I figured I'd see if anyone would be willing to get in on this. Let's look at his legacy in the fight game thus far.
In terms of mastering grappling, kixkboxing, Jiu Jitsu and MMA movement, and blending these aspects together, he set new standards that we never really saw before. Jon Jones, Fedor, Anderson, GSP, as phenomenal as they all were, Mighty Mouse was in certain unique ways able to help MMA progress in ways even they weren't able to.
It's true that the FlyW division is not exactly LW or WW in terms of pure depth but the contenders he steamrolled were not tomato cans in the slightest. Benavidez, Cejudo in the first fight, Dodson in the 2nd fight, Horiguchi, Tim Elliot, all of them were great fighters in their own right and he put on near magical performances against each of them. The suplex transition into an armbar, the sheer speed of his Muay Thai strikes, how well he fought in the clinch, all stuff we never really saw from any other fighter.
In his most recent title loss we saw what happened when he took on one of the few Olympic gold medalists in MMA who was properly equipped over a sufficient period of time to enter the UFC. MMA is always going to heavily favor great wrestlers; in MMA, due to its judging and scoring, if your wrestling is strong enough, it gives you the ability to dictate the pace and direction of the fight even when the opponent is significantly better on other areas. Being an Olympic level wrestler will make your standup game inherently more dangerous as well since opponents will always have to contend with both simultaneously. Cormier was also able to use this to achieve similar success. And as awesome as his wrestling displays have been, he was an also ran at the Olympics while Cejudo was a gold medalist. And even with the most obscene advantage possible going into his MMA training, Mighty Mouse still took him to a SD win after having had the best possible preparation he could get. his insistence on cleaning out FlyW division this thoroughly before being willing to take on superfights with BW guys may have tarnished his legacy to some degree but it's still set in stone and it's still one of the biggest ones we've seen.
MM is at this point quite possibly in the top 10 all time fighters, for sure in the top 15, in terms of just how massive an impact he made and how drastically he raised the standards and changed the game.
In terms of mastering grappling, kixkboxing, Jiu Jitsu and MMA movement, and blending these aspects together, he set new standards that we never really saw before. Jon Jones, Fedor, Anderson, GSP, as phenomenal as they all were, Mighty Mouse was in certain unique ways able to help MMA progress in ways even they weren't able to.
It's true that the FlyW division is not exactly LW or WW in terms of pure depth but the contenders he steamrolled were not tomato cans in the slightest. Benavidez, Cejudo in the first fight, Dodson in the 2nd fight, Horiguchi, Tim Elliot, all of them were great fighters in their own right and he put on near magical performances against each of them. The suplex transition into an armbar, the sheer speed of his Muay Thai strikes, how well he fought in the clinch, all stuff we never really saw from any other fighter.
In his most recent title loss we saw what happened when he took on one of the few Olympic gold medalists in MMA who was properly equipped over a sufficient period of time to enter the UFC. MMA is always going to heavily favor great wrestlers; in MMA, due to its judging and scoring, if your wrestling is strong enough, it gives you the ability to dictate the pace and direction of the fight even when the opponent is significantly better on other areas. Being an Olympic level wrestler will make your standup game inherently more dangerous as well since opponents will always have to contend with both simultaneously. Cormier was also able to use this to achieve similar success. And as awesome as his wrestling displays have been, he was an also ran at the Olympics while Cejudo was a gold medalist. And even with the most obscene advantage possible going into his MMA training, Mighty Mouse still took him to a SD win after having had the best possible preparation he could get. his insistence on cleaning out FlyW division this thoroughly before being willing to take on superfights with BW guys may have tarnished his legacy to some degree but it's still set in stone and it's still one of the biggest ones we've seen.
MM is at this point quite possibly in the top 10 all time fighters, for sure in the top 15, in terms of just how massive an impact he made and how drastically he raised the standards and changed the game.
