Nog's all time status

L0ki

L0ki

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In your current state of mind and relative to the HW division, where does Nog stand in your all-time HW ranking?

For a LONG stretch, he was just as solid at number 2 as Shodo was at number 1.

Was Nog ever unanimously ranked at number 1? There may have been a brief period before Emelianenk where he was number 1 or after Fedro lost and Nog beat Timmeh for the Interm belt.

I found this under a reddit section in a 13 year old post that says this is Sherdog's Feb 2002 rankings. ( )

Heavyweights

  1. Randy Couture
  2. Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira
  3. Pedro Rizzo
  4. Igor Vovchachyn
  5. Ricco Rodriguez
  6. Mario Sperry
  7. Heath Herring
  8. Mark Coleman
  9. Josh Barnett
  10. Kazuyki Fujita.






Side note: Nog and Sakuraba are tied for the most submission wins (11) in Pride FC history.
 
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Nog will always be #2 for me. Up until his fights with Fedor, he was consensus #1 by a long shot.
Even after his first loss to Fedor, people argued that he was #1 and would win the rematch as he went on a tear right after beating Ricco, Mirko, Yokoi, Herring, and Kharnitonov.

Legendary fighter, huge community member that does a ton of charity, and a man with a wonderful sense of humor who even laughed at the Chael carrot bus bit even though people would annoy him with it any time he posted pictures of his horses lol


NOGUEIRA BROTHER ZHU ZHITSU FOR LIFE
 
This is just an opinion side piece because I can't find something on the rankings from then, but I think there was a spot where Nog was number 1.

After Coleman won the GP, he was considered the man again. Then Nog tapped him out, as well as a string of other people, including avenging his only career "loss" to Dan Henderson.

Especially after the Hendo fight, he probably had a strong argument for being number 1.

For sure.

Handy was ranked number 1 but he lost his belt to Barnett the next month after the rankings came out (even though Barnetto tested positive).

For sure, Nog was at number 1.
 
Big Nog is an all time great, no quit in the man whatsoever and that is evident in some of the brutal punishment he absorbed, in his glory days he was always in the fight.

Minitauro vs Couture was a great fight at the time and still is, 2 aging warriors who were destined to clash.
 
After watching him dispatch Goodridge and Coleman, I figured he would beat everyone. I was shocked at the first Fedor fight when Nog lost the title. He's arguably number 2 in his prime.
 
I had him at #2 for the longest time but then placed Stipe at #2 and Nog at #3
 
For me Big Nog is the clear cut #2 HW of all time right behind Fedor.

Big Nog beat Mirko when Cop was ranked #3 in the world and was in his 20s.

Big Nog beat Barnett when he was ranked #4 and in his 20s.

Big Nog beat Werdum when he was ranked #7 in the world and in his 20s.

Big Nog beat Sergei when he was ranked #5 and in his 20s.

Big Nog beat Herring when he was ranked #3 and in his 20s.

Big Nog beat Sylvia when he was a top 5 HW and a top 3 HW in UFC.

Big Nog beat Coleman when he was just 2 years removed from winning the 2000 HWGP.

Big Nog armlocked Hendo and got revenge for that robbery from RINGS.

If it wasn't for his losses to the GOAT Fedor, Nogs record in his first 33 fights would have been 32-1 with no unavenged losses.

After all the damage and miles Nog started taking losses. He was half blind in one eye, he had shoulder surgery, knee surgery and hip surgery and still mopped Randy and young athletic prospect Brendan Schaub. Nog was literally a zombie by this point and was winning fights with pure grit and experience.

Not to mention his historic fight against a juiced up prime Bob Sapp who was 380lbs, training with Barnett and Hume and beating Hoost in K1. Sapp was literally trying to kill Nog and cripple him by slamming him on his neck repeatedly. Nog weathered the storm and submitted him in front of 60,000 fans.

First man to become HW champion in Pride and UFC.

Absolute all time great and undisputed #2 HW of all the time.
 
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Before the first fedor right, the general thought was that this chubby russian is special, but Nog is the GOAT HW, and he will find a way to beat this fatty. NOG is def # 2. FOr people who look at records and werent around to soak up the environment, when Nog beat Crocop (and I hated that, Corocop was my fav fighter) after taking a bteating in round 1 or when he got spiked byBob Sapp and came back to win, would always remember how great Nog was . Also looking at Bob Sapp's laughable record now, makes it sound like thta was Nog crushign a tomato can, but those who watched it, knew how special of a win it was.
Nog #2
Now i do believe if Cain had some longevity he would have been unbeatable. It was like fighting with a guy having nigh vision in dark, where his night vision was that insane cardio and a wrestling based fighting style that could use that cardio as a weapon
 
Honestly? I’d have

1.fedor
2.Cain
3. Werdum
4. DC
5. Stipe
6. JDS
7. Francis
8. Big Nog
9. Overeem
10. Brock
11. Crocop

This is what I think the rankings would be today if they were all in their prime and had to fight each other in a tournament.

That said I wouldn’t be surprised if DC or Cain won the tournament.. I also wouldn’t be surprised if JDS won it…

If your talking just accolades and rankings at the time the fights happened it’s like fedor nog Cain then everyone else

Stipes best win is Francis… every other win was against an old legend… he lost to JDS when JDS wasn’t broken…. Everyone else was completely shot… even his DC wins were when DC was past 40
 
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