Instances when two legends collided early in their careers

[Choco]

Anderson Silva fought Hayato Sakurai in 2001 , admittedly it was Sakurai’s 20th fight but he would fight 30 more times afterwards so it’s somewhat early in his career
Anderson has less than 10 fights at this point , I don’t think a lot of people even resize this fight ever happened

Shooto was greatly respected back in the day. Anderson Silva was offered TWO straightaway shots to the UFC belt after this (UFC 34 & UFC 36).

 

[OverhandRightKayo]

Arlovski (0-0) vs Datsik (0-0) - Datsik KOd Arlovski <45>

Loooool

 

[moreorless87]

Miscommunication my friend. It’s all good.

Ah you mean Jones fought those other guys as well as Bader?

Bader himself is I think a tricky one, during his UFC run he didnt really do well enough to come close to "legend" status but in Bellator he has I think upped his game a bit, not always the biggest tests I spose but he's a much better striker now than he was in the UFC IMHO. If he were to win the LHW GP this year I think he would probably stake a pretty good claim for legend status if you take it beyond divisional GOAT contender level.

One interesting area to consider is had Reem the Elder not beaten Randy in Rings we would have had Randy/Nog happening in 2001.

 

[WOLVERINEKILLS]

If a fighter has double digit # of fights that is not early in their career.

 

[newcastleman]

Fedor (3-0) vs Arona (2-0)

 

[eworden78]

It's a weird thing. I dunno if legend applies,for me. Let's just say the other names I brought up are even less applicable,and I found gomi to be disappointing just as it seemed he was ascending to that status.

I when I first started really following MMA in the early 2000's, Gomi was one of the most popular and hyped fighters in the world.
In order of popularity it was roughly:
Fedor, Nog, Wanderlei, Saku, Shogun, Gomi, Hughes, Liddell, B.J., Hendo, Rampage, Tito, Couture

It would be hard to say anyone on that list isn't a legend.

I see your join date supersedes mine, so you must have had a similar experience.

 

[justdangerous]

rashad- bisping

 

[JustOnce]

It's a weird thing. I dunno if legend applies,for me. Let's just say the other names I brought up are even less applicable,and I found gomi to be disappointing just as it seemed he was ascending to that status.

Brain dead right here.

Jim Miller, Joe Lauzon, Clay Guida, Nate Diaz, maybe Floridan too not 100 percent sure on this one, all think Gomi is a legend.

This guy on Sherdog thinks he's not sure. Typical.

 

[HHJ]

I when I first started really following MMA in the early 2000's, Gomi was one of the most popular and hyped fighters in the world.
In order of popularity it was roughly:
Fedor, Nog, Wanderlei, Saku, Shogun, Gomi, Hughes, Liddell, B.J., Hendo, Rampage, Tito, Couture

It would be hard to say anyone on that list isn't a legend.

I see your join date supersedes mine, so you must have had a similar experience.

I felt really let down by him. He was a frontrunner,who just looked exasperated when given a good challenge. The azeredo debacle was one thing,but when nick diaz was beating him he tried to tell the ref to look at Nick's eye in a desperate attempt to get the fight stopped,instead of focusing on trying to fight back and win. He lost two non title fights as champion,and had to be extremely conservative to beat Aurelius in the rematch. All of this brought my esteem down. Then he signs w sengoku instead of dream and I was like man who do they even have there that is worth fighting? All the top 155ers were in dream. Even still he lost a bunch of fights there. So me personally his time was very short and he had a lot of bad qualities that diminished him in my eyes.

 

[HHJ]

Brain dead right here.

Jim Miller, Joe Lauzon, Clay Guida, Nate Diaz, maybe Floridan too not 100 percent sure on this one, all think Gomi is a legend.

This guy on Sherdog thinks he's not sure. Typical.

Tough titty,boys

 

[ayaandirtyboy]

What are the instances you can think of when two fighters fought early in their careers, and both of them became legends and had an amazing success in MMA?

Max Holloway (7-2) vs Conor Mcgregor (13-2)
BJ Penn (5-1-1) vs Takanori Gomi (14-1)
Lyoto Machida (2-0) vs Rich Franklin (14-0)
Vitor Belfort (4-0) vs Randy Couture (2-0)
Vitor (5-1) vs Wanderlei (5-1)
Hendo (7-0) vs Big Nog (6-0)
Nick (8-2) vs Robbie (8-1)
Frankie Edgar (5-0) vs Jim Miller (5-0)
Karo (6-0) vs Sherk (7-0)

Luke Rockhold (7-1) vs Jacare (14-2)
Lombard (7-1) vs Gegard Mousasi(13-2-1)

To a much lesser degree, since Lombard shit the bed when he got to the UFC, and Luke played around against Bisping and then got ktfo and never been the same.

holloway vs poirer

 

[mallen7272]

Jiri v Nemkov will be one from this generation

 

[SaigeVanZant]

CM Punk (0-1) vs Michael Jackson (0-1)

Just wait

 

[milliniar]

Caol Uno (0-0) vs sakurai (0-0)

Also most legends from the early days fought legends early..

 

[Ralph Wiggum]

Big Country and Ben Rothwell in the IFL?

 

[bisquit]

As soon as he won the title his career basically fizzled out like a bad fart.

You heretic.

 

[BushLeague666]

Rampage Jackson (0-0) vs. Mike Pyle (0-0)

That is crazy.

 

[NoStoneUnturned]

This doesn't really fit because of Lytle but Diaz vs Lytle was a very early and interesting fight for Nick. Nick was so young and Lytle was already really tough.

 

[Paolo Delutis]

Hendo (3-0) vs Newton (4-1)
Saku (2-1, 1 NC) vs Newton (4-2)
Hendo (7-0) vs Nog (6-0)
Ken Shamrock (0-0) vs Funaki (0-0)
Royce (1-0) vs Ken Shamrock (4-0)

This is knowledge

 

[Epicman1324]

One of them was early in their career, the other was relatively late, but Forrest Griffin made his MMA debut against Dan Fucking Severn of all people.