Is Overeem the best Fighter who never won the UFC Title?

Fedorgasm said:
Yeah I'd change Alistair's designation to be best fighter to never hold a major MMA title. That way it covers both Pride and UFC.

He's been very good for such a long time that is hard to believe, although he did take off a number of years to focus on kickboxing so he perhaps would've won a title if he stuck with MMA.

He's certainly better than a lot of guys that held titles before, like Arlovski, Lesnar, Mir, etc
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If Overeem had the granite chin of Hendo, everyone would’ve been guaranteed fucked.
 
Joeseph Benavidez feels like he needs more love in this thread.
 
NoSmilez said:
Overeem is a different animal without steroids. He was running away from after fight testing and getting flagged abnormal T/E ratio before USADA. USADA pretty much killed his career.
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Name me one fighter who has looked better without being on the sauce? It’s makes a shit fighter decent, a decent fighter good, a good fighter great, and a great fighter
 
It’s a debate between Reem, Hendo, Colby (subject to change) and Poirier imo. Honourable mentions: Nick Diaz, Romero and Gegard.
 
-Sideways- said:
He beat Okami, Marquardt, Shogun, and Bisping. And of course, was close to beating Anderson Silva who was considered untouchable.
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No doubt. His blanket style was strong and that which cause some real problems. Shogun is my boy, but he straight panicked when Chael took him down.

Chael has a solid enough record on paper, but when actually watching him fight... yeah, mediocre for the UFC.
 
Black Blood said:
No doubt. His blanket style was strong and that which cause some real problems. Shogun is my boy, but he straight panicked when Chael took him down.

Chael has a solid enough record on paper, but when actually watching him fight... yeah, mediocre for the UFC.
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maiasonnenthrow.gif


Demian Deserve more Love he made Sonnen his bitch, One of the best jiu jitsu in UFC story no one sub him and he is God Tier in the Ground.
 
Liverkick-king56 said:
With the way Mousasi got dominated by Machida and Jacare I feel like he was just never at that championship level and his highest level win (Weidman) was a clearly out of prime Weidman. Mousasi reminds me of Cerrone where he was a great and elite fighter but not quite championship material with a championship opponent level win.

Where as guys like Overeem (less proof due to PEDS), Joe-B, Faber were without a doubt able to beat every single fighter outside the champ at their peaks and even gave the champions hell in their title shots.
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I think a lot of it has to do with timing and the state of the division. There are fighters that were very elite like Dustin Poirier who were never champ because the division was tougher at the time or whomever was champ. Then you get a guy like Anthony Pettis who's 7-7 at LW in the UFC but yet he was able to win the title. Same with Eddie Alverez, I am a big Eddie fan and think he's one the best LWs of all time, but Poirier was the better fighter. I think if Gegard was in the UFC at different times he'd have a better shot at the title.
 
Donnybat said:
Name me one fighter who has looked better without being on the sauce? It’s makes a shit fighter decent, a decent fighter good, a good fighter great, and a great fighter
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Where did I say steroids didn’t make fighters better? I just mentioned that testing crippled Overeem. His whole fighting style changed once he was tested.

If you want to me to wildly guess. I would say Sean O’Malley. He got flagged for Ostarine in his career. Assuming he is totally clean now then I would say he is better fighter now.
 
Blayt7hh said:
Nelson was in the top ten for a while and Frank Mir was a 2x champion. I would definitely say they count for a lot on someone’s record
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Roy Nelson was 1-3 going into that fight (including a stoppage loss) and flunked out of the UFC shortly and nearly went winless for the rest of his career. Hardly the same level of quality win as it was for JDS 5 years earlier when Roy was actually a contender.

Mir was riding a 3 fight losing streak and had suffered 7 (T)KO losses up to that point and Reem blanketed him for one of the most lackluster decisions ever.

