay £10 to 1000 bums on the street to fight in a cage and it wouldn't make them more talented would it?

The nature of MMA is that it depends on recruiting high level talent from other sports, you could have 20 elite kickboxers, wrestlers, judoka, etc training well and it would give you more talent than the above 1000 bums.

As far as Yoshida goes the man was not at the top of the sport in that era, he was an excellent Judoka(although past his best physically most likely) who never developed much of a rounded game, probably because "MMA vs Judo" was an attraction at the time. He does not represent the kind of evolution you saw in the best fighters such as Mirko who were training with world class grapplers.

Beyond that of course yes Mirko was that fucking good, one of the best kickboxers in the world at the time.

 

[Bubblun]

The actual number of MMA fighters really doesn't tell you the whole story does it? I mean I could pay £10 to 1000 bums on the street to fight in a cage and it wouldn't make them more talented would it?

The nature of MMA is that it depends on recruiting high level talent from other sports, you could have 20 elite kickboxers, wrestlers, judoka, etc training well and it would give you more talent than the above 1000 bums.

As far as Yoshida goes the man was not at the top of the sport in that era, he was an excellent Judoka(although past his best physically most likely) who never developed much of a rounded game, probably because "MMA vs Judo" was an attraction at the time. He does not represent the kind of evolution you saw in the best fighters such as Mirko who were training with world class grapplers.

It wasn't Yoshida the judoka, it was a random japanese pro wrestler.
Mirko looked amazing because he was a world class striker that transitioned to mma properly, and did it properly, but most of his opponents didn't.
Today pretty much everybody is well schooled, there aren't guys that have literally no clue about some aspect of mma, like former UFC champions Coleman and Randleman.

The nature of mma being dependent on other sports is your idea, like it was your idea that Pride fighter's pay was higher than what fighters get today.
But you had to find another reason since you found that your first reason wasn't true and you can't let it go.

 

[Bubblun]

10000 mma fighters? Ha ... nice joke: source please

thx bye

You get what I was saying, don't play games.
And use your main account if you have balls.

thx bye

 

[Deleted member 110072]

It wasn't Yoshida the judoka, it was a random japanese pro wrestler.
Mirko looked amazing because he was a world class striker that transitioned to mma properly, and did it properly, but most of his opponents didn't.
Today pretty much everybody is well schooled, there aren't guys that have literally no clue about some aspect of mma, like former UFC champions Coleman and Randleman.

The nature of mma being dependent on other sports is your idea, like it was your idea that Pride fighter's pay was higher than what fighters get today.
But you had to find another reason since you found that your first reason wasn't true and you can't let it go.

Yamamoto wasn't actually a random pro wrestler, he was one of the guys who shifted RINGS towards MMA.

By the time he fought Mirko he was obviously not close to the top of the sport anymore though and nobody would have claimed he was but that fight came in a year when Mirko fought 8 times including Barnett, Aleks, Randleman x 2 and Waterman, the last only 2 weeks beforehand. The Bushido match was basically a bonus for Mirko staying on in Japan after Pride 27.

The idea MMA is different to other sports isn't "my idea" its common sense. The reality is MMA has always depended very strongly on fighters from other sports crossing into in, that simply cannot be ignored its the truth.

Its the same with the talent bases, I simply comment on what I see, MMA was able to attract a lot of talented young HW's in that era and seems much less able to do so now where the division is full of fading big names clearly past their best.

 

[Claude]

Dude you are too deep into the Fedor and Pride circlejerk to see anything.

Don't bring up Jones, I said 2 years ago that Jones would have been a better fighter to "destroy" to make Fedor look good in your stupid thread which sole purpose was making Cormier look bad to indirectly praise Fedor, the same game you are playing now.

https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/...r-past-present.3416723/page-17#post-138345831

Remember that?
Too bad you chose Cormier, who was super conservative (and green) in that Barnett fight, and had no idea to put himself in danger.

And frankly, the only reason Vitor almost tapped Jones was the surprise factor, something I am telling you from the beginning.
Nobody expected Vitor to pull guard multiple times and trying to win with an armbar.
You surprise someone with a fast armbar and you win, it's an hail mary attack, there is no control over the opponent posture.

