Is GSP the only GOAT candidate without an Iron chin?

Gsp is the only goat to turn into a point fighter after nearly getting killed in the cage. By a undersized fighter. That much is a undeniable fact. Gsp turned into nyquil after that fight. Best sleeo aid ever.

Only one of the goats has a finish in his last fight. Against a champion on top of that.
 
GSP has the weakest chin out of the GOATs and was the only one to get KOd by an undersized fighter in his prime
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Also out of all the goats. Gsp is the most boring... goats finish fights. Not hold u down for 5 rounds.

Interesting. The fact GSP has more finishes (14) than decisions wins (12)
 
Having a great chin doesn't mean literal chin, it means their ability to absorb hard strikes to the head. Meaning they can take strikes that would KO other fighters.

Interesting take.
 
I don't remember him eating bombs in those fights. Got GIF's? I remember him being wobbled by a straight punch from Cro Cop though (or maybe caught off balance).

I'm not saying he had a glass chin in his prime, but your chin isn't either made of glass or of iron. Fedor simply didn't get hit a lot in his prime.
I have no gifs bruh, sorry.
But I remember the Semmy knee was in the first 10 seconds of the fight
 
Even if that's the case, having such a legendary title reign WITHOUT an iron chin is a compliment to GSP's skillset.
 
If he didn't have extreme heart he'd have quit after being hospitalized by Penn after their first fight. Or after being choked out by Hughes. Or finished by Serra. Or knocked down by Condit. Or wouldn't have come back to win the last round against Hendricks. Talk to any coach of any contact sport, they'll tell you most people quit long before they even get to that point.

More to the point, no one without a lot of heart goes anywhere in professional sport. You lose to everyone when you first start playing a sport, you get battered around in practice and in games. You have to sacrifice constantly, work out when you don't feel like it, accept losses and move through them. Most people give up long before they get to that point.

Anderson tapped in his physical prime, as GSP did. Fedor tapped later on, but still tapped. If not going out on your shield is a sign of lack of heart, then Jones is the only one who qualifies. And Jones was caught using PED's, which is hardly a sign of having heart (ie in believing you can win without them). The reality is though that they all had far more heart than 99% of the population. Most people quit long before they make it to professional ranks in any sport, because they lack the heart to train that hard and on days when they'd rather be relaxing, to work through all the bad days of training when everything goes wrong.

There's a lot of criticisms you can make about GSP or any pro athlete, but not having extreme heart simply doesn't apply. People with average heart simply don't get far enough that you'd have heard of them.
You are comparing 2 different things. You are comparing discipline in training vs heart in a fight. Plus you forget to mention the politics involved in fighting/gyms/management/promotions, plus the low/no pay that makes upcoming fighters not fully dedicated their time starting out, especially if they have bills to pay. Also easier to get fights if you are viewed as an easy win/winnable fight, compared to tougher fighters that other fighters/coaches duck. Gyms like fighters that they groomed over the years that can represent their style and gym, or an already established fighter they can get a percentage of their fight pay. Lots of skilled fighters get lost in the shuffle because of all these issues.

The focus is heart in a fight. You are talking about something unrelated to that.
 
Lol Fedor an iron chin? In your dreams.

He had heart and good defense, but a chin no. When he did get hit good his legs turned to jello or he got ktfo.

GSP had a better chin.

I'd argue Fedor started out with an iron chin but he fought 8 times per year sometimes and plus he got old.
 
Rut Roh... 5 pages of insults, justifications, rationalization, white knighting, and strait venom laced hate incoming... can’t you just let sleeping dogs lay TS or are you just in an argumentative mood?
Ye threads about any of the GOATs are usually a fuckfest, but there’s always some people that are down to just talk and shit
 
He has an extremely weak chin, and also lacks heart
 
You do know Fedor got knocked out by Dan Henderson, a 185 pound fighter that moved up right?
Yeah, it’s not like Hendo isn’t one of the p4p hardest hitters ever or anything. Gsp didn’t have a bad chin or anything, but yeah I’d say weakest out of the greats. That’s no knock on GSP either. More of a testament to skills than anything.
 
