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In any thread where someone brings up a top fighter from years back and how they would match up in a Prime V Prime against a top fighter today we invariably get a very reflexive reply that the fighter from years back would lose because the sports Evolved as if that and that alone would determine the outcome.
I am here to argue that the sport has not had any significant evolution and far more important is how good an athlete and how good a fighter that person was.
What has evolved is training as all fighters now are far better cross trained and there are less easy fights against one dimensional and part time fighters. That evolution I will concede but that was never an issue for the top guys V top guys. That is more an issue for the guys in the ranks.
This New Breed, sports evolved nonsense was first being spouted and adopted when the major HW's were split. The UFC had a crop of mostly new and younger HW's and Strikeforce had a stable of mostly older HW's whose prime years were either behind them or fading fast. The UFC wanted to glorify their New Breed by saying the Sports Evolved and all those older guys may have great resumes and name recognition but they could never compete with our new young guns. Many fans bought into that marketing spin and still parrot it today.
We now know after those HW divisions were merged that, that was BS and not only could that old guard compete but they quickly took over a major portion of the top ranks, even HW's who were considered well past their prime runs were still able to maintain at or near the top.
And I get it as invariably fans will rank 'what they watch and see today' and they find themselves vested in as they cheer for one guy over the other, over stories they have heard about older fighters or in watching them in re-runs. Its not the same when it comes to how vested you are in a fighter. But that does not make what you see today necessarily better than what happened yesterday. You need to step back from that bias as there is no new breed and the sport has not evolved yet. Training has.
Edit addition:
I am here to argue that the sport has not had any significant evolution and far more important is how good an athlete and how good a fighter that person was.
What has evolved is training as all fighters now are far better cross trained and there are less easy fights against one dimensional and part time fighters. That evolution I will concede but that was never an issue for the top guys V top guys. That is more an issue for the guys in the ranks.
This New Breed, sports evolved nonsense was first being spouted and adopted when the major HW's were split. The UFC had a crop of mostly new and younger HW's and Strikeforce had a stable of mostly older HW's whose prime years were either behind them or fading fast. The UFC wanted to glorify their New Breed by saying the Sports Evolved and all those older guys may have great resumes and name recognition but they could never compete with our new young guns. Many fans bought into that marketing spin and still parrot it today.
We now know after those HW divisions were merged that, that was BS and not only could that old guard compete but they quickly took over a major portion of the top ranks, even HW's who were considered well past their prime runs were still able to maintain at or near the top.
And I get it as invariably fans will rank 'what they watch and see today' and they find themselves vested in as they cheer for one guy over the other, over stories they have heard about older fighters or in watching them in re-runs. Its not the same when it comes to how vested you are in a fighter. But that does not make what you see today necessarily better than what happened yesterday. You need to step back from that bias as there is no new breed and the sport has not evolved yet. Training has.
Edit addition:
i guess i should be more clear as i already stated that the training has evolved. The money has also evolved which is drawing in more athletes who can train and work full time in MMA where that was not possible prior. And I stated that has strengthened the tiers below the elite fighters pretty significantly.
But WHAT I AM REFERRING TO is that the level of athletes at the top, who have mostly always had good access to cross training have not evolved in such a way that you can say it would be no contest between a top star or yesteryear and a top star today.
(and no I am not going back to the earliest days of the UFC when most of the athletes were hand picked to fight for a reason)
But WHAT I AM REFERRING TO is that the level of athletes at the top, who have mostly always had good access to cross training have not evolved in such a way that you can say it would be no contest between a top star or yesteryear and a top star today.
(and no I am not going back to the earliest days of the UFC when most of the athletes were hand picked to fight for a reason)
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