Another thing I am telling you from the beginning, is that catching someone with an armbar isn't the proof of being better on the ground.
Jones after using pure strength to escape from Vitor's armbar, dominated Vitor on the ground and submitted him.
Condit almost tapped Chiesa with an armbar from the guard, then Chiesa escaped and dominated Condit on the ground and tapped him.

Fedor has a good quick armbar, but he isn't half as good on the ground as all his nut huggers thinks he is.
Fedor doesn't hip escape, his guard retention is non existent, his guard passing is rudimental, he is just a strong, athletic judoka.


You missed the point completely.
Chael used Randy as an example (Randy Couture is actually Chael idol and mentor), you can put any other name from that era instead of Randy.

But who I am talking to, I have also showed you freaking Shogun Rua telling that mma has evolved, but nope, you won't change your mind.

You can make any excuse you want. Fact remains, Jones was almost finished by an armbar from bottom by an old school fighter.

You didn't answer the questions. What makes DC an evolved fighter?

So, you should be the one bringing up stats about Cormier being easy to hit, because my eyes see differently.
And Cormier ain't fighting Fujitas and Colemans.


edit: if the source you use is Fightmetric (I don't even know if this website is legit, but let's suppose it is) these are the results

http://www.ufcstats.com/fighter-details/b8da6f5c80ae2d15
http://www.ufcstats.com/fighter-details/d967f0128c323de6

Str. Def: 63% Fedor
SApM: 1.00

Str. Def: 56% Cormier
SApM: 2.75


Such a huge difference, right?

Can't believe I missed the main event to reply to you idiots.

Sure, here you can see DC ate 123 significant strikes in his last fight alone:

http://www.ufcstats.com/fight-details/6921344f8e706d0f

Clearly not hard to hit despite what your eyes tell you. You should stop trying to make arguments based on your personal perception.

The Fedor stats are including his past prime fights, like the Bigfoot fight. In 2009 his SApM ratio was 0.59. Nearly half of what it is today. And even with today's stats, DC is eating more than double the punches Fedor was, so yeah, it is a big difference, lol.

Cheers.

 

[Claude]

The fact is Fedor and Crocop who are around the same age as DC have not been able to compete at an elite level in sanctioned organizations.

CC was immediately knocked out by a gatekeeper upon entering the US

And Fedor hasnt done much better.

Age =/= prime.

Any educated fan knows that.

 

[Claude]

I guess Shogun Rua has his head jammed up in Dana's ass too.

And Overeem too



These guys are all full of shit, right?

Selling themselves to the evil UFC, who has the purpose of destroying the great legacy of Pride, in 2019.
Hilarious.

Overeem?

LMAO, the guy has been talking trash on Fedor for ages.

And what is he even talking about? He himself is a former Pride fighter. If the sport passed Fedor and Wanderlei, then it passed Overeem too, since he was getting KO'd in Pride while Fedor and Wanderlei were champions.

 

[Claude]

Fighters today on average have more skills and a better understanding of the mma game.

On average probably. I believe divisions like MW have improved vastly. But we're talking about a specific division here: HW.

If HW's are more skilled now then how can the #2 HW and former champ be so clueless on how to defend body shots? Isn't that a basic striking skill? Defend your head and body? And why was the #1 HW of 2005 defending body shots and countering them with kicks?

Answer please. Don't avoid these questions.

Also, how is it posible that the current champ ate nearly 200 significant strikes by a guy who isn't a striker? And why does he often leaves his chin exposed?

​

Seriously, where are those superior skills you talk about?

 

[ermac88]

Age =/= prime.

Any educated fan knows that.

You neglected the point that they have not been able to compete at a high level in sanctioned organizations, despite the age similarity

CroCop was rendered unconscious by a gatekeeper upon entering the UFC

 

[Claude]

You neglected the point that they have not been able to compete at a high level in sanctioned organizations, despite the age similarity

CroCop was rendered unconscious by a gatekeeper upon entering the UFC

That's factually incorrect too.

Fedor won 4 fights in the US, beating 3 top fighters.

 

[Claude]

I can't believe they did again!