Is Rich Franklin a TOP 3 UFC MW of all time?

[RockyLockridge]

Franklin is not the equivalent to Hughes, since Hughes actually defeated WWs who were top5 ranked in his era, at that time

Hughes has wins over Newton, Penn and St. Pierre, I'm not sure what rich has that is as valuable comparatively. I agree with you though, Weidman, Rockhold, Yoel, Jacare, Israel, Costa or Cannonier would probably all beat a prime rich pretty convincingly. Rich is a bit of an overachiever the way I see it. I mean that in the nicest possible way. He's the polar opposite of Cain Velasquez, Who I feel much more certain would give any of these current heavy weights trouble. I can't say I feel the same way about rich franklin, but when measuring his accomplishments and not his abilities he has a solid argument for number 3.

 

[OmegaRugal]

Hughes is much better and has a much stronger resume than Franklin .... you’re getting carried away imo

Hughes couldn't beat a chubby LW unless he injured/gassed himself.

two losses to Penn and also two losses to a Hallman really brings into question the quality of Hughes overall.

 

[mirko>anyone]

Anderson silva is by far my favourite..... I openly said Silva was declining during the bonner fight ..... I picked weidman to beat Anderson both times .... Gotta give weidman credit .... for his lack of experience he fought well and it was an extremely posed performance imo ....Weidman deserves big props

TheSpider says

23 yr old GSP loses to Serra = prime GSP taps to strikes lolololol

29 yr old Silva taps - obviously not in his prime

36/37 ye old Silva loses both rounds, torn up in the clinch and on the ground by Weidman = lost due to age/ out of prime. Like Silva never struggled with wrestlers or something. Weidman is a god awful match up for Silva. Him beating Silva isn’t a fluke at all.

All because some stupid poll of 5,000 votes has GSP far far ahead of Silva in the GOAT conversation.

if you want to believe Silva is better, that’s perfectly fine, but he’s generally not regarded as such. (GsP 30+% of the votes, Silva 8% and. 5,000 votes or whatever is a damn good sample size, especially on a site of rabid MMA fans). It doesn’t make it right or wrong, that’s just what the general consensus is.

Regardless, you don’t have to knock one to elevate the other. Both are legends and amongst the greatest fighters ever.

GSP isn’t perfect. He had a couple hiccups early in his career and proceeded to fight conservatively or “safe” thereafter, and therefore never lost again. That style rubs some people The wrong way. It’s understandable.

Silva has multiple losses that aren’t excusable. He wasn’t a great wrestler and A young Weidman took both rounds off him, knocked him out, and while the second fight had a horrific finish, he was winning that too.

I mean, Cro Cop got his ass kicked by Brendan Schaub. You don’t see me unapologetically excusing it. It happened.

 

[Drugstore Cowboy]

He's 8-3 at MW in era full of bums.

Stylebender is, then Whittaker probably.

 

[OmegaRugal]

Hughes has wins over Newton, Penn and St. Pierre, I'm not sure what rich has that is as valuable comparatively. I agree with you though, Weidman, Rockhold, Yoel, Jacare, Israel, Costa or Cannonier would probably all beat a prime rich pretty convincingly. Rich is a bit of an overachiever the way I see it. I mean that in the nicest possible way. He's the polar opposite of Cain Velasquez, Who I feel much more certain would give any of these current heavy weights trouble. I can't say I feel the same way about rich franklin, but when measuring his accomplishments and not his abilities he has a solid argument for number 3.

Using his one BJ Penn win when he is 1-2 vs Penn ... isn't the best argument.

Especially when you look at that one win and he was losing badly and saved by the bell before BJ Penn came out injured or gassed out of his mind in round 3. Anyone could have beaten BJ Penn at that point.

This is even worst when you realize Penn was never a real WW and just got fat to make a higher weight.

 

[Aerosol]

He's 8-3 at MW in era full of bums.

Stylebender is, then Whittaker probably.

Full of bums?
Newbie alert!

 

[Drugstore Cowboy]

Full of bums?
Newbie alert!

Adesanya, Whittaker, Romero and Costa would rule that era with absolute ease.

Romero would probably kill a man.

 

[Sweater of AV]

Yes.

 

[No Skill Gap]

Hughes is much better and has a much stronger resume than Franklin .... you’re getting carried away imo

Maybe I'm not saying my point clear enough because people aren't understanding it. It's simply this:

You can't have one set of criteria for Matt Hughes and another totally different set for Rich Franklin.

