How good was Cain Velasquez?

[10000yearsold]

At his best? Possibly the best ever. He was a very special Heavyweight in his prime.

 

[GOAT.]

At his very best he was very good but he was crushed by injuries so it's very hard to gage.

 

[kingJohn]

Prime Cain is the GOAT

 

[X Factor]

The Werdum fight does I think show pretty clearly he didnt patch those holes up though, he really doesnt have an answer to a good jab and kept on walking into it.

He just about won the 1st round vs Werdum via activity but he had to work VERY hard to do it. Again I think the difference compared to JDS is that each time he clinched Werdum into the cage looking for a rest he would hook up the thai plum and Cain needed to back off out of the clinch to break it then had to keep on working with no rest, thats happening very early in the fight. Werdum isnt actually landing much with the thai plum but he's forcing Cain to disengage in the clinch.

two examples of fights where Cain showed great defense are the Big Nog fight and Rothwell fight. Combined they landed 6 significant strikes. Big Nog was actually struggling with the jab in particular to the point he over committed and leaped forward with it and paid the price. Rothwell would get taken down off of throwing his 1-2 . Those are answers for the jab. Even in the Werdum fight Werdum didn’t find much success with the jabs until the end of the 1st when Cain was already mouth open gassed.

In the Werdum fight Cain was gassed at the end of the 1st round that’s where Werdums volume picked up. In the first round Cain never disengaged from the clinch. He was the one engaging in the clinch and when Werdum would go for the Thai plum Cain would either press against the fence or punch him until he transitioned to over under hooks. Cain even went and utilized the takedown when Werdum was resting in the Thai plum and used the Thai clinch/collar tie.

Cain lost the fight because Werdum was the more prepared fighter and was in better shape. Cains output in that fight was really nothing he hadn’t accomplished in others I really think the injuries and the time off had affect on him negatively in this fight specifically in his cardio.

 

[Red_Negan]

No head mouvement, striking very basic and got exposed by Kongo ,JDS 1,Werdum ,Ngannou ..
He fought no real competition and he is overated as Fuck for his win over 3 guys basicallyhe would get murked by today's HWs (Stipe Gane Frank Aspinall ..)

Now show us all the gifs of Cains offence in this fight.

 

[DesiredUserName]

JDS takes him 7 out of 10 times. JDS took on all comers. Walking Cain did not. Once JDS got over the psychological aspect against Cain, C.V. would be done. Don't forget JDS beat him once. It's not impossible.

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

Cain was very good but missed out on his prime years. If he could have stayed active he would have developed into an even more dominant fighter

 

[mikesalami]

This 13-minute video is pure facts and educated opinion backed up by facts.

Unfortunately, most people don't have the patience to watch a 13 minute video.

Play in 1.25x or 1.5x speed.

 

[ocfightfan]

We will never know for sure. The thing that made him successful is also the thing that destroyed his career.

 

[Jean-MMA]

No head mouvement, striking very basic and got exposed by Kongo ,JDS 1,Werdum ,Ngannou ..
He fought no real competition and he is overated as Fuck for his win over 3 guys basicallyhe would get murked by today's HWs (Stipe Gane Frank Aspinall ..)

I stand my position on Aspinall

 

[Frank Mir Beer Gut]

Ngannou should have been paid millions for getting rid of that guy.
I think Greg Hardy fought more in one year than Cain fought in 6+

 

[mjfan23]

His career ended with a submission loss to Brock lesnar

 

[Deleted member 504083]

No head mouvement, striking very basic and got exposed by Kongo ,JDS 1,Werdum ,Ngannou ..
He fought no real competition and he is overated as Fuck for his win over 3 guys basicallyhe would get murked by today's HWs (Stipe Gane Frank Aspinall ..)

Anyone trying to diminish Cain through his green striking in his 5th pro fight, against a guy with an 82" reach, and several titles in kickboxing, savate and Muay Thai, is an absolute filthy casual.

 

[Jfreemandrums]

Unstoppable on his best night. no one in mma history would beat that man.

This.

Fedor is likely the best HW ever for being able to find a way to win, but if you found a Genie lamp and wished to see the best version of Cain against the best version of Fedor, or any other heavyweight tbh, I think Cain comes out on top

 

[SpamuraiSensei]

One of those guys that you knew had the skills but couldn't hold it together. Part of making it to the top is staying healthy and taking care of your body.

 

[NGute87]

Minus the JDS KO, he's the best HW I've ever seen while at their best. He just didn't last long.

 

[moogie101]

Easily top five, and it could be argued between him and Fedor for the top spot.

But Fedor had consistency against a higher level for far longer whilst Cain is more a case of what might have been. A healthy Cain would likely have beaten everyone put in front of him for a long time.

 

[Fight Professor]

Cain has a lot of strengths at his prime.

- He could destroy pretty much any fighter standing, in the clinch or on the ground. Prime Werdum was probably the only fighter who presented challenges for him. But I am not sure Werdum would have won if Cain was not out for a couple of years.
- His output was ridiculous.
- His cardio was also ridiculous for a HW. Just watch Cain vs JDS 2 where he was spamming takedowns half of the fight and was still the faster fighter at the end. And prime JDS was fast as well.

His weakness were

- Not training smart. AKA strength and conditioning coach had very questionable methods. And Cain always try to put maximum power and speed into any exercise without fully learning how to do it properly or whether is it even safe. They also had a lot of reckless wrestling and sparring in the camp.
- He would also close distance without any set up in many fights. Kongo and Ngannou took advantage of that.
- He would not train consistently and had many downtime periods. That caused him to overtrain in each camp.

Naturally Cain was on of the best. All those weaknesses could have been eliminated if his camp was a little smarter.

 

[Viking Power]

So hard to say. His career was wasted on injuries and rematches.
Such a shame too. When he was on point, he looked like one of the best heavies to have ever done it. But he was more often unable to fight - and we didn't see him against a wide range of styles.

This right here.

 

[Marko Polo]

He's in contention for best ever when on the top of his game.

Fedor did it for longer but Cains level of performance was higher

 

[DatSamboKid]

Cormier said on many occasions that Cain would beat him up in sparring. That says a lot coming from a former HW & LHW champion.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say Prime Cain was the best we’ve seen in MMA. To this day we haven’t seen a HW able to impose such a ruthless pace on his opponents. So unfortunate that injuries ended his career, I would’ve loved to see how he matched up against Stipe.