If you consider chuck and randy world champions, then you must do the same for Lima and pitbull!!!

[boss429]

To each their own.

Rampage losses to Tito and Randy in their respective primes. Shogun and Randy never had intersecting primes but Randy at 05 was a fucking monster and a lot of guys are lucky they didn't see him. Shit, a lot of those guys are damn lucky they didn't run into Tito.

There was no superior org. At all. Both had great fighters. The UFC fighters were not a cut below, the division was slightly thinner, but their guys elite.

Yeah, the top 3 in the UFC LHW divisions were very good. It's not that the top UFC guys were a step below, its that after those 3 there really wasn't anyone else except Babalu.

The Pride division had Rampage, Shogun, Lil Nog, Arona, Wand, Machida and Sokadju at the tail end, Overeem for a while.

I just don't see how Tito beats Rampage, Shogun, Overeem or Lil Nog at any point in his career with Arona also being a considerable threat as is Machida obviously.

Same goes for Randy, you seem to be drastically over rating Randy's skill set (with all due respect) IMO. He was never consistently dominant and I don't see his style matching up well against Rampage, Overeem, Lil Nog or Shogun when he still had an iron chin and the speed and mobility he enjoyed with 2 working knees. Even Arona would have presented him with an interesting challenge.

It's not really an "Oh this org is better" situation, its a strength and depth of division combined with how they match up with each others stylistically and, IMO at least, the answer seems very obvious.

However, had Frank Shamrock never retired maybe this would be a different conversation and non of the other UFC big 3 ever even see the belt during this overlapping period, haha.

The HW division isn't even debatable for the same reasons but I do agree Mir would have been interesting in the Pride HW division and could have been at least #2 though I don't see him ever beating Fedor.

 

[DayV]

Make all of the excuses you want. Chuck, Tito, Vitor > Wanderelei, who was PRIDE's king. Yes, Rampage > Chuck, but Chuck > Wanderlei > Rampage > Chuck. We can MMAth all day, but Wanderlei had an embarrassing recored against those "inferior" UFC fighters. All of those guys in PRIDE are lucky they never had to fight Couture at 205.

You guys remember when CroCop signed with the UFC and everyone said he had signed for six fights, therefore he was six LHKs from his next contract, and then he got obliterated by those "inferior" UFC fighters?

None of UFC guys fought Wanderlei and Cro Cop in the ring and Pride rules.
There is a huge differnce for Wand and CC between american and japanese rules and settings, and they are the fighters who really lose a lot of their tools and strenghts in UFC rules and cage and were the most negatively affected by the change. So your equation is not correct because none of UFC guys fought them in the settings where Wand and CC made their success.
It is a lot harder to hit LHK when opponents got much bigger round space with no corners to circle around and wait for counter, or wire fence to push you against for 10 minutes.

Couture got submitted 3 times in Japan (Ilyukhin, V. Overeem, Inoue) while holding UFC belt. Couture would have probably got submitted by Yoshida or Sakuraba in Japan.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Overall the UFC has much deeper roster but the tip-top guys in each division of the Bellator and One FC and Rizin are are just as good as the top guys in the UFC.

Each org has some guys who could slot in and compete with the top talent in the UFC, but it's quite limited. It's not like they have 5 guys/girls per division who would all be ranked in the UFC.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Bullshit.

Chuck went to PRIDE and lost badly to Rampage and then came back and beat Couture twice.

Couture lost fights outside of the UFC immediately after the first two times that he won the HW title, and Fedor was still on his winning streak during his third title reign. He was never even close to being the #1 HW in the world.

I think Randy would be a nightmare for Wandy from a stylistic perspective personally. I certainly think Randy wins in a cage, I'm less sure in a ring.