Yes undoubtedly Hughes' resume' is better, but he has very weak competition title defenses and didn't run into the guillotine buzzsaw of Anderson Silva as quickly as Franklin did.

So do you guys really think Matt Hughes would beat Jon Fitch or prime Hendricks or Woodley, or Usman, or even Wonderboy/Covington? Because that's exactly what the other guy did comparing Franklin to Weidman/Rockhold, now we're comparing different generations. I mean I guess I'd put Weidman over Franklin in pure resume' but it's close. Rockhold? Zero UFC title defenses, a defense over Keith Jardine lmao? Yeah this is what I'm talking about.

Strikeforce's MW wasn't better than the UFCs. Yes it had some good fighters, but let's not revise history.

The point is, yes obviously Hughes has a better resume' I never denied that, but if we place the same standards we are on Franklin to Hughes, then is Hughes really 2nd best all time at WW? Why? Because he defended the belt against mostly bums and LWs outside of Carlos Newton, who was good at the time but fell off pretty quickly and wasn't even that good. No one calls Carlos Newton an all-time great, he's not.

I just think Franklin is shit on for no reason and underrated at this point. Is is the best talented MW ever? No. But i think he's arguably top 3 all-time especially if we're going to use a consistent, honest "rule set" here, the same one we're using for Hughes apparently.

As of right now Franklin has the 3rd most title defenses in MW title history. Only behind Silva and Weidman. I think he has some good wins and names on his resume' beyond that as well, and he simply ran into Silva. Would I put him 3rd all-time? I'd still probably put Henderson there, and Izzy might take that spot extremely soon, but I think he has a case is all that I'm saying.

 

[pankrat]

Ok you're simply proving my point. Fine let's look at it:

Matt Hughes - GSP*, Carlos Newton?, BJ Penn? Sean Sherk? Frank Trigg? Top 3 is probably: GSP, Newton (x2), BJ Penn.

*23 year old GSP in his 3rd UFC fight, 8th pro fight. Not the same fighter he would become at all.

The issue here is that, 1. I said Hughes has a much more solid and better legacy than Franklin. But 2. Most of his defenses are against bums and LWs, his top 3 wins aren't even good if we put GSP into context and outside of GSP it's basically over LWs and Carlos Newton who was a champion but from a different era much like Nate Quarry for example, was a pretty good win at the time.

Rich Franklin - Evan Tanner (x2), Nate Quarry, Yushin Okami, Travis Lutter coming off a title shot? Wanderlai Silva x2? Washed Chuck Liddell?

Top 3 is probably: Tanner x2, Quarry, Okami. But as you can see the list of names here aren't much worse or are arguably better than Hughes total list, in context. Franklin simply doesn't have the title defenses and reign Hughes did. Hughes lost his title to a fucking LW at one point and has a significant portion of his top wins over LWs such as Sherk and Penn.

If Franklin didn't run into Anderson Silva he could have had a Hughes' esque run. Hence the problem with comparing eras, because it's not purely based on talent and how "good" someone was. Against their peers yes, but the peers aren't created equal.

Was the run of Newton, Sakurai, Newton, Castillo, Sherk (LW), Trigg, then losing to LW BJ Penn really that impessive? In terms of numbers and stats yes it was, among his peers at the time yes it was, but it's tough for me to have confidence in Hughes abilities like I would GSP's or Fedor's or Silva/Jones/Aldo against fighters generations later. It's very plausible to say Hughes would have been destroyed by GSP's generation even if he was in his prime then.

Man you are wrong all over the place, to the point you dont even make sense

- You list Hughes legit wins and you dont even mention Sakurai

- Sakurai, Newton, BJ, Sherk were unanimously top ranked in the division at the time. Tanner, Okami, Loiseau, Quarry were not. Only Tanner and even him was less established than the aforementioned opponents for Hughes

- Wand and Liddell fights werent at MW. Anyways both were past their primes, unlike Hughes best opponents.

UFC was fine with Rick Franklin as an American posterboy, and invested more money for contenders in other divisions. Even Lindland and Bustamante - who would be slight underdogs at best vs Franklin back then - left for more money lol

 

[r-harper-1]

TheSpider says

23 yr old GSP loses to Serra = prime GSP taps to strikes lolololol

29 yr old Silva taps - obviously not in his prime

36/37 ye old Silva loses both rounds, torn up in the clinch and on the ground by Weidman = lost due to age/ out of prime. Like Silva never struggled with wrestlers or something. Weidman is a god awful match up for Silva. Him beating Silva isn’t a fluke at all.

