If Stipe beats Jones, he is the HW GOAT without question.

[TheBulge]

if theyre guilty of nostalgia, youre guilty of revisionism. define a "great well rounded HW" and i will point to Fedor's resume. if you dont have him in the top 5 HW MMA all time then i cant take your opinion seriously. i rank Stipe above Fedor, by the way.

You can dig through his resume but those well rounded ones were either not great HW's, or they never actually used their other skills by then like Arlovski. He never beat a great well rounded HW, he was one himself in a primitive era so he looked better than the rest because of that.

But there's plenty of other reasons why he fails to qualify as well. Like literally taking a year off fighting freakshow Choi and then MW Lindland. Not even defending his Yakuza belt a handful of times etc.

 

[Killer Kadoogan]

even if he did, noobs here would say he needs to cement it against pavlovich, or whatever big, scary, one dimensional striker is flavor of the month. rinse and repeat until the end.

 

[TheBulge]

And your opinion is the end all, yes?

That "small cult" pulled over 1.5k votes.

Your perspective and join date only reflect the modern era, which is the opposite of grand scheme of things.

1500? Breath taking. How many fans of MMA do you think there are in the whole world?

 

[Blastbeat]

You can dig through his resume but those well rounded ones were either not great HW's, or they never actually used their other skills by then like Arlovski. He never beat a great well rounded HW, he was one himself in a primitive era so he looked better than the rest because of that.

But there's plenty of other reasons why he fails to qualify as well. Like literally taking a year off fighting freakshow Choi and then MW Lindland. Not even defending his Yakuza belt a handful of times etc.

Big Nog wasnt great? or Cro Cop? Randleman? define a great HW then. and here's the thing - you cant judge them by modern standards. you referring to it as a "primitive era" already tells me thats what youre doing. if every fighter was judged by modern standards, we would not have any appreciation for older eras of MMA. we would simply ignore them and hype up whoever is new. which is incorrect, obviously.
not Fedor's fault Pride didnt make every HW match a title fight. he had no control over what the promotion decided to do. he fought who he was told to fight.
Fedor's somewhere in the top 5 HW of all time. where you wanna put him is up for debate. Stipe, Werdum, Randy, Cain/BigNog, and Fedor. i dont really think you could argue for anyone else in that top 5. maybe JDS.

 

[cmw43]

Stipe has been comfortably on that position as HW GOAT pretty much after he ko'd Werdum, who was the GOAT right up untill then.

Anything else after that is a bonus to his legacy.

Ah yes the Highlander style GOAT where you beat someone and absorb all their victories.

So I suppose you have Ngannou as GOAT after he massacred GOAT Stipe?

 

[TheBulge]

Big Nog wasnt great? or Cro Cop? Randleman? define a great HW then. and here's the thing - you cant judge them by modern standards. you referring to it as a "primitive era" already tells me thats what youre doing. if every fighter was judged by modern standards, we would not have any appreciation for older eras of MMA. we would simply ignore them and hype up whoever is new. which is incorrect, obviously.
not Fedor's fault Pride didnt make every HW match a title fight. he had no control over what the promotion decided to do. he fought who he was told to fight.
Fedor's somewhere in the top 5 HW of all time. where you wanna put him is up for debate. Stipe, Werdum, Randy, Cain/BigNog, and Fedor. i dont really think you could argue for anyone else in that top 5. maybe JDS.

They were one dimensional. I do in fact appriciate older era's, I call them pioneers. Fedor's there with Royce, Ken, etc. Not with somebody like Stipe.

The reason I judge Fedor more harshly is because he was right in the middle of the old era and new era, and was still in his prime when he had a chance to prove it in the modern era. He failed very badly, finished 3 times in a row. No excuses, that will disqualify you from the discussion.

 

[Blastbeat]

They were one dimensional. I do in fact appriciate older era's, I call them pioneers. Fedor's there with Royce, Ken, etc. Not with somebody like Stipe.

The reason I judge Fedor more harshly is because he was right in the middle of the old era and new era, and was still in his prime when he had a chance to prove it in the modern era. He failed very badly, finished 3 times in a row. No excuses, that will disqualify you from the discussion.

One dimensional? thats just plain untrue. Arlovski dropping for a heel hook after dropping Tim Silvia is not one dimensional. Cro Cop being able to stay on his feet the whole time against a decorated wrestler like Coleman is not one dimensional.
and Fedor did lose 3x in a row. who did he lose to? Werdum, another top 5 HW all time. Bigfoot, who while horrible now was a top HW at the time. and Dan Henderson, who was competing at LHW at the time; Fedor was never a particularly big HW. in fact i think Fedor could've cut to LHW if he had so desired. Dan's also one of the best to ever do it irrespective of weight class.
detractors of Stipe always bring up the Struve fight. does this diminish Stipe's claim as a top all time HW? no. neither do Fedor's losses that we are talking about. his later career is not great, but he does have a couple decent wins.
ive mentioned this in another thread, but i think if Stipe beats Jones he's #1 HW all time, above Fedor. right now i personally put Stipe at #1 but thats also due to my biases. but i dont know if MMA will ever see such a long winning streak like Fedor had at HW again.

