Prime Karelin vs top HW with MMA rules

Karelin is one of the baddest genetic freaks ever.

Seriously, they don't even make em like Karelin today. Guys that are 6.4 300lbs are not supposed to be athletic BUT Karelin was.

Plus he had boxing and sambo experience.

For a taste of how good Karelin "could" of been just take a look at another genetic stud in Brock, then consider that Brock was not the technical marvel that Karelin was.

Here is the scoop, if Karelin had a good jaw and could develop decent stand up whereby he could hold his own he could of been possibly the best ever. His stand up wouldn't have to be top notched, as long as he could defend top notched stand up he would be very hard to beat.

This is where it fails IMO. As incredible as the 6'4" monster was physically, it was always talked about at the time his wingspan. Many of his opponents remarked at the most surprising thing they found facing Karelin was his inhuman reach, not strength.

He easily has a MINIMUM two inch reach advantage on Bones and Struve, and it only gets MUCH WORSE for the entire remainder of the UFC roster.

Everyone knows I'm a Bone dog! I can't honestly say that my boy Jon has "superior" striking. His reach keeps him well protected so his "chin" isn't constantly tested.

It is absolute fact. Karelin had top 1% strength at distance from the body of the Human Race. He puts his hand(s) that made Brock's look like a new born baby on his opponents forehead (like Bones does effectively) and no man on Earth hits him clean. No conjecture here.

Now a second point. It is the biggest misunderstanding here on Sherdog about Brock Lesnar chin. Brock actually has one of the best chin's in the HW division history. Not having even a basic striking defense, he took MANY MANY clean shots to the jaw that would have KO'd the vast majority of MMA HW fighters. He NEVER got KO'!

What he had was one of the most iron jaws in the history of the sport, and one of the worst mental reactions to being hit any of us longterm MMA fans have EVER seen in the sport.

Stop EVEN acting like Karelin DID NOT have an iron chin. The only question you need to ask is how he would "react" to being hit, NOT IF HE CAN TAKE A PUNCH!!!!

He can take FAR MORE ABUSE than ANY current UFC HW fighter. Sorry to be a realist.

Only two REAL questions to ask about this fantasy having Karelin as MMA GOAT:
1. How he react's to getting hit.
2. How well he can adapt the longest strongest arms in the history of MMA into virtually impenetrable defensive shields.:redface:
 
This is where it fails IMO. As incredible as the 6'4" monster was physically, it was always talked about at the time his wingspan. Many of his opponents remarked at the most surprising thing they found facing Karelin was his inhuman reach, not strength.

He easily has a MINIMUM two inch reach advantage on Bones and Struve, and it only gets MUCH WORSE for the entire remainder of the UFC roster.

Everyone knows I'm a Bone dog! I can't honestly say that my boy Jon has "superior" striking. His reach keeps him well protected so his "chin" isn't constantly tested.

It is absolute fact. Karelin had top 1% strength at distance from the body of the Human Race. He puts his hand(s) that made Brock's look like a new born baby on his opponents forehead (like Bones does effectively) and no man on Earth hits him clean. No conjecture here.

Now a second point. It is the biggest misunderstanding here on Sherdog about Brock Lesnar chin. Brock actually has one of the best chin's in the HW division history. Not having even a basic striking defense, he took MANY MANY clean shots to the jaw that would have KO'd the vast majority of MMA HW fighters. He NEVER got KO'!

What he had was one of the most iron jaws in the history of the sport, and one of the worst mental reactions to being hit any of us longterm MMA fans have EVER seen in the sport.

Stop EVEN acting like Karelin DID NOT have an iron chin. The only question you need to ask is how he would "react" to being hit, NOT IF HE CAN TAKE A PUNCH!!!!

He can take FAR MORE ABUSE than ANY current UFC HW fighter. Sorry to be a realist.

