If Merab successfully defends his title for a 4th time this year, how do you rank him all time compared to Khabib

[Greyscale]

Khabib already doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with Merab. Even if Merab decides to retire today.

 

[Xoleth]

He's on a great winning streak.
But Khabib was undefeated (inb4 some guy says something about Tibau who didn't do shit for 15 minutes)
Merab has 4 losses, two of them being in UFC.
In Merab's defense, the Ricky Simon loss was weird.
Also, mmadecisions tells me the Frankie Saenz loss might have been a robbery.

When it comes to the quality of opponents, they are pretty close.
But LW is a far more popular division than BW.

PS: both of them could have been champions a lot earlier.

 

[Aurelian]

1. Khabib's resume is thin compared to other great fighters--that should be obvious. The argument for Khabib is that his peak was higher than everyone else's, i.e., he was better and more dominant.
2. The concept of p4p is nothing more than mental gymnastics to promote smaller fighters, so comparing Khabib and Merab is nonsensical.

Merab has been pretty damn dominant his last 7 or 8 fights. He had one close fight with Umar, but also Khabib never fought anyone close to Umar's skill level either.

 

[AL-Tappo McSnappo]

Merab is fighting Yan in December. If he beats him, he’ll have four title defenses in a single year. In Khabib’s entire UFC career, he only had three. In one year, Merab could potentially surpass what took Khabib his whole career. I don’t see how Merab isn’t immediately ahead of Khabib on everyone’s all-time list if/when that happens, there's a strong argument he’s arguably there.

Greater resume than khabib, nowhere near as good as khabib as a fighter or Islam.

 

[WOLVERINEKILLS]

Khabib has that mythical 0 loss on his record, and he beat the arrogance out of Conor. In terms of accomplishments Islam is already ahead of Khabib, and if Merab can defend it 4 times this year he'll be ahead as well

I agree but Khabib was super hyped to the casual masses leading up to the Conor fight. My point being his accomplishments are getting surpassed but overall he will be remembered by a lot more people.

 

[prime_lobov]

Honestly not even close. Merab wrestlefucks people in a midget division. Two of his title wins are against a gangly striker with zero wrestling. Khabib mauled people in the lightweight division, historically a shark tank, and never lost.

 

[Blue_Ribbon]

They have the same number of title defenses (3), but Merab has almost 2x as many top 10 wins. He's already above Khabib, imo.

Would have to agree with this

 

[Greyscale]

He's on a great winning streak.
But Khabib was undefeated (inb4 some guy says something about Tibau who didn't do shit for 15 minutes)
Merab has 4 losses, two of them being in UFC.
In Merab's defense, the Ricky Simon loss was weird.
Also, mmadecisions tells me the Frankie Saenz loss might have been a robbery.

When it comes to the quality of opponents, they are pretty close.
But LW is a far more popular division than BW.

PS: both of them could have been champions a lot earlier.

Total bullshit.

What did Khabib do to win the Tibau fight? He himself was shocked when the decision was announced. No one thought he won back then, so it took years of brainwash and propaganda for everyone to now be like "yeah, sure he won, no doubt about that."

The quality of opponents is NOT close since 25 out of 29 Khabib's opponents were cans.

 

[Simple Southerner]

I like bib but merab has already had a better career & he's only improving

 

[MerAndre DvalishFili]

Khabib is among the most dominant fighters we’ve ever seen, but IMO you can’t put him in the GOAT discussion in the same way you can with someone like Merab who is out there beating contenders up constantly (and in some cases twice). At this point there’s nobody in the division that’s worth a shit that he hasn’t beaten, and beaten handily at that. You could make a case that skill for skill Khabib is a better fighter, but it seems to me Merab has surpassed him in terms of all time standing.

Same situation as Cain. He might be the best HW I’ve ever seen, and clearly showed the potential to be an all time great - but I don’t think anybody would say he’s the GOAT HW, on account of his thin resume and inactivity due to injury.

