is big Nogueira still the undisputed second greatest heavyweight ever

[Kelman]

for whatever reason back in 2010 that's so called new breed of heavy weights have been a complete disappointment. JDS and Cain Velasquez in my opinion never came close reaching the status of big Nogueira. and don't even hold a candle Fedor Emelianenkos legacy. I'm not saying Cain Velasquez or Junior dos Santos could not have defeated either of these two. they are clearly superior. but in terms of legacy I would still rank fighter like a Ken Shamrock Randy Couture Mark Coleman and I know it's not going to be a popular opinion on here
but Tim Sylvia. ahead of them even though they both held the title I've never felt like either of them will ever the guy. in terms of legacy this may sound a bit unfair. but I honestly believe they would have to do a lot more to surpass Nogs legacy. anyways I drifted way off topic but what do you think of my original question? your opinions are appreciated. and I'd actually like to hear from anybody who thinks nogs legacy already been surpassed.

Championships and achievements
Mixed martial arts

Fighting Network RINGS
2000 RINGS King of Kings Tournament Winner

PRIDE Fighting Championships
Pride Heavyweight Championship (One time, first)
Interim Pride Heavyweight Championship (One time)
2004 PRIDE Heavyweight Grand Prix Runner-Up
2006 PRIDE Heavyweight Grand Prix Semi-Finalist
Tied with Kazushi Sakuraba for the most submission wins (11) in Pride FC history

Ultimate Fighting Championship
Interim UFC Heavyweight Championship (One time)
Fight of the Night (Two times)
Knockout of the Night (One time)
Submission of the Night (One time)
World Extreme Fighting
WEF Heavyweight Superfight Champion (One Time)

Sherdog
Mixed Martial Arts Hall of Fame

Wrestling Observer Newsletter
2002 Fighter of the Year

Black Belt Magazine
2002 NHB Fighter of the Year

MMAFighting
2003 Fight of the Year vs. Mirko Filipović on November 9

Inside Fights
2009 Fight of the Year

 

[wilKO]

His peak Elo rating is actually higher than Nog's (Fedor, Werdum, Cain, Nog is the top four). And that doesn't take into account the manner of his wins--incredibly one-sided beatdowns of JDS, Rothwell, Nog, Bigfoot and Lesnar, plus a really impressive offensive performance against Kongo. So his objective record is near the top, my impression of how good he is is near the top, and his margin of victory is near the top (between him and Fedor, probably). What else do you want? He has a couple of losses, but neither really hurts him that much because they were both great opponents, and one of them was kind of fluky.

Just out of curiosity where does JDS rank? Because he has slightly better and more wins and has obliterated almost everyone too. He is 1-2 with Cain though.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Just out of curiosity where does JDS rank? Because he has slightly better and more wins and has obliterated almost everyone too. He is 1-2 with Cain though.

JDS is right behind Cain and Nog for me. Right ahead of Barnett and CroCop.

 

[Garnett Silk]

Josh Barnett criminally underrated in this thread, i always had him as one of the very best heavyweights i had ever seen. His catch wrestling was fantastic and he was a very good striker.

I'm a Barnett fanboy....him pissing hot 3 times, ducking Fedor many times, and losing to Mirko 3x (not as bad as the first two points I made but still a major blemish.... will always be held against him)

 

[JudoThrowFiasco]

As of now he's probably 3rd with Cain and JDS on the way of surpassing him.

 

[Garnett Silk]

Probably because 2 fights dont cover an entire career. Is Hallman>Hughes? is Edgar>Penn? is Bendo>Edgar? Hendo>Shgoun at LHW, and so on and so on. In any of those cases you cant make a case for the winner being higher then the loser all time in a respective division.

Nog was the clear #2 Hw and at a certain point #1 for a period of 8 years. No other HW can make that claim aside for Fedor. If you look at this run at that point he pretty much beat every HW of his era aside Fedor. Cro Cop, Barnett, Herring, Randy, Tim, Ricco (dont give me this bad decision BS) Sergei, Werdum.

Anyone who places Mir over Nog is either is purposely doing so to shit on him, or has no clue what they are talking about. You have one fighter with 2 titles from the top two organizations, twice as many total wins and 3 times the top 10 wins. Not only that Nog lost to pretty much only top fighters, every loss he had was top 5 or 10 aside from Struve. Mir was beaten by average HW's like Vera, Freeman and Cruz. The only thing Mir has on him are the two wins, but again refer to the the first point I made.