Only two REAL questions to ask about this fantasy having Karelin as MMA GOAT:
1. How he react's to getting hit.
2. How well he can adapt the longest strongest arms in the history of MMA into virtually impenetrable defensive shields.:redface:

Yup his reach i enormous, it has to be at least 85 inches..

But well served by his unreal strength and athlecism, he could have been a terrible match up for anyone if he had basic boxing and a decent chin..

A kind of Bones style but with punches instead of being heavily kicked based , and with finishing power ( I don't think anyone doubt he would have had KO power with that reach/weight/power combo )

I'll repeat it but the guy is a one in a billion athlete ( he weighed 15 lbs at birth FFS !!!! ) he was ten time the athlete Brock is/was...That + his wrestling alone would give any HW MMA fighter troubles without even a striking game.. so with a bit of training..
 
This is where it fails IMO. As incredible as the 6'4" monster was physically, it was always talked about at the time his wingspan. Many of his opponents remarked at the most surprising thing they found facing Karelin was his inhuman reach, not strength.

He easily has a MINIMUM two inch reach advantage on Bones and Struve, and it only gets MUCH WORSE for the entire remainder of the UFC roster.

Everyone knows I'm a Bone dog! I can't honestly say that my boy Jon has "superior" striking. His reach keeps him well protected so his "chin" isn't constantly tested.

It is absolute fact. Karelin had top 1% strength at distance from the body of the Human Race. He puts his hand(s) that made Brock's look like a new born baby on his opponents forehead (like Bones does effectively) and no man on Earth hits him clean. No conjecture here.

Now a second point. It is the biggest misunderstanding here on Sherdog about Brock Lesnar chin. Brock actually has one of the best chin's in the HW division history. Not having even a basic striking defense, he took MANY MANY clean shots to the jaw that would have KO'd the vast majority of MMA HW fighters. He NEVER got KO'!

What he had was one of the most iron jaws in the history of the sport, and one of the worst mental reactions to being hit any of us longterm MMA fans have EVER seen in the sport.

Stop EVEN acting like Karelin DID NOT have an iron chin. The only question you need to ask is how he would "react" to being hit, NOT IF HE CAN TAKE A PUNCH!!!!

He can take FAR MORE ABUSE than ANY current UFC HW fighter. Sorry to be a realist.

Only two REAL questions to ask about this fantasy having Karelin as MMA GOAT:
1. How he react's to getting hit.
2. How well he can adapt the longest strongest arms in the history of MMA into virtually impenetrable defensive shields.:redface:

yeah good points dude,
 
Karelin would probably have won UFC 1 and reigned for a long time.
Just look at what pure wrestlers like Severn and Coleman did with
little to no striking skills.
 
He wasn't a fighter. He was a Greco wrestler. So many other variables. Wouldn't want to fight him or Brock but it's hard to fully assess how good they'd be before seeing them fight. Karelin's one worked fight didn't exactly scream mma fighter.
 
He would've mauled anyone in his path. There's never been a badder combat sports athlete than Karelin. He took on the world's best from across the globe for years and years at the highest level of Greco-Roman wrestling and made them look ridiculous. He's the strongest combat sportsman of all time too. His inhuman strength, great leverage and world class wrestling technique for throwing his opponents would spell doom for them. Add in his size and freakish A+ level athleticism and it only gets worse.

He'd still need to TRAIN his striking though and submission defense if he wanted to really look the part and do his best work. Would he be champ? Absolutely, I have no doubt. NOBODY trained harder than this guy when he was collecting Olympic gold medals like they were Cap'n Crunch toys. His famous quote about training everyday harder than anyone ever had in their entire lives was no bullshit.
 
How would do prime Aleksander Karelin (Maeda fight) with UFC rules with top HW and LHW:

Cain
Werdum
Fedor
Overeem
DC
Jones
Miocic
Rothwell
Arlovski
Barnett
JDS

The Maeda "fight" was a pro wrestling match. Do you still believe pro wrestling is real? How old are you?
 