Interesting take.
I originally heard it discussed like this from boxing. Boxers work their chin by working out their neck, not their actual chin. Most power strikes hit the temple, cheekbone, forehead, nose, ear, behind the ear, jaw, and chin. The same can be said in mma.
 
GSP certainly didnt lack for motivation outside of the cage I'd agree, probably a case for the most professional and well preped fighter in MMA history.

In terms of being put in bad positions and being able to work though them effectively thoguh I would say you could question is he as good as some of these other names? I mean he'd not poor by any means, something like the kick Condit landed comes to mind but the difference betwee GSP/Serra and Fedor/Fujita does come to mind.

I think his inability to recover from Hughes' choke and Serra's GNP (the only two cases where he tapped -- ie gave up) have more to do with not knowing what to do than lack of heart. If it was lack of heart then Condit's kick (which was probably at least as hard as Serra's punch) should have made him quit. And if it was lack of heart he wouldn't have been able to come back against Hendricks and win the last round -- it'd have been much easier for him to simply quit at that point than to dig deep and find a way to win the round (I think he still should have lost the decision 48-47, but I'd say he definitely won the last round).

Fedor famously trained for being rocked by turning in circles until he got dizzy and then threw punches. I doubt GSP did anything like that -- a gap in his training. Same for tapping out to Hughes instead of finding an escape, I'd argue that was more lack of technique than lack of heart -- I'd have to look at it again, but at the time I didn't see any obvious escape techniques he missed. For that matter, Fedor and Anderson have both tapped when they couldn't find an escape.
 
Gsp doesnt even have confidence in his own chin lmao. But gsp nutthuggers do.
 
Fedor's shoulders absorbed most of the impact. You are clueless.
That's not true, and even if it is getting supplexed and finishing the fight half a minute later still requires a granite chin. I just watched the replay and his head hit the floor first, so ur the clueless one
 
You are comparing 2 different things. You are comparing discipline in training vs heart in a fight. Plus you forget to mention the politics involved in fighting/gyms/management/promotions, plus the low/no pay that makes upcoming fighters not fully dedicated their time starting out, especially if they have bills to pay. Also easier to get fights if you are viewed as an easy win/winnable fight, compared to tougher fighters that other fighters/coaches duck. Gyms like fighters that they groomed over the years that can represent their style and gym, or an already established fighter they can get a percentage of their fight pay. Lots of skilled fighters get lost in the shuffle because of all these issues.

The focus is heart in a fight. You are talking about something unrelated to that.

I agree the pay difference between low and high level fighters is important, but GSP started out being low paid too, but kept at it. In fact that's true for almost every fighter who becomes a champ (the exceptions being Brock and Rousey, who the UFC wanted from day one).

I don't think you can divide heart between taking punishment in training vs taking punishment in an actual fight the way you do. It feels the same in both cases. Its possible that GSP quite as soon as things got rough in sparring, but I very much doubt it -- he was too successful in the cage for that.

Moreover, he kept going through some pretty rough handling in the cage. He was hospitalized after the first Penn fight (GSP skipped the press conference to go straight to the hospital, something Hendricks didn't come close to doing to him). He was hit as least as hard by Condit'd kick as by Serra's punch, but held on (I suspect because his camp taught him what to do in that situation after the Serra fight). He came back against Hendricks in the last round (I think he still should have lost 48-47 but he definitely won the last round) when a quitter would have just packed it in (either just running away the whole round or even quitting on the stool) instead of digging deep to find a way to win the round. How about continuing the fight against Shields despite losing vision to eye-pokes? Why not just quit at that point, like 99% of us would have done? As tough as most Sherdog posters are, I don't see most of us wanting to fight Shields when we couldn't see much of what was happening.

GSP did quit twice, against Hughes and against Serra. I suspect both were because he didn't know what to do. There's probably an escape to Hughes' choke (I don't remember off hand) that he missed, but I suspect he didn't know it. Same for blacking out from Serra's punches, there are things he could have done (and later did to against Condit), but he probably didn't know. Its the same for Fedor and Anderson tapping out -- sometimes you don't know how to escape. Did they lack heart as well?
 
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