As for Werdum, he never came close to being a #2 all time HW and up until last year wasnt even considered to be top 5 all time. 2 wins over Hunt and Cain dont get him over Nog. LIke I said earlier, Werdum has never had a period where he was the #1 or #2 Hw in the world for a good period of time. He just got that position now and he has to be in that position for a while. He has to prove he's the best or 2nd best HW of an era....in this case beat JDS, Arlovski, and another 1-2 guys, because at this point I dont think its clear Werdum can beat those guys.

Mir didnt just squeak by him with 2 narrow split decisions. He brutally finished him both times. So Nog wasn't out of prime when he beat Couture? If we are going to give him credit for beating Randy (as well we should) him losing to Cain,Werdum, Mir, Mir, hell even Nelson should all count as well. Staying in the game long enough to add to your resume is fine...but losing and poor performances (Nog vs Herring 3) simply cannot be ignored. Yes there was a time when Nog was the number 2 Pride HW in the world. But in examining his career as a whole....his UFC run HAS to knock him off the pedestal of being #2 of all time.

 

[Kelman]

Mir didnt just squeak by him with 2 narrow split decisions. He brutally finished him both times. So Nog wasn't out of prime when he beat Couture? If we are going to give him credit for beating Randy (as well we should) him losing to Cain,Werdum, Mir, Mir, hell even Nelson should all count as well. Staying in the game long enough to add to your resume is fine...but losing and poor performances (Nog vs Herring 3) simply cannot be ignored. Yes there was a time when Nog was the number 2 Pride HW in the world. But in examining his career as a whole....his UFC run HAS to knock him off the pedestal of being #2 of all time.

If you actually watched Nogueira fight throughout his career, you'd know he was pretty much a shot fighter by the time he fought Sylvia in Feb '08. He'd been on a gradual decline since about 2004, but it was only by '07/'08 that his performances hit a low and never ever recovered. The difference between Nogueira of 2001-2004 and Nogueira of 2007 onwards is very clear.

As I said earlier, Nogueira is the Roy Jones of MMA. Roy Jones gave us the warning shot of the 1st Tarver fight that he was seriously on the slide, and then after the rematch loss, his career never recovered. The old Roy was gone. Similar situation with Nog. He didn't look right in the Herring fight in the UFC, then performed poorly vs the inferior Sylvia, and then never ever looked like himself again.


Pre-Sylvia, Nog beat:

Crocop, Barnett, Werdum, Kharitonov, Rodriguez

Post-Sylvia, Nog beat:

Dave Herman, Schaub, ancient Randy


I mean, come on. The guy got old. I don't rank Roy Jones below B-Hop just because Roy fought on too long and got smashed by guys he would've embarrassed in his prime, and I apply the same standards to Nog and the rest of the MMA world. If Jon Jones fights on till he is 40 and starts to get beat up by C-level fighters in his later years, it's never going to change how good he was in his prime or what he did at his peak, and that's what really matters.

 

[K1MMA]

He's still 2nd best in my book.

 

[moreorless87]

Mir didnt just squeak by him with 2 narrow split decisions. He brutally finished him both times. So Nog wasn't out of prime when he beat Couture? If we are going to give him credit for beating Randy (as well we should) him losing to Cain,Werdum, Mir, Mir, hell even Nelson should all count as well. Staying in the game long enough to add to your resume is fine...but losing and poor performances (Nog vs Herring 3) simply cannot be ignored. Yes there was a time when Nog was the number 2 Pride HW in the world. But in examining his career as a whole....his UFC run HAS to knock him off the pedestal of being #2 of all time.

Both were out of there prime although I'd say Nog via more, he beat Randy via out chinning him and still being better on the mat but Randy lands on him WAY too easily.

This is the big shift in the sport that the UFC has indoctrinated people to ignore. Back in the Pride era(both in Pride and the UFC) results were much more "honest" because there were far fewer older big names on the decline and generally the previous generation wasn't held in as high regard as the sport was still evolving fast. In the UFC post pride though we've had loads of highly rated big names clearly on the decline that the UFC have tried to push as being at their peak to hype current talent. Just listing "names" worked in the past but doesn't work today for this reason, way too many of them were burnt out.

That's why the era of Mir, Brock and Carwin was a bust, it was always built on dodgy ground as it got almost all of its rankings from an aged Nog and Randy NOT from a broad base of results.

 

[steny]

Werdum close but still got him on the 2nd place.

 

[moreorless87]

Nog for me is quite unique in MMA is that he's really the only potential GOAT contender who ran into another GOAT contender in his prime years.

