If Islam beats Arman decisively, does he become the greatest lightweight ever?

[MarioLemieux]

nope.

Khabib has no losses, never been in any wars where he got messed up, never been ko'ed, looked more dominant than Islam and is a way better fighter.

How can you be greater if you're not nearly as good? Everyone including their head coach knows Khabib is way better than Islam. His top control is leagues better, his fight iq and so is his chin.

This proves title defences doesn't mean that much.

 

[KAZSoliloquy]

two of his best wins are against a 145'er lol

 

[WoozyFailGuy]

When the crux of the argument against your entire career was one hard fight when you were green, you know you made it big lol

18-0 is green?


To the thread's question: No, as he will have defended his title against two whole lightweights.

 

[MarioLemieux]

18-0 is green?


To the thread's question: No, as he will have defended his title against two whole lightweights.

He was 23 years old fighting a guy in his prime who was juiced to the gills and Khabib still did more damage.

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

18-0 is green?

17-0*

And yeah. If you look at the actual context and not just a 1 sec glance at wiki it's very obvious lol.

1) Khabib had only been pro for 3.5 years compared to Tibau who'd been pro in bigger orgs for 12 years and had more than double the amount of fights.

2) this was Khabib's 2nd ufc fight and Tibaus 16th

3) Khabib was not yet at AKA. So, he had no striking coach, barely spared live, and only had 1 fight in a cage. DC and crew are the ones who helped him develop the style of using the cage for his TDs

Khabib compared to Tibau was fledgling in the sport. And none of that scratches the surface of Tibaus PED abuse and insane weight cutting

 

[WoozyFailGuy]

17-0*

And yeah. If you look at the actual context and not just a 1 sec glance at wiki it's very obvious lol.

1) Khabib had only been pro for 3.5 years compared to Tibau who'd been pro in bigger orgs for 12 years and had more than double the amount of fights.

2) this was Khabib's 2nd ufc fight and Tibaus 16th

3) Khabib was not yet at AKA. So, he had no striking coach, barely spared live, and only had 1 fight in a cage. DC and crew are the ones who helped him develop the style of using the cage for his TDs

Khabib compared to Tibau was fledgling in the sport. And none of that scratches the surface of Tibaus PED abuse and insane weight cutting

Don't need the entire cope paragraph, end of the day, 17-0 as a pro is not "green", nor was I talking about Tibau's experience level. People just love to use the excuse that Khabib was green in the one fight he got continuously stuffed in.
Bo Nickal is green, for example. Shavkat Rakhmanov is not green and he has exactly one more fight than Khabib did at the time.

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

Don't need the entire cope paragraph, end of the day, 17-0 as a pro is not "green", nor was I talking about Tibau's experience level. People just love to use the excuse that Khabib was green in the one fight he got continuously stuffed in.
Bo Nickal is green, for example. Shavkat Rakhmanov is not green and he has exactly one more fight than Khabib did at the time.

As always, yall keep ducking facts and embracing delusion. Can't refute a single thing presented so you just close your eyes to it.

Using Shakvat as a comparison is particularly brain dead. With the same amount of fights he's been pro for 3x as long as khabib was at the time. Youre literally proving my point. Bo is green and has only been pro for year less than Khabib at the time.

3 years as a pro is green.

 

[HP_Nut]

Chandler's not UFC caliber, especially not in his mid-late 30s. McGregor isn't a big win at lightweight, only at featherweight. Same for Holloway. Alvarez is a good win. Gaethje is a good win. He went life and death with those two though (lost against them as well). Those are fighters that I would consider to be in his league. If we're saying that Benson was sliding against Cerrone, you do realize Pettis had lost four fights since losing the belt to RDA at the point he fought Poirier right?

If you just look at the UFC wins, its close. Look at my original post, and you'll see that I said I consider them to be equals (but a slight edge to Cerrone in their UFC careers). If you include WEC, its severely lopsided in Cerrone's favor. In that list that you made, it seems like you're only including wins that you consider to be "big." What happens when you include the totality of all their wins?

Tony is way higher than Poirier imo. I don't really care what the Sherdog list has to say. Tony had a seven year, 12 fight win streak that would have been 11 years and 18 wins had he not broken his arm. Only Khabib has matched that so far. Tony is definitively the best lightweight to have never won the belt, without question.

