It would be cool if he beat Jones (a LHW coming off a 3 years hiatus after two questionable wins), and then beat Stipe, who lost his last fight, hasn't fought for years, is older than most sherdoggers and first and foremost known as looking like Woody Harrelsons lost twin brother.
So yeah, I dunno.
These are still amazing wins. Jones is the LHW GOAT and bulked to be a real HW and Stipe is arguably the HW GOAT or close to Fedor but Fedor is retired and is not relevant to this conversation.
Look, I'm not saying that Gane sucks or anything, but let's reel this shit in a little bit. Fedor was champ for 4 years and went undefeated for like 10 years or something. Gane seems talented, but we're jumping the gun by a large margin with this thread.
Level of competition. Fedor smashed 16 cans and 6 other smaller LHWs and MWs. A total of 22 of his 40 wins are vs cans or small fighters. That is a fact that Gane or Pavlovich and Aspinall etc cannot indulge in. If we subtract those cans we get Fedor with 18 wins or let us be generous only 20 wins that matter and are not a joke. Of those 20 wins some are vs LHWs or not that great HWs.
Brett Rodgers who is far inferior to Tai or Derrick Lewis is part of that win list. Look at Fedor top 13 wins
FEDOR EMELIANENKO
1. Semmy Schilt (great win but his sport is kickboxing and he never beat any good mma fighters but Schilt is the HW Kickboxing GOAT. If Rico Verhoven came over to MMA can crushed and submittrd 7 guys then fought Gane and lost by decision I would still praise Gane for this win)
2. Heath Herring (good win for that time, but Lewis, Tai, Volkov, JDS, etc are superior to Herring)
3. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (Good win but he is factually 1 dimesional and not as well rounded as fighters now or 10 years ago)
4. Kazuyuki Fujita (lol really he is a can crusher)
5. Mark Coleman (first fight) (1 dimesional a dog would submit him) also weighed like 230lbs
6. Kevin Randleman (ranked LHW) (small as well also 1 dimesional, a plastic bag would submit him)
7. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (good win but Nog is 1 dimesional that is a fact)
8. Mirko Filipovic (great win he later developed a well rounded game) he would be a top HW today. When he lost to Nog he was 1 dimesional he was a pure striker then. When he faced Fedor 2 years later he had greatly improved submission defense and clinch fighting. 2 years after the Fedor loss he had developed good grappling.
9. Mark Hunt (good win but 1 dimesional fighter)
10. Matt Lindland (ranked MW). A Middleweight
11. Tim Sylvia (end if his career and out of shape)
12. Andrei Arlovski (This and Cro Cop are Fedors best wins in my opinion) I realize Nog beat Cro Cop but it was a Cro Cop who only knew kickboxing and had poor grappling.
13. Brett Rogers (1 dimesional only ever beat Arlovski)
How many does Gane have now? Fedor is HW GOAT; he had an undefeated run in which he had 11 ranked wins, beat 5 former or future UFC champs, had 3 PRIDE title defenses and 2 WAMMA defenses (I don’t weight WAMMA defenses as highly, of course).
These are the types of metrics that Gane needs to surpass. And obviously he’s nowhere close to that.
Stipe has 8 ranked wins, 3 defenses his first reign and a 2nd reign with 1 defense.
With 4x or 5 title defenses Gane or Pavlovich surpass Fedor. Gane has 5 top 10 HW wins that so far belong to largelly better fighters than most of the top 11 ranked Wins Fedor got.
Can you provide the list of the top 11 ranked fighters Fedor beat?
If Gane beats Jones and then gets 4 title defenses he will have 10 top HW wins. To defend the belt 4x would likely take 2.5 years so say January 2026 he [Gane) has fought for 8 years almost and only had 1 loss via a razor thin decision loss to Ngannou. Then let us say he avenges the Ngannou loss if say Ngannou boxes this year takes off next year then returns.
Gane would only have 17 wins by this time [mid 2026) but he would have 11 top HW ranked wins tied with Fedor but the level of competition and well roundness would be far higher for Gane. Keep in mind if Gane defends the belt 4x or 5x it would involve beating killers like Pavlovich, Blaydes, Aspinall and surely Spivak and likely some new up and comer.
Now let us think about Pavlovich who says he has a fight for April but wont say who. It is likely Blaydes let us say Pavlovich wins then beats Gane then defends the belt 4x.
Pavlovich has 3 top 10 HW ranked wins now. If he beats Blaydes and beats Gane he will have 5. If he defends 4x he would have 9 top 10 HW ranked wins. Let us say Pavlovich enters 2026 as a 4x defending champion. By this time he would have 23 wins with 1 loss and only 1 loss in his past 11 years of fighting. Of Pavlovichs current 17 wins only 2 are cans and only 1 is a LHW.... Think about that. He has largelly almost entirely fought only HWs
4 of the HWs Pavlovich beat before the UFC were either kickboxing champions or Combat Sambo champions and all of them had positive winning records and 2/4 were over 6 foot.
You have to weigh that.
