He was an awesome fighter. Fighting before the weight cutting affected performance. 10 fights per year (on average) is unheard of, even if the sport was in its infancy. Doesn’t matter, you have to go in there and fight sometimes three opponents in a single night. Like Koro above me mentioned, once the next grneration of mma fighters entered the scene guys below 6 feet couldn’t cut it at HW. Beast!
The 90s mma was wild.
Randleman (also 5'8) explained it well that for him he was better off juicing to the moon to fight at heavyweight because that was the only places there was any money.
And if you go back, many orgs didn't really have weight classes then.
Pride didn't introduce "MW" until 2000 and "WW" in 2004
Even UFC when they first introduced weight classes it was 200+ and "lightweight" was anything under 200.
I had a VHS tape and I think Jerry Bolander won the under 200 tournament... (could be wrong on that) ufc 12ish
Then the weights kept changing and switching names.
Jens Pulver had "bantamweight tile fights" at 155
Middleweight was 185 in UFC but 205 UFC
Welterweight UFC 170 pride 183
Guys like Igor, Bas, Shamrock Brothers, Don Frye, Tank, Kerr, Oleg Taktarov... really paved the way the way the sport to figure out what it was going to be and these maniacs were out there like crash test dummies exploring uncharted territories. That's why I will always respect the OGs.
Igor was all about the size of the fight in the dog.
And that dog had a hell of a lot of fight in him.