 

[Luthien]

Khabib's best win is arguably Cocaine Conor on his proper twelve tour

 

[Luthien]

Merab destroying Khabib's bathtub protégé Umar is also bonus points

 

[haj02]

Khabib isn't really comparable to anyone but Anderson Silva in terms of legacy conversations in that a large part of it isn't just the wins but how he did it. Khabib outclassed opponents even more than Silva just in the grappling department rather than the striking department. In terms of pure resume, there are a bunch of guys ahead of both. In terms of the eye test, anyone who watched either run knew they were likely watching the best of the best.

 

[KO Shotz]

Comparing Merab & Khabib is like comparing GSP, Fedor, Anderson, & Jon Jones to each other.

Yes, Merab's title defenses will be very impressive if successful against Yan, but it can be argued that Khabib had the tougher road in fighting prime Gaethje, Porier, & McGregor. While Merab has beaten an overrated Sean O'Malley, a hype beast in Umar Nurmagomedov, & a middle of the pack guy in Cory Sandhagen. Comparing defenses looks impressive in the amount of time Merab has done it, but Khabib's defenses look more legitimate.

Both guys have dominated, but it's hard to compare when the conversation starts comparing different aspects from different guys. I'm sure some will disagree with me that Khabib's opponents were the tougher wins compared to Merab's. But that's my point about how these topics are impossible to argue.

 

[PlayTheGame]

Khabib fought 13 times in 8.5 years and dipped before making LW became impossible for him.

Even Cain Velasquez, who started falling apart by the age of 30, was more active.

 

[bjjwar]

Merab is fighting Yan in December. If he beats him, he’ll have four title defenses in a single year. In Khabib’s entire UFC career, he only had three. In one year, Merab could potentially surpass what took Khabib his whole career. I don’t see how Merab isn’t immediately ahead of Khabib on everyone’s all-time list if/when that happens, there's a strong argument he’s arguably there.

He can have 5000000 more wins and he could never be ahead of Khabib. He lost multiple times. Got knocked down like 10 times in 5 min by Marlon Moraes, lost alot of rounds. Terrible wrestler and average striker, both arent in the samz category…

 

[Aurelian]

Khabib isn't really comparable to anyone but Anderson Silva in terms of legacy conversations in that a large part of it isn't just the wins but how he did it. Khabib outclassed opponents even more than Silva just in the grappling department rather than the striking department. In terms of pure resume, there are a bunch of guys ahead of both. In terms of the eye test, anyone who watched either run knew they were likely watching the best of the best.

Silva had 11 wins in Title fights, would have been 12 if his opponent Travis Lutter didn't miss weight making it a non-title fight.

In his first 16 UFC fights, he finished 14 of those opponents.

Anderson is on a whole different planet than Khabib in terms of legacy.

 

[Pancake Sprawl]

Silva had 11 wins in Title fights, would have been 12 if his opponent Travis Lutter didn't miss weight making it a non-title fight.

In his first 16 UFC fights, he finished 14 of those opponents.

Anderson is on a whole different planet than Khabib in terms of legacy.

and he was doing it in a way that was unbelievable.

 

[haj02]

Silva had 11 wins in Title fights, would have been 12 if his opponent Travis Lutter didn't miss weight making it a non-title fight.

In his first 16 UFC fights, he finished 14 of those opponents.

Anderson is on a whole different planet than Khabib in terms of legacy.

I think you've missed what I was trying to say. I was literally stating that judging Khabib is less about numbers and more about the eye test. The Silva analog is not perfect as you pointed out, he had a 16 fight winning streak but as important as the raw numbers was the the way he did and that was the comparison I was making.

 

[KO Shotz]

I think you've missed what I was trying to say. I was literally stating that judging Khabib is less about numbers and more about the eye test. The Silva analog is not perfect as you pointed out, he had a 16 fight winning streak but as important as the raw numbers was the the way he did and that was the comparison I was making.