Ufc has like 700 fighters, saying Chandler isnt ufc level is crazy. Even in his losses to top 5 LW, he came close to finishing many of them. McGregor is a former LW champ, Max has beaten Gaethje at LW. Youre just regurgitating your argument, and ignoring that i said we can poke holes in almost an fighters resume. I listed Dustin and Cerrones big wins, list some more that i didnt mention. Dustins has far more big wins than Cerrone. Their resumes are not equal, no one has Cerrone as a top 10 LW of all time. Totality of wins, like counting guys not top 10? Yea, Donald was active but people dont count divisional greats based on wins over non top 10 guys &/or former champs, they have way less significance. Its like awarding a guy for being active

Tony had a very impressive career, we cant play this game “if he didnt get injured he would have done this”. So when fighters lose, we cant play just not count it if they say theyre injured? I highly respect Tonys career, i think he would have given Khabib a more competitive fight than what people are now claiming. I dont even have a problem if someone says his career overall was better, its when people try to make it look like everyone is overrated, etc. If we apply your logic of Dustin, we can say almost no one is good. The bar you’re setting on Dustins career, we can start making excuses why most of their big wins are somehow diminished.

 

[Superzorro]

Ufc has like 700 fighters, saying Chandler isnt ufc level is crazy. Even in his losses to top 5 LW, he came close to finishing many of them. McGregor is a former LW champ, Max has beaten Gaethje at LW. Youre just regurgitating your argument, and ignoring that i said we can poke holes in almost an fighters resume. I listed Dustin and Cerrones big wins, list some more that i didnt mention. Dustins has far more big wins than Cerrone. Their resumes are not equal, no one has Cerrone as a top 10 LW of all time. Totality of wins, like counting guys not top 10? Yea, Donald was active but people dont count divisional greats based on wins over non top 10 guys &/or former champs, they have way less significance. Its like awarding a guy for being active

Tony had a very impressive career, we cant play this game “if he didnt get injured he would have done this”. So when fighters lose, we cant play just not count it if they say theyre injured? I highly respect Tonys career, i think he would have given Khabib a more competitive fight than what people are now claiming. I dont even have a problem if someone says his career overall was better, it’s when people try to make it look like everyone is overrated, etc. If we apply your logic of Dustin, we can say almost no one is good. The bar you’re setting on Dustins career, we can start making excuses why most of their big wins are somehow diminished.

Correction, Chandler isn’t “elite.” I think you know what I meant when I said that— we’re both grown adults; let’s not play the semantics game.
Dustin doesn't have more big wins than Cerrone.
Former champions have significance. The only time they don’t is like in the case of Conor where they had one or two fights in the division and never proved their status as champion.
I have Cerrone as a top ten lightweight of all time if we’re not including champions— same as Poirier. My point is, if we’re including champions, neither of them are top five like you would seem to be suggesting. But again, it doesn’t matter what other people say. That’s an appeal to popularity. What matters is what you say since you made the claim. Your argument can’t be “everyone else agrees with me.” And so far, I haven’t seen any convincing points outside of “I like Poirier.” Which is a good take, he’s exciting. But if you think he is top five of all time at lightweight including champions, you’re going into delusional fanboy territory.


Ok, I won’t play that game. Take the meat and potatoes of my statement and disregard the extra parts. Tony had a longer win streak against better competition. You’re going off on tangents about minor details which is called straw-manning. Tony and Poirier are in no way equals.

 

[Elvis.]

Penn:
Stevenson
Sherk
Pulver
Florian
Sanchez
Hughes

& Gomi

 

[maximus__]

Chandler's not UFC caliber, especially not in his mid-late 30s. McGregor isn't a big win at lightweight, only at featherweight. Same for Holloway. Alvarez is a good win. Gaethje is a good win. He went life and death with those two though (lost against them as well). Those are fighters that I would consider to be in his league. If we're saying that Benson was sliding against Cerrone, you do realize Pettis had lost four fights since losing the belt to RDA at the point he fought Poirier right?

If you just look at the UFC wins, its close. Look at my original post, and you'll see that I said I consider them to be equals (but a slight edge to Cerrone in their UFC careers). If you include WEC, its severely lopsided in Cerrone's favor. In that list that you made, it seems like you're only including wins that you consider to be "big." What happens when you include the totality of all their wins?

