Never the best, never the worst but an awesome blast from the past

One of the absolute baddest men to ever walk the planet.

70 career fights.

40 fights in 4 years.

Won 37 straight fights at one point.

All at 5'8 200lbs fighting at HW and knocking the fucking shit out of and flooring 300lb men with punches and clobbering them damn near to death.

Easily one of the most devastating fighters ever.
 
MMA_enthusiast said:
yeah i remembering watching HBO's documentary The Smashing Machine with mark kerr as the focus, from my understanding the stoppage was incorrect and should have been a disqualification for Kerr due to illegal knees
Click to expand...

It was overturned to a no-contest.

Vovchanchyn won the rematch, which is actually an excellent example of the different judging styles between Pride and UFC.
 
Gamer007 said:
I approve this thread, btw the ref at 1:25 must have hated that guy :eek:
Click to expand...
Actually, the guy protested and they let him fight Igor again haha. With even less success btw
 
ions82 said:
Holy crap. I haven't seen much from the MMA old school. That stuff is brutal.
Click to expand...

If you're looking for a few great events to skim through, go with UFC 6, 10, 20 & 31, as well as Pride GP 2000 Finals, 10 and 13. They all still stand the test of time. Well worth a watch.
 
Easily one of my favorite fighters next to Saku and Peter Aerts.

and Igor not being considerd the best is debatable TS because many considerd him the best fighter in the world at one point in time.
 
Mixfight said:
One of the absolute baddest men to ever walk the planet.

70 career fights.

40 fights in 4 years.

Won 37 straight fights at one point.

All at 5'8 200lbs fighting at HW and knocking the fucking shit out of and flooring 300lb men with punches and clobbering them damn near to death.

Easily one of the most devastating fighters ever.
Click to expand...
I believe his 37 fight win streak is a record in pro mma and I doubt anyone will break that anytime soon.
Julio Cesar Neves had 30 and Barao had a 32 fight unbeaten streak - those are the closest to Igor I can think of
 
If you don't grasp how formidable Igor was, I'm afraid you don't grasp MMA.

His win streak was amazing. His power was terrifying. He was ferocious. Until he got old and the sport evolved past him, he was arguably the baddest man on the planet. He is the greatest tournament fighter in MMA history. He was a natural LHW who murked everyone.

Of all the legendary fighters who experienced their peaks in the years prior to 31st December 2000 (my totally arbitrary categorisation of the NHB era) - Royce, Rickson, Bas, Frank, Ken, Severn, Coleman, Sakuraba, Frye, etc. - there is a strong case that Igor was the most formidable of them all.
 
Mob69 said:
If you don't grasp how formidable Igor was, I'm afraid you don't grasp MMA.

His win streak was amazing. His power was terrifying. He was ferocious. Until he got old and the sport evolved past him, he was arguably the baddest man on the planet. He is the greatest tournament fighter in MMA history. He was a natural LHW who murked everyone.

Of all the legendary fighters who experienced their peaks in the years prior to 31st December 2000 (my totally arbitrary categorisation of the NHB era) - Royce, Rickson, Bas, Frank, Ken, Severn, Coleman, Sakuraba, Frye, etc. - there is a strong case that Igor was the most formidable of them all.
Click to expand...

Sakuraba wasn't from the NHB era. His matches were all under rules, besides the open-weight facet which was never a thing in Japan anyways. I agree with everything else you said, Igor is probably the most overlooked great of the sport.
 
Mixfight said:
One of the absolute baddest men to ever walk the planet.

70 career fights.

40 fights in 4 years.

Won 37 straight fights at one point.

All at 5'8 200lbs fighting at HW and knocking the fucking shit out of and flooring 300lb men with punches and clobbering them damn near to death.

Easily one of the most devastating fighters ever.
Click to expand...
Holy shit only 5'8"? So according to most people on sherdog a Manlet was one of the best heavyweights of all time
 
Sakuraba7 said:
Sakuraba wasn't from the NHB era. His matches were all under rules, besides the open-weight facet which was never a thing in Japan anyways. I agree with everything else you said, Igor is probably the most overlooked great of the sport.
Click to expand...

Sakuraba's prime was 97-2000 - which makes him part of the NHB generation, in my view at least.
 
Mob69 said:
Sakuraba's prime was 97-2000 - which makes him part of the NHB generation, in my view at least.
Click to expand...

None of them were NHB matches, and I still believe he was in his prime up until 2004. He lost tons of matches between 2001 and 2003, but they were all against HWs and LHWs who he was exclusively fighting.

You need to look at performance, not just the outcome of his matches. He beat Rampage in '01, and beat Randleman in '03. You can't tell me he was out of his prime. The fact that he even went 3 rounds with Nog, or 2 rounds with CroCop and Arona (with pride's 10 min first round) tells you how good he was.
 
BROWNPRIDE said:
No mark Coleman beat him in the pride finals
Click to expand...
Vovchanchyn had to fight Sakuraba for an extra 15 minutes while Coleman basically got a bye in the Fujita fight. Coleman may have won but given the context it'd be hard to call him the better fighter.
 
Sakuraba7 said:
None of them were NHB matches, and I still believe he was in his prime up until 2004. He lost tons of matches between 2001 and 2003, but they were all against HWs and LHWs who he was exclusively fighting.

You need to look at performance, not just the outcome of his matches. He beat Rampage in '01, and beat Randleman in '03. You can't tell me he was out of his prime. The fact that he even went 3 rounds with Nog, or 2 rounds with CroCop and Arona (with pride's 10 min first round) tells you how good he was.
Click to expand...

I never denied his ability. Simply pointed out that the peak of his achievements in the sport occurred between 1997-2000.
 
Some great posts in this thread.

One of the things that I always noticed was how fast and fit he looked in all his fights prior to signing with PRIDE. When he signed with PRIDE he knew he would have to face gigantic wrestlers like Coleman and Kerr so he very obviously beefed up what looks like 30 pounds or so. His speed did not drop much but it probably made his striking even more powerful.

He was the first striker to defeat grapplers on a regular basis.

Also, the man had so many fights, and tournaments and injuries before he hit 30 years old. Perhaps he was dealing with some injuries in his last few fights where he was not looking as impressive. I have heard his hands are now in really bad shape due to the way he threw his punches and the extreme impact of him landing on bone and flesh consistently for 15 years.
 
Most people considered Igor the #1 fighter in the world when he stopped Kerr, despite the fact the knees were randomly made illegal for that one event

So, he actually was the best at one point
 
Ez Eric said:
He actually was considered the best fighter in the world after he beat Mark Kerr. He was ranked number one until he lost to Coleman in the Tournament final, which was kinda bullshit considering Coleman's path through the Tournament was much easier.
Click to expand...

Thank you sir. I came to post the same shit, but you elaborated on it better than I could have

Igor would have beat Coleman if they faced each other 1 on 1 without the previous tournie fights. However.. that's the magic of tournies, circumstances can change everything. Fuck that GP was amazing. Fuck I miss PRIDE :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,237,028
Messages
55,462,389
Members
174,786
Latest member
Santos FC 1912

Share this page

Back
Top