 

[Lee_]

Fighting old Stipe means all of nothing. Jon is going to have to beat the best the division has to offer to be the best. Pav or Aspinall at this point. And that is just to be the best NOW, being the GOAT is a whole other issue.

 

[MartinGibson86]

5 of those fights were just against Ngannou and DC.

For Fedors 7 "non title fights" he had two former UFC a champions, an Olympic Judo medalist who was 7-0 with 7 finishes and prime Fujita (National Greco Roman Champ) who was a tough fight for anyone back then.

Tryna denigrate Stipe fighting the worlds top HW other than himself

Tryna justify Fedor fighting 7 straight nontitle fights against nobody worthy of fighting the top HW


Lmao i LOVE this place. Dont ever change, guys.

 

[cmw43]

Tryna denigrate Stipe fighting the worlds top HW other than himself

Tryna justify Fedor fighting 7 straight nontitle fights against nobody worthy of fighting the top HW


Lmao i LOVE this place. Dont ever change, guys.

I'm just saying the guy was being disengenuous saying Fedor only fought cans and basically Stipe only fought the most dangerous guys in their prime.

I'm guessing you weren't watching in the Pride era.

 

[Yep]

If a fighter defends the belt ultimately someone is going to argue goatdom.

 

[ROBOCOP]

JDS beat Stipe, Velazquez, Werdum, Carwin, Mir, Cro Cop, Hunt and even the bums that are top in the division nowadays like Tuivasa and Derrick. Also not bad for the HW resume.

I feel like everyone forgets how good JDS was. He's on my all time great list

 

[Mike]

As soon as someone starts talking about Fedor ducking the ufc, you know they don't know what they're talking about.

 

[Rationality]

Honestly I do not believe comparing fighters from different eras can ever be objective because of different rules, different training methods and certainly different organizations. I know that Fedor just retired and all, but his fans speak of the Fedor from 10 years ago not the Fedor of the past few years. So let's say he was the best back then and Stipe is the best now. It's really tough to say someone is 100% definitively the all time GOAT.

 

[ChangeIsComing]

I really do not understand why some call Stipe the goat HW, I mean most of his big wins were vs past prime fighters. I was impressed with how he beat Francis in their first fight and I will not argue that he is a great HW but the goat? Nah man not at all, his record speaks for itself and its not representative of the GOAT HW considering most of his W's were against names that were made years before he fought them.

 

[J Danger]

Stipe already is the HW greatest, but by defeating Jones would cement it.
It would see Stipe with wins over seven HW champions.
He already holds the record for most title defenses in HW history.
He has very strong wins over top tier fighters in Ngannou, Cormier, JDS, Overeem, Wedrum, and Hunt.
How could he be denied GOAT at that point ?
You gonna give it to Francis who only defended his belt once ?
You gonna give it to Fedor who ducked the UFC ?

lol at Fedor ducking the UFC.

 

[HHJ]

lol @ Stipe needing to beat a 1 - 0 HW to gain the coveted Greatest of the next 5 minutes title

 

[Hima Hamrash]

Yes he would be the HW GOAT for sure

 

[Hima Hamrash]

Fedor would have probably been champ in 2009 in the UFC, after that, its tough. That said, I think he beats Stipe.

Actually, had Fedor fought in the UFC since the beginning, he would've buried so many guys and whoever became a UFC HW Champ would've never existed, until in 2015 if he meets Werdum, Werdum would be the next Undisputed HW Champ after him.

Like, let's see, Fedor started MMA in 2000, before him, Coleman, Maurice, Randy, Rutten, Randleman were champs before 2000, Fedor became champ in 2003, and the guys who would still able to become champs before 2003 (In which was the year Fedor became Pride Champ) were Barnett, Ricco and Sylvia in Feb before Fedor would be champ in March 2003, so the guys he would bury/stop them from becoming champs would be starting from Mir to JDS, or maybe would be from Sylvia to JDS, or Maybe he would've became champ in early 2000 and would start burying HWs from Randleman-JDS, he would've reigned from 2003-2015 or from 2000-2015, and then, Werdum stops him.

 

[Killer Kadoogan]

Big Nog wasnt great? or Cro Cop? Randleman? define a great HW then. and here's the thing - you cant judge them by modern standards. you referring to it as a "primitive era" already tells me thats what youre doing. if every fighter was judged by modern standards, we would not have any appreciation for older eras of MMA. we would simply ignore them and hype up whoever is new. which is incorrect, obviously.
not Fedor's fault Pride didnt make every HW match a title fight. he had no control over what the promotion decided to do. he fought who he was told to fight.
Fedor's somewhere in the top 5 HW of all time. where you wanna put him is up for debate. Stipe, Werdum, Randy, Cain/BigNog, and Fedor. i dont really think you could argue for anyone else in that top 5. maybe JDS.

it's very obvious when an answer is rooted in perspective. PRIDE FC had the absolute best HW roster, for their time period, without a doubt. It does not even begin to compare. while they were active, they were top dog. the UFC HWs at that time would not have been able to compare/compete at all.