How good was Guy Mezger?

thewilks

Green Belt
@Green
Joined
Oct 16, 2006
Messages
1,048
Reaction score
950
One of the first complete fighters with a legit kickboxing pedigree and solid ground work, who I like to dub "The Great Almost"....In some bizarro, alternate universe where Guy Mezger was on the other side of some controversial split decisions, and some violent exchanges that got the better of him in our dimension, Guy Mezger might have a LHW GOAT record with wins over Wand, Chuck, Arona, and Sakuraba. Some of his accomplishments...

-King of Pancrase Openweight Champ
-UFC 13 Tournament Winner
-Notable wins include Tito Ortiz, Masakatsu Funaki, Yuki Kondo, Semmy Schilt.
-Controversial Losses Sakuraba (Bullshit), Wand Silva (illegal headbutt), Lil Nog (controversial SD), Ricardo Arona (controversial SD).


Thoughts?

9f0eecd8b0c363b723ee3539b64f2441.jpg
 
He may have been right - or at least not wrong - in the Sakuraba debacle, but it sure hurt him on the PR front. And IMO he never recovered from it, fanbase-wise.

But he was one of the best in the practically pioneer days. Good shit. I just wiki’d to confirm some things and he fought 11x between the Tito fights - mostly Pancrase with their atypical rule set. That rule set probably didn’t help him with his later UFC fights.
 
Last edited:
Shammy told him not to continue VS Saku

Shammy said No, we'll do one round since Mezger is injured!

 
It was so long ago i carely remember him, but from what ive seen, he seemed like a pretty good Guy.
 
  • Like
Reactions: G10
A true OG. Very good fighter as well. Being a fighter back then was a totally different beast..from training, to nutrition, rules, weight divisions....just grueling.
 
Tito got screwed in their first fight. He had Mezger in a really bad position and Big John broke them up which gave Mezger a nice break and a fresh start on the feet
 
One of the first complete fighters with a legit kickboxing pedigree and solid ground work, who I like to dub "The Great Almost"....In some bizarro, alternate universe where Guy Mezger was on the other side of some controversial split decisions, and some violent exchanges that got the better of him in our dimension, Guy Mezger might have a LHW GOAT record with wins over Wand, Chuck, Arona, and Sakuraba. Some of his accomplishments...

-King of Pancrase Openweight Champ
-UFC 13 Tournament Winner
-Notable wins include Tito Ortiz, Masakatsu Funaki, Yuki Kondo, Semmy Schilt.
-Controversial Losses Sakuraba (Bullshit), Wand Silva (illegal headbutt), Lil Nog (controversial SD), Ricardo Arona (controversial SD).


Thoughts?

9f0eecd8b0c363b723ee3539b64f2441.jpg

IMO one of the more underrated guys from that era and the victim of a lot of bad luck.

Was beating Sakuraba and should have won a decision but Pride tried to pull some shenanigans and he was forced out by Shamrock.

Was doing good against Wand but Silva purposely rocked him with a headbutt and got the KO.

Had very close, controversial losses against two top 5 LHWs of the time in Lil Nog and Arona. I personally thought he won both fights.

I really believe that 2001-2002 Metzger was peak Metzger, so in a sense he retired at his peak.
 
Tito got screwed in their first fight. He had Mezger in a really bad position and Big John broke them up which gave Mezger a nice break and a fresh start on the feet

I let it slide since Guy broke his hand in the fight before and continued on in the tournament. But yeah Tito was beating that ass. Guy was probably also realistically a 185er, like Frank.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mkt
Back
Top