 

[Kb7]

You said that Chuck and/or Couture was the number 1 ranked LHW/HW when Pride was around, that never happened, when Pride was around the number 1 LHW was Wanderlei and then Shogun and the number 1 HW was Big Nog then Fedor. Most of the fights you are mentioning in his post are after fighters were clearly passed their primes, Cro Cop had like over 100 fights by the time he fought Mir and multiple knee and ankle surgeries, Big Nog was being called Zombie Nog by the time he fought Mir, Wanderlei Silva was a few years passed his prime by the time he fought Liddell.

I don't know man, Mir, Nog & Crocop are from the same generation of MMA fighters. They were pretty much all on the same line when they all fought each other & you can say mileage and injuries were the reasons why Cro Cop & Nog lost to Mir, but out of them three only one of them literally was never going to walk again let alone fight and the highest in MMA. Take that as you will but I believe the competition was much closer than was perceived at the time between Pride and the UFC.

 

[Gmork]

I didn't say they were inferior, I said their division was which is why they weren't ranked as high. It had nothing to do with bias, there was simply a lot more highly ranked 205ers in Pride so they stayed higher ranked. Kind of like how it's really hard to be ranked highly if you aren't in the UFC now because the level of competition elsewhere is generally lower. If the 4 guys you mentioned weren't fighting each other they were fighting guys ranked much lower which is why they didn't get ranked as high as Pride guys who were constantly fighting other top 10 guys.

Those were the only 4 top level 205ers the UFC had and 2 of them fought in Pride as well and didn't do as good as they did in the UFC so that proves it if that is what you want.

Liddell was 12-2 in the UFC had 3 fights in Pride and was 2-1. Vitor was 8-4 in UFC and 5-3 in Pride(I didn't count any fights after they no longer fought in Pride to compare UFC fights from a similar era to Pride fights from similar era to show they didn't do as well because the competition level was higher).

It's pretty obvious that you did not watch MMA during the Pride era and are trying to play revisionist history, everyone knew Pride's HW and LHW divisions were clearly better than their UFC counterparts. Vernon White was one of UFC's best LHWs for example.

I'm really over this thread, I was over these conversations when we were having them back then. And yes, dude, I definitely watched MMA during the PRIDE era. My first Sherdog account was 03 or 04. I was training and watching obsessively back then. I remember feeling like a crack addict waiting for PRIDE shows (if you were actually around then I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

You're kind of exposing yourself here. Vernon White wasn't one of the UFCs best LHWs. He was a stepping stone like he always was. Pointing to Chuck's 2-1 record in PRIDE isn't doing you any favors, either. Rampage was always his foil, but he beat other PRIDE fighters he fought including Wanderlei, and would've mopped up plenty of them when he was still good, and you know it.

 

[Gmork]

I don't know man, Mir, Nog & Crocop are from the same generation of MMA fighters. They were pretty much all on the same line when they all fought each other & you can say mileage and injuries were the reasons why Cro Cop & Nog lost to Mir, but out of them three only one of them literally was never going to walk again let alone fight and the highest in MMA. Take that as you will but I believe the competition was much closer than was perceived at the time between Pride and the UFC.

Exactly. Mir had that nasty motorcycle accident that left him sidelined for well over a year, and he took plenty of beatings in the cage.

 

[DayV]

UFC champions of that era next to the belt they passed around among themselves beeing considered as 2nd rate at that time/era, and fighting in organisation that had less money and was less watched, they also had a lot less fights, less quality wins and achieved less than PRIDE champions from that era.

By the end of 2006 Mir and Arlovski had only 12-15 fights.

If we compaire the most dominant UFC champion from that era, at late 2006

- Tim Sylvia (wins vs: 2x Arlovski, Rodriguez, Monson, McGee, Rothwell, Telligman, Correira)
and least dominant of PRIDE champions

- Cro Cop (wins vs: 3x Barnett, Coleman, Vovchanchyn, Wanderlei, Randleman, Herring, 2x Fujita, Alex Emelianenko, Waterman, Sakuraba, Yoshida)

= hardly anybody sane and rational at that time would say that Sylvia was better than Cro Cop, or that UFC was better than PRIDE.