Is Bas Rutten them most underrated GOAT candidate ever?

Barteh

Barteh

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He was a UFC Heavyweight Champion, a three-time King of Pancrase world champion, and finished his career on a 22 fight unbeaten streak (21 wins, 1 draw). FightMetric wrote this when Rutten got inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame: "FightMetric, the official statistics provider for the UFC, ran the numbers on Rutten's career. They back up the Dutchman's inclusion into the UFC Hall of Fame and then some. In the 4-hours, 27-minutes and 8-seconds he spent as a pro fighter, Rutten scored 13 knockdowns without getting dropped himself, his significant strike accuracy was 70.6%, the highest FightMetric has ever recorded, attempted a record 53 submissions and successfully swept his opponents a record 46 times.

- Heavyweight
- 22 fight unbeaten streak to end his career
- Title holder in multiple organisations
- Record striking accuracy
- Record amount of submission attempts
- Record amount of sweeps

Yet he's not even listed on most top 10 HW GOAT lists. I personally think Fedor is the HW GOAT and Werdum is a good second. But Rutten is definitely a good candidate to complete the top 3. Do people just forget about him because he's from a different era or do people actuall think his accomplishments aren't top tier?
 
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2004 account said:
He doesn't qualify imo due to not fighting enough under somewhat contemporary rules. The majority of his fights didn't allow punches to the head of a grounded opponent. That ain't the same sport.
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The rules have definitely changed a lot but in essence it was still the same sport. A mix of striking and grappling. As an amazing striker he was actually handicapped by the Pancrase rules yet he still made it work.

josh345 said:
He shouldn’t have won the randleman fight though
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He did more damage from the bottom than Randleman did from the top.
 
Bas a GOAT?

Ken Shamrock has more of a claim to that than Bas if that answers your question.

Also Randleman beat him.
 
I think fighters from his era are not really looked at in today's talk of GOAT. He was great though. Probably could be in goat talk for last millennium. That being said....Rickson by arm bar!
 
I think he had the potential to be an atg. He retired pretty early. I think he could've gone a lot further than he did, but we'll never know just how good he was. He certainly seemed to have all the intangibles you need to be a great fighter.
 
Bas did not compete after 1999, that explains why he is forgotten.
But he was a great striker (as a NHB guy) and he developped a nice sub game at the time.
He is no homo sapiens sapiens when it comes to MMA but he is definetly a link in the evolution of the fight game.
Fedor, Cain, Stipe, Dc, Crocop, Nog, Mir, DC, Werdum, Alistair, Barnett, Igor, Coleman...Bas is among them for sure.
 
He was a well rounded fighter in an era of one trick pony specialists.

That put him ahead of them competition of his time and establishes him as an innovator. He had the big personality and marketability, which he parlayed into commentating, sports casting and acting.

He was a big star in a “big fish In a little pond” kind of way.

He was also a LHW (MW by current standards) fighting mostly HWs, and openweight Matches, due to the era he fought in. It was a time where talent was scattered around the world and no one had really established dominance.


Honestly I think he is pretty appropriately rated. Arguably best of his time, with all that goes with that.
 
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amok attitude said:
Bas did not compete after 1999, that explains why he is forgotten.
But he was a great striker (as a NHB guy) and he developped a nice sub game at the time.
He is no homo sapiens sapiens when it comes to MMA but he is definetly a link in the evolution of the fight game.
Fedor, Cain, Stipe, Dc, Crocop, Nog, Mir, DC, Werdum, Alistair, Barnett, Igor, Coleman...Bas is among them for sure.
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Sorry man, most all those dudes you named are way out of Bas’s league(Except Coleman).

Bas is amongst the Ken Shamrock, Royce Grace, Maurice Smith category if not slightly below.

Prime Fedor or Mirko would have Zulu’d him.
 
More of a pioneer IMO. He retired right around the time the well-rounded fighters started taking over.
 
LilNicky95 said:
Sorry man, most all those dudes you named are way out of Bas’s league(Except Coleman).

Bas is amongst the Ken Shamrock, Royce Grace, Maurice Smith category if not slightly below.

Prime Fedor or Mirko would have Zulu’d him.
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To me, he is at the beginning of the chain of the guys i named.
But he is not as one dimensional as the guys you named (ken its another story) cause he did rethink his game at one point of his career.
 
amok attitude said:
To me, he is at the beginning of the chain of the guys i named.
But he is not as one dimensional as the guys you named (ken its another story) cause he did rethink his game at one point of his career.
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Bas is likable so I get people trying to pump him up but if anything, like one of the other posters said earlier, he is overrated.
 
LilNicky95 said:
Bas is likable so I get people trying to pump him up but if anything, like one of the other posters said earlier, he is overrated.
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It depends what you judge and when you judge him. But to each his opinion.
Sure you put 97 Bas against Stipe 2020, our old dutch friend would have a tough task in front of him.
 
He quit at his peak, so it's hard to know how much more he could have done, or when he might have started declining. He had half of a career, or 2/3 maybe.

Imagine if Khabib retired now, where would he rank?
 
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