If say Nog beats Fedor twice rather than the reverse I think he's very clearly the GOAT to a greater degree than Fedor is today. Even with the loses to Fedor I would still personally have him in the top 5 of the GOAT list with a good case for being above Anderson.

 

[moreorless87]

Werdum close but still got him on the 2nd place.

I think he's still at least 2-3 wins away, most obviously avenging his loses to Arlovski and Overeem.

 

[MCS]

Werdum's been closing the gap, he's got the best wins at HW ever, imo, but as a whole Nog is still at #2, behind Fedor.

"As a whole": Nog was the Pride champ, Interim UFC champ and the Rings tourney winner, former #1 p4p and was a ranked HW for close to 15 years. While in accolades comparison Werdum beat the lineal HW champ twice and has won 2 UFC title fights. He's been a ranked HW for about 8 years.

 

[SherdogGoat]

Werdum > Nog. Nog comes in 3rd imo.

 

[joest]

Reem? LOL

But Werdum is a legit contender, yea? Do me a favor and watch the last Reem Werdum fight. Werdum should have been banned from performing the sport in public permanently after that performance.

You know who I thought was pretty badass in his day. Sergej K. He should be up there.

 

[ShinkanPo]

Big Nog is still the 2nd greatest Heavy of all time.

the Fedor match is insane he is bleeding even from his ears.

 

[savemgs]

I asked Jordan Breen and this is what i got back lol.

Jordan Breen <[email protected]> wrote:
I'd take Werdum at this point in time, but that's fine, cause Nogueira is still a baller.

-j

 

[Taric]

Fedor - #1 HW of all time

#1 fighters defeated (1):
Nogueira 1
Top 5 fighters defeated (5):
Nogueira 3
Cro Cop
Arlovski
Sylvia
Herring
Top 10 fighters defeated (6):
Coleman 1
Hunt
Randleman
Schilt
Rogers
Fujita


Nogueira - #2 HW of all time

#1 fighters defeated (1):
Coleman
Top 5 fighters defeated (5):
Cro Cop
Sylvia
Herring 1
Barnett 2
Rodriguez
Top 10 fighters defeated (7):
Couture
Werdum
Herring 2
Kharitonov
Schaub
Schilt
Overeem


Werdum - #3 HW of all time

#1 fighters defeated (2):
Fedor
Velasquez
Top 5 fighters defeated (2):
Hunt
Browne
Top 10 fighters defeated (6):
Overeem
Gonzaga
Nelson
Alexander Emelianenko
Russow
Erikson


Happy to help.

 

[Taric]

Anyone that thinks Cain is anywhere close to those 3 is insane.

 

[Garnett Silk]

If you actually watched Nogueira fight throughout his career, you'd know he was pretty much a shot fighter by the time he fought Sylvia in Feb '08. He'd been on a gradual decline since about 2004, but it was only by '07/'08 that his performances hit a low and never ever recovered. The difference between Nogueira of 2001-2004 and Nogueira of 2007 onwards is very clear.

As I said earlier, Nogueira is the Roy Jones of MMA. Roy Jones gave us the warning shot of the 1st Tarver fight that he was seriously on the slide, and then after the rematch loss, his career never recovered. The old Roy was gone. Similar situation with Nog. He didn't look right in the Herring fight in the UFC, then performed poorly vs the inferior Sylvia, and then never ever looked like himself again.


Pre-Sylvia, Nog beat:

Crocop, Barnett, Werdum, Kharitonov, Rodriguez

Post-Sylvia, Nog beat:

Dave Herman, Schaub, ancient Randy


I mean, come on. The guy got old. I don't rank Roy Jones below B-Hop just because Roy fought on too long and got smashed by guys he would've embarrassed in his prime, and I apply the same standards to Nog and the rest of the MMA world. If Jon Jones fights on till he is 40 and starts to get beat up by C-level fighters in his later years, it's never going to change how good he was in his prime or what he did at his peak, and that's what really matters.

I've been watching Nog since he beat Overeem in Rings to him losing to Struve in the UFC. He is warrior/legend, etc. When looking at his entire career and factoring all his wins and losses he cannot be called the 2nd greatest HW of all time. Had he retired after beating Barnett (his last great fight imho) then the argument could be made. But we cannot simply ignore or forget his UFC run because he was "past his prime" and yes Roy Jones getting KOed by Glen Johnson, Tarver, embarrassed and beaten on by Calzaghe, BHop, and a whole slew of others tarnishes his career. We can't have it both ways.....if you are going to stay on to add to your career and you lose....that should knock you back a few pegs....