Tony is way higher than Poirier imo. I don't really care what the Sherdog list has to say. Tony had a seven year, 12 fight win streak that would have been 11 years and 18 wins had he not broken his arm. Only Khabib has matched that so far. Tony is definitively the best lightweight to have never won the belt, without question.

The Mcgregor that finished Aldo and Alvarez was one of the best MMA fighters back at that time.
Even when he fought Khabib half pickled, he still was actually defending takedowns well early on. He did resort to cheating as the fight went on.

That version of Mcgregor was a top LW.

 

[Superzorro]

The Mcgregor that finished Aldo and Alvarez was one of the best MMA fighters back at that time.
Even when he fought Khabib half pickled, he still was actually defending takedowns well early on. He did resort to cheating as the fight went on.

That version of Mcgregor was a top LW.

I think becoming decent at defensive wrestling ended up making his striking and overall game worse as result. No striking meant that he posed zero threat to Khabib because lets be real, he was never winning the grappling battle. The brain damage he took against Floyd was also extremely underrated, and I think boxing training in general made his MMA striking worse.

But like I said, all of this is pointless in the end because we didn't see enough of him at lightweight to be able to accurately access where he stood.

 

[maximus__]

I think becoming decent at defensive wrestling ended up making his striking and overall game worse as result. No striking meant that he posed zero threat to Khabib because lets be real, he was never winning the grappling battle. The brain damage he took against Floyd was also extremely underrated, and I think boxing training in general made his MMA striking worse.

But like I said, all of this is pointless in the end because we didn't see enough of him at lightweight to be able to accurately access where he stood.

I wish we got to see more of this. His boxing training made him worse.

 

[MarioLemieux]

I wish we got to see more of this. His boxing training made him worse.

Just watch Topuria. He's twice the boxer Conor is and 5 times the fighter.

 

[Mmmmmmma1234]

If islam doesn't lose the belt he's number one already.

Khabib legacy is all smoke and mirrors. He defended 3* and peaced maybe he'd have won more but legacies don't count hypothetical wins.

 

[Joshua8531]

No, because it isn't just about title defences
That can't be the only measure. Sure it's a big point, but not the only

If a fighter comes along in an easy division in the future and has 10 plus title defences, it doesn't elevate him above someone like GSP who has 9(?)

Charles at the time is the best win on either guys record, but khabib dominated a prime RDA, beat a younger less beat up Dustin way easier and also handled the rapist when he was seen as a danger. It's easy to make light of that fight now, but at the time MANY sided with the abuser and it was the biggest fight in mma history. Islam will never feel such pressure to win

Now, if he goes on to defend another couple of times? Then it may be hard not to elevate him

I still think Khabib was a better fighter in his prime. Not as well rounded, but much more tenacious with suffocating grappling. So even if Islam goes down as greater? He would need to show another level for me to rank him better head to head

I'd have Silva in entertainment and p4p 1a and 1b with GSP.

GSP got knocked out in his prime. Silva scorched his opponents . GSP considered at the time boring as fuck, laying on them.

Maybe give GSP a slight edge for beating paper champ Bisbing who got knocked down twice vs 46 year old Hendo.

 

[Joshua8531]

It doesn't really take much for him to beat Khabib's resume. All you really need is four defenses. McGregor and Poirier wouldn't have been able to make it in the previous era of lightweights. And then Gaethje is probably one of the most primitive strikers I've ever seen make it to the top. Imagine if Islam moves up and wins at welterweight, it won't even be close.

That's why we can look at all sports from an evolutionary perspective.

 

[Superzorro]

That's why we can look at all sports from an evolutionary perspective.

Benson Henderson and BJ Penn being more well rounded and better all around fighters than Poirier and McGregor is the opposite of evolution.

 

[maximus__]

Just watch Topuria. He's twice the boxer Conor is and 5 times the fighter.

Not at 155. Definitely great to watch at 145 though.
Crazy to think that Max fought Mcgregor on debut and was still beating everyone not named Volk until just this year after that length of career.

 

[Joshua8531]

Benson Henderson and BJ Penn being more well rounded and better all around fighters than Poirier and McGregor is the opposite of evolution.

Can't agree with your statement.