He would've mauled anyone in his path. There's never been a badder combat sports athlete than Karelin. He took on the world's best from across the globe for years and years at the highest level of Greco-Roman wrestling and made them look ridiculous. He's the strongest combat sportsman of all time too. His inhuman strength, great leverage and world class wrestling technique for throwing his opponents would spell doom for them. Add in his size and freakish A+ level athleticism and it only gets worse.

He'd still need to TRAIN his striking though and submission defense if he wanted to really look the part and do his best work. Would he be champ? Absolutely, I have no doubt. NOBODY trained harder than this guy when he was collecting Olympic gold medals like they were Cap'n Crunch toys. His famous quote about training everyday harder than anyone ever had in their entire lives was no bullshit.

Iron Mike Tyson.
 
Isn't he a black belt in sambo too?
I think I read somewhere he was that.

I take Karelin by what ever he wants against all of them.
Because Karelin.

I don't know about a black belt, but apparently he was a national placer in Sambo (like 4th or 5th) in Russia while mostly training wrestling. Sambo was required for men back in the USSR, so, he clearly had an idea about submission defense.

He has gone on the record that he prefers chess to hitting people, so MMA wasn't that interesting to him. But, in his prime he ragdolled people that were the physical equivalent of Brock, so with minimal training he would have been unstoppable except for no way he could make 265 with his prime physique (he used to cut weight to make 286), he would have had to cut a significant amount of muscle.
 
Karelin by
4fubfp.gif

That guy he is tossing is probably bigger than Frank Mir.
 
Karelin is one of the baddest genetic freaks ever.

Seriously, they don't even make em like Karelin today. Guys that are 6.4 300lbs are not supposed to be athletic BUT Karelin was.

Plus he had boxing and sambo experience.

For a taste of how good Karelin "could" of been just take a look at another genetic stud in Brock, then consider that Brock was not the technical marvel that Karelin was.

Here is the scoop, if Karelin had a good jaw and could develop decent stand up whereby he could hold his own he could of been possibly the best ever. His stand up wouldn't have to be top notched, as long as he could defend top notched stand up he would be very hard to beat.

brock...
 
How would do prime Aleksander Karelin (Maeda fight) with UFC rules with top HW and LHW:

Cain
Werdum
Fedor
Overeem
DC
Jones
Miocic
Rothwell
Arlovski
Barnett
JDS
MMA rules? Without any MMA training, Karelin gets beat. With three or four years MMA training Big Dog Karelin would raise his leg and pee all over every single fighter you listed and they wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it.
 
I don't know about a black belt, but apparently he was a national placer in Sambo (like 4th or 5th) in Russia while mostly training wrestling. Sambo was required for men back in the USSR, so, he clearly had an idea about submission defense.

He has gone on the record that he prefers chess to hitting people, so MMA wasn't that interesting to him. But, in his prime he ragdolled people that were the physical equivalent of Brock, so with minimal training he would have been unstoppable except for no way he could make 265 with his prime physique (he used to cut weight to make 286), he would have had to cut a significant amount of muscle.

There no evidence I've seen that he did much with sambo.

He could get down to 265. Of course. Also no evidence I've seen that he cut a significant amount to make 286.

Who was the physical equivalent of Brock?
 
Impossible to say how much ability he might have had for MMA but assuming he developed passable stand up and sub grappling(might already have had that) I think the worst matchups for him would be guys like Fedor, Nog, Sergei and Werdum in their primes who could threaten him standing and off of their backs.

Shame he didn't give MMA a go in 1998 as if it was in RINGS he would have been up against an excellent field, outside of RINGS I think he would have ruled for at least a couple of years.
 
Karelin is not an "A-level" Athlete...if he was he would have chosen football, that's where all the real athletes go...sherdog told me.
 
Karelin is not an "A-level" Athlete...if he was he would have chosen football, that's where all the real athletes go...sherdog told me.

Rulon wasn't good enough to go too far in football. Did get scholarship to Nebraska.
 
I'm not certain, but I do know I've never seen a scarier example of a human being.
 
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