Context matters. Is Chael Sonnen a top 10 all time fighter because he beat Wanderlei Silva, Rampage, Shogun, Bisping, Okami, etc? Reem has enough quality wins... adding random names to the list to try to make his resume look better has the opposite effect. Hongman Choi was a K1 champ as well but you wouldn't exactly put him on Fedor's list of best wins lol
 
JKS said:
I think a lot of it has to do with timing and the state of the division. There are fighters that were very elite like Dustin Poirier who were never champ because the division was tougher at the time or whomever was champ. Then you get a guy like Anthony Pettis who's 7-7 at LW in the UFC but yet he was able to win the title. Same with Eddie Alverez, I am a big Eddie fan and think he's one the best LWs of all time, but Poirier was the better fighter. I think if Gegard was in the UFC at different times he'd have a better shot at the title.
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I feel like Mousasi being compared to Eddie is insanely accurate but outside of the Bisping matchup it's hard seeing Moose have much success defending the wrestling of prime Weidman and Rockhold or having success with the footwork, and striking of Izzy, Silva and Whittaker.


Even the Bisping match is iffy due to the style Mousasi has. If he isn't easily finishing his opponents he sits behind a slower pace and Bisping has a great volume style to give Moose fits on paper.
 
Liverkick-king56 said:
I feel like Mousasi being compared to Eddie is insanely accurate but outside of the Bisping matchup it's hard seeing Moose have much success defending the wrestling of prime Weidman and Rockhold or having success with the footwork, and striking of Izzy, Silva and Whittaker.


Even the Bisping match is iffy due to the style Mousasi has. If he isn't easily finishing his opponents he sits behind a slower pace and Bisping has a great volume style to give Moose fits on paper.
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I would personally favor Mousasi over Bisping, Whittaker or Rockhold. I think his boxing was excellent and those would primarily be stand up fights. Even a fight with Izzy would be very competitive. And Bisping is another guy who was champ at the right time.
 
IloveTHIS said:
Gegard IMHO

His UFC run was admittedly not great for his true skill level but there's no doubt he could have been champ with one or two slightly different matchup
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Liverkick-king56 said:
With the way Mousasi got dominated by Machida and Jacare I feel like he was just never at that championship level and his highest level win (Weidman) was a clearly out of prime Weidman. Mousasi reminds me of Cerrone where he was a great and elite fighter but not quite championship material with a championship opponent level win.

Where as guys like Overeem (less proof due to PEDS), Joe-B, Faber were without a doubt able to beat every single fighter outside the champ at their peaks and even gave the champions hell in their title shots.
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BigOlJeet said:
Gegard is overrated, I think people just like saying the word Mousasi.
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Mousasi is one of the most wildly overrated fighters in history and one of the greatest examples of the "you don't know him but trust me, he's good" indie darlings. I am a fan of the guy too but come one... there's a decent amount of people who rank him in the top 3 MWs of all time ffs and that is just ludicrous.

When Anderson looked undefeatable during his reign, absolutely any MW fighter outside the UFC immediately got hyped to the moon as some sort of "pending threat" despite the fact that they were all just feasting on cans for years. Denis Kang, Hector Lombard, Alexander Shlemenko, and Mousasi were all GOAT candidates apparently :rolleyes: despite completely getting exposed when their level of competition went up.

Prime Shlemenko lost to an ancient Tito Ortiz by submission FFS. Mousasi definitely faired the best out of all of these guys but he was still an extremely flawed fighter with a clear ceiling.

People love "foreign underground" fighters and they love strikers with "an active guard" because wrestlers were so dominant in mma (back when the sport actually paid well enough to attract them) that people rooted for alternatives but jesus ANY competent wrestler with submission defense absolutely handled Mousasi even in his prime. He got taken down repeatedly in his prime by non-wrestler and UFC castoff Keith Jardine (who has one of the worst chins in history) and couldn't even put him away. Case closed.

As we've seen with Khabib, people will completely gloss over the actual quality of competition someone faced if they have a gaudy record and interesting persona to get behind but unfortunately, Mousasi falls into this category of overhyped record-padder. I always enjoyed watching the guy fight and he as an individual is very humble but his fans are typically obnoxious/delusional. Objectively, his resume is not top 5 MW material (belt or not, it's a prop) and he is far from the greatest fighter to not win the UFC belt.
 
A candidate for sure. Considering his wins, if the timing was a little different he could’ve won the belt too.
 
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