All because some stupid poll of 5,000 votes has GSP far far ahead of Silva in the GOAT conversation.

if you want to believe Silva is better, that’s perfectly fine, but he’s generally not regarded as such. (GsP 30+% of the votes, Silva 8% and. 5,000 votes or whatever is a damn good sample size, especially on a site of rabid MMA fans). It doesn’t make it right or wrong, that’s just what the general consensus is.

Regardless, you don’t have to knock one to elevate the other. Both are legends and amongst the greatest fighters ever.

GSP isn’t perfect. He had a couple hiccups early in his career and proceeded to fight conservatively or “safe” thereafter, and therefore never lost again. That style rubs some people The wrong way. It’s understandable.

Silva has multiple losses that aren’t excusable. He wasn’t a great wrestler and A young Weidman took both rounds off him, knocked him out, and while the second fight had a horrific finish, he was winning that too.

I mean, Cro Cop got his ass kicked by Brendan Schaub. You don’t see me unapologetically excusing it. It happened.

My top 3 p4p in order

jones
Gsp
Anderson

I’m a rare Anderson fanboy that rates gsp higher p4p .... Gsp went years without losing a round ....hard to argue his greatness

 

[Blayt7hh]

I could see the argument. Especially since I thought he kind of got robbed against Hendo and Forrest. A lot of people are saying things like "Luke and Wiedman would beat", and well maybe they would. But they weren't fighting at that level when he was and that's all we can really compare it too. I would say that his resume is stronger than theirs, but it is a really hard question to answer.

 

[mirko>anyone]

My top 3 p4p in order

jones
Gsp
Anderson

I’m a rare Anderson fanboy that rates gsp higher p4p .... Gsp went years without losing a round ....hard to argue his greatness

I agree with that list 100%

Jones is the best fighter to ever fight in the UFC. Some people might disqualify him and Silva for popping, but that aside, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how good Jones was in his prime. Still hate em haha

 

[pankrat]

Maybe I'm not saying my point clear enough because people aren't understanding it. It's simply this:

You can't have one set of criteria for Matt Hughes and another totally different set for Rich Franklin.

Yes undoubtedly Hughes' resume' is better, but he has very weak competition title defenses and didn't run into the guillotine buzzsaw of Anderson Silva as quickly as Franklin did.

So do you guys really think Matt Hughes would beat Jon Fitch or prime Hendricks or Woodley, or Usman, or even Wonderboy/Covington? Because that's exactly what the other guy did comparing Franklin to Weidman/Rockhold, now we're comparing different generations. I mean I guess I'd put Weidman over Franklin in pure resume' but it's close. Rockhold? Zero UFC title defenses, a defense over Keith Jardine lmao? Yeah this is what I'm talking about.

Strikeforce's MW wasn't better than the UFCs. Yes it had some good fighters, but let's not revise history.

The point is, yes obviously Hughes has a better resume' I never denied that, but if we place the same standards we are on Franklin to Hughes, then is Hughes really 2nd best all time at WW? Why? Because he defended the belt against mostly bums and LWs outside of Carlos Newton, who was good at the time but fell off pretty quickly and wasn't even that good. No one calls Carlos Newton an all-time great, he's not.

I just think Franklin is shit on for no reason and underrated at this point. Is is the best talented MW ever? No. But i think he's arguably top 3 all-time especially if we're going to use a consistent, honest "rule set" here, the same one we're using for Hughes apparently.

As of right now Franklin has the 3rd most title defenses in MW title history. Only behind Silva and Weidman. I think he has some good wins and names on his resume' beyond that as well, and he simply ran into Silva. Would I put him 3rd all-time? I'd still probably put Henderson there, and Izzy might take that spot extremely soon, but I think he has a case is all that I'm saying.

Stop comparing Hughes/Franklin with next generations...it's only you who are doing so

Hughes beat top ranked competition in his era. Franklin not that much. Again,in their respective era.

Rockhold or Weidman are better than Franklin not just because they would beat him, but because they were actually the consensus best MW in the world at some point by beating top5 MWs of their respective era, unlike Franklin in his era to such extent.

 

[Blayt7hh]

Let me guess Silva’s prime began the night he beat Tony Fryklund and didn’t end until after he fought Stephan Bonnar?

