Islam's Accomplishments vs. Randall Duane Couture

[mkt]

randy couture followers - 600 000
islam followers - 2 000 000 000

Yeah, I forgot MMA was a social media popularity contest. Silly me.

 

[mkt]

Imo Islam has the ability to stay champion in either division. Randy could never do that.

We'll see. He certainly looked dominant vs. JDM. I think fighters with more competent grappling like Garry and Shavkat will be bigger challenges. And Morales is a wild card at this point. He sure looked like a scary challenge for smaller grapplers against Brady. I seriously doubt he'll dominate Islam like that, but he'd be the biggest guy Islam has faced and probably the hardest puncher.

And at age 34, we'll see if Islam starts showing his age soon or not.

 

[DumpsterBaby]

I tend to kiss the ass of the old guard, but it doesn’t apply here. Randy started in his 30s when the sport was still developing. Granted, what he did at the time was the best anyone could do, but Islam had the advantage of being taught things the guys 2 generations before him were figuring out for him.

Randy beat guys with grit and fitness in a sport full of meatheads. Can’t even compare Randy and Islam on the basis of skill set.

 

[Killer Kadoogan]

randy was always the smaller HW and pulled off the big upsets.

randy fought the bigger people and won.

 

[mkt]

Randy beat guys with grit and fitness in a sport full of meatheads. Can’t even compare Randy and Islam on the basis of skill set.

I disagree. I'm not sure how much NHB/early MMA you actually watched. Skillsets are relative to each era. Randy evolved with the sport. He started with wrestling and a boxing background from the Army. He got submitted a couple of times early on. Then he worked on submission defense and it never happened again.

He and Mark Coleman were about the same age. They fought each other near the end of their careers. Randy dominated and submitted Coleman. It was clear Randy evolved much more than the Hammer House guys like Coleman, Randleman (whom Randy also beat), etc.

Also, Randy was a great gameplanner. He invented dirty boxing to beat a young, roided Belfort who was supposed to be unbeatable. That was incredibly innovative for 1997--more than anything Khabib/Islam have done.

If Randy only relied on "grit," there's no way he'd be beating much bigger, younger fighters like Gonzaga and Tim Sylvia when he was 43/44 years old.

 

[HHJ]

I mean Randy's career is over. Islam got alot of time left, if he wants to hang around, to do more stuff.

 

[HHJ]

I disagree. I'm not sure how much NHB/early MMA you actually watched. Skillsets are relative to each era. Randy evolved with the sport. He started with wrestling and a boxing background from the Army. He got submitted a couple of times early on. Then he worked on submission defense and it never happened again.

He and Mark Coleman were about the same age. They fought each other near the end of their careers. Randy dominated and submitted Coleman. It was clear Randy evolved much more than the Hammer House guys like Coleman, Randleman (whom Randy also beat), etc.

Also, Randy was a great gameplanner. He invented dirty boxing to beat a young, roided Belfort who was supposed to be unbeatable. That was incredibly innovative for 1997--more than anything Khabib/Islam have done.

If Randy only relied on "grit," there's no way he'd be beating much bigger, younger fighters like Gonzaga and Tim Sylvia when he was 43/44 years old.

Good post I agree. His gameplan vs Chuck in the first fight was brilliant.