Heheh yeah, that guy is ridiculous. Being honest though, I actually think Silva started slowing down around 2010. The skill gap between him and the guys he was fighting made it hard to tell though. The guys he was fighting in that period were all around his age too. When he ran into Wiedman though it was the first time in a while that he fought someone who was significantly younger than him, and probably also a bad matchup stylistically. And it showed. Even though people love to point out that the second fight ended in a freak accident (and it did) Chris was whopping his ass anyways.

Of course that is all speculation too. Whether or not Anderson was in his prime, teh Chris was still the first that put an end to that legendary win streak. It is bullshit that people try and write that win off like it doesn't count because Anderson was getting old. Anderson was still fighting and beating top contenders to that point.

 

[Goon Dog]

I loved Rich, but not top 3. Certainly top 10. But it was a different world. Today's guys came up as actual mixed martial artists. Rich was a school teacher who had trained a little TMA (Shotokan) and had wrestled a little. In fact, the rumor was that he learned to fight watching videos in his garage, lol. That wasn't true, but the fact such a story could even gain traction tells you how different things were.

 

[StewDogg11]

Heheh yeah, that guy is ridiculous. Being honest though, I actually think Silva started slowing down around 2010. The skill gap between him and the guys he was fighting made it hard to tell though. The guys he was fighting in that period were all around his age too. When he ran into Wiedman though it was the first time in a while that he fought someone who was significantly younger than him, and probably also a bad matchup stylistically. And it showed. Even though people love to point out that the second fight ended in a freak accident (and it did) Chris was whopping his ass anyways.

Of course that is all speculation too. It's bullshit to try and take that away from Chris. Whether or not Anderson was in his prime, teh Chris was still the first that put an end to that legendary win streak

Exactly people love to point how both fights were flukes but always fail to mention how they shared a cage together for roughly 15 minutes and Weidman won every second.

 

[r-harper-1]

Maybe I'm not saying my point clear enough because people aren't understanding it. It's simply this:

You can't have one set of criteria for Matt Hughes and another totally different set for Rich Franklin.

Yes undoubtedly Hughes' resume' is better, but he has very weak competition title defenses and didn't run into the guillotine buzzsaw of Anderson Silva as quickly as Franklin did.

So do you guys really think Matt Hughes would beat Jon Fitch or prime Hendricks or Woodley, or Usman, or even Wonderboy/Covington? Because that's exactly what the other guy did comparing Franklin to Weidman/Rockhold, now we're comparing different generations. I mean I guess I'd put Weidman over Franklin in pure resume' but it's close. Rockhold? Zero UFC title defenses, a defense over Keith Jardine lmao? Yeah this is what I'm talking about.

Strikeforce's MW wasn't better than the UFCs. Yes it had some good fighters, but let's not revise history.

The point is, yes obviously Hughes has a better resume' I never denied that, but if we place the same standards we are on Franklin to Hughes, then is Hughes really 2nd best all time at WW? Why? Because he defended the belt against mostly bums and LWs outside of Carlos Newton, who was good at the time but fell off pretty quickly and wasn't even that good. No one calls Carlos Newton an all-time great, he's not.

I just think Franklin is shit on for no reason and underrated at this point. Is is the best talented MW ever? No. But i think he's arguably top 3 all-time especially if we're going to use a consistent, honest "rule set" here, the same one we're using for Hughes apparently.

As of right now Franklin has the 3rd most title defenses in MW title history. Only behind Silva and Weidman. I think he has some good wins and names on his resume' beyond that as well, and he simply ran into Silva. Would I put him 3rd all-time? I'd still probably put Henderson there, and Izzy might take that spot extremely soon, but I think he has a case is all that I'm saying.

Rockhold beat Bisping , Jacare and Weidman ....all 3 better than anyone Franklin has beat at mw imo .....

Hughes is better than you think imo

I’ll list his top 10 wins , I realize some weren’t in their prime / best weight etc

1GSp ( 23 but still a beast )
2 Penn( agreed bj beat himself a bit , but Hughes survival was impressive)
3. Sakurai
4. Newton
5 . Trigg
6 . Lytle
7 . Almeida
8 . Royce
9 . Sherk
10. Serra

Franklins top 10 mw wins

1 okami
2 . Tanner
3 . Lutter
4 . Crow
5. Edwin

im struggling with 10 for FrankLin .... these two aren’t comparable at all imo ..... Franklin barely a top 10 mw imo

 

[leatherneck]

hes not top 10

 

[r-harper-1]

Exactly people love to point how both fights were flukes but always fail to mention how they shared a cage together for roughly 15 minutes and Weidman won every second.

Anderson was landing good leg kicks in the first fight