Rank Korean Zombie among Greatest Asian fighters of all time

13Seconds said:
He's def one of the most exciting asian fighters ever, but as far as the best, not even top 10. Who did he beat? Everytime he faced a top 3 guy he lost.
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I wouldn't go that far, but I think people are over-rating him around here.

I've been a big fan since before his debut don't, so I don't necessarily mind haha
 
Yosuke said:
1. Saku
2. Gomi
3. Kid
4. Aoki
5. Horiguchi
6. Okami
7. Sudo
8. Mach
9. Kawajiri / KZ
10. Uno /Rumina

HM: DHK, Misaki, Yoshida, Kai Asakura, Kitaoka,Ishiwatari, Ougikubo, Wakamatsu.
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Really
 
JustOnce said:
Meh. He got finished by Roop. Poirier was hella green. Edgar was completely washed up. He got title shots, but he lost and getting titleshot doesn't mean you are great. Fight against Garcia was fun but skill in it doesn't even remotely come close to elite. Twister is fun, but Gogo by Nick was even greater doens't make Nick the goat WW, not to mention he got beat up by Ortega not that long ago, finished by Yair not that long ago.

At the end of the day I like Zombie so don't wanna sound like I'm shitting on the guy, but he has been inactive for a long time and his best wins are Poirier and Edgar. No one in their right mind would think Zombie fought them a their peak, far far from it. And those wins doesn't make him great.

Saku
Gomi
Sakurai
Kid
Horiguchi
Okami - got title shot too
DHK

all better.

Aoki debatable but I think so
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Love a good debate, my friend.

Zombie was green as hell when he fought Roop. Roop starched him, but where is Roop now?

This is Zombie's 8th main event in the UFC.

Poirier was a hella green? so was Zombie. Was an amazing fight, one of my all time favourites, but Zombie beat him with his own submission, fair and square.

He was turning the tables on Aldo before the unfortunate dislocating of his shoulder.

He was inactive due to mandatory military service. He came out swinging after. He's had many injuries, but still goes to war.

He was whooping Yair Rodriguez for all 5 rounds. Hardly a loss. He got reckless and was KO'd within 1 second of the last round. A fight he was about to win unanimously on all scorecards.



1. Saku
2. Gomi
3. Zombie
4. Horiguchi
5. Kid
6. Sakurai
 
JustOnce said:
Meh. He got finished by Roop. Poirier was hella green. Edgar was completely washed up. He got title shots, but he lost and getting titleshot doesn't mean you are great. Fight against Garcia was fun but skill in it doesn't even remotely come close to elite. Twister is fun, but Gogo by Nick was even greater doens't make Nick the goat WW, not to mention he got beat up by Ortega not that long ago, finished by Yair not that long ago.

At the end of the day I like Zombie so don't wanna sound like I'm shitting on the guy, but he has been inactive for a long time and his best wins are Poirier and Edgar. No one in their right mind would think Zombie fought them a their peak, far far from it. And those wins doesn't make him great.

Saku
Gomi
Sakurai
Kid
Horiguchi
Okami - got title shot too
DHK

all better.

Aoki debatable but I think so
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I dont get why you say Aoki is debatable. You should check the career of that guy, it's definitely not more debatable than Kid, Horiguchi or Sakurai, let alone Okami and DHK.
 
TCE said:
Love a good debate, my friend.

Zombie was green as hell when he fought Roop. Roop starched him, but where is Roop now?

This is Zombie's 8th main event in the UFC.

Poirier was a hella green? so was Zombie. Was an amazing fight, one of my all time favourites, but Zombie beat him with his own submission, fair and square.

He was turning the tables on Aldo before the unfortunate dislocating of his shoulder.

He was inactive due to mandatory military service. He came out swinging after. He's had many injuries, but still goes to war.

He was whooping Yair Rodriguez for all 5 rounds. Hardly a loss. He got reckless and was KO'd within 1 second of the last round. A fight he was about to win unanimously on all scorecards.



1. Saku
2. Gomi
3. Zombie
4. Horiguchi
5. Kid
6. Sakurai
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Zombie does NOT belong in top 3. Like that's crazy.

You can't be like oh Zombie was green so it's fine getting ktfo by Roop then take credit for beating Poirier when he was green because Zombie was green too. Zombie wasn't also. He fought for the title after that fight. There's not a single noticeable improvement he has made since then. He wasn't green. Poriier was. and Edgar was washed up, and I mean Yair knocked him out. That's what MMA is. You knock the guy out you win.

We can agree to disagree. I like Zombie. I think he will lose to Ige though but we will see. Hope to be proven wrong.
 
pankrat said:
I dont get why you say Aoki is debatable. You should check the career of that guy, it's definitely not more debatable than Kid, Horiguchi or Sakurai, let alone Okami and DHK.
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Aoki fought cans for the lot of his career after he went over to ONEFC. That was some legit can crushing he did, and he lost to Mel and Eddie, though he beat Eddie so it's 1-1.

At the end of the day, I can see Zombie being ahead of Aoki because I think it's arguable Zombie fought significantly higher level competition.

I think Zombie beats Aoki at FW if Aoki can get there too. I think.
 
And I remember Aldo fight very vividly for some reason. When you say turning tables aldo, you mean that short duration in the fourth before he popped his shoulder.
 
JustOnce said:
Been a fan since before he got to the UFC. He did have a little bit of speedbumps along the way like getting ktfo by George Roop I think it was, but he had a pretty good career. I'm just curious where people would place him amongst the greatest asian fighters of all time.

So, rank Korean Zombie among greatest Asian fighters of all time! Here's mine.

1. Sakuraba - No explanation needed
2. Gomi - Former number 1 pound for pound with Fedor in 2005, beat Sakurai
3. Sakurai - Former number 1 WW in the world, fought Hughes AND Anderson
4. Kid Yamamoto - Rip
5. Horiguchi - Arguably the second best Flyweight in the history of that division
6. Okami
7. DHK
8. Aoki
9. Zombie
10. Akiyama

Honorable mention: Fujita, Kawajiri, Ishida, Kitaoka, Caol Uno, Yoshida, Misaki, Nakamura, Minowa, Sanae, Tamura, Kondo, Kanehara, Dong, etc

Special shout out to the Kosplay k-1 fighter for knocking out Aoki as well. In my opinion, the single greatest upset of all combat history.
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Sakurai was also the #1 lightweight in the world by Sherdog's rankings after Gomi was defeated by Diaz. Either way, his latter day accomplishments at lightweight, after what was certainly a Hall of Fame worthy career at welterweight, are definitely worth mentioning. And then, even after that, when he moved back up to welterweight, clearly a little small for the division, he pulled off a great, dominant win over a peak Aoki.

These lists are hard to compile, but Masakatsu Funaki and Kiyoshi Tamura both deserve acknowledgement, in my book. Funaki, according to Sherdog's defunct power rankings, was, for a while, the #2 Japanese fighter of all-time behind Sakuraba and was the top fighter in the world for multiple years and a consistent top 3. The fact that he was a top guy among the first wave of Pancrase fighters and still essentially top dog among the next wave, that included guys like Kondo, Shibuya, etc., while many of his peers had fallen off, was pretty impressive. Not to mention, things he seemingly innovated, like the K-guard, are among the most popular and effective moves in contemporary grappling.

Tamura also has a sterling resume and like Funaki, had an uncanny ability to pull off lightweight moves like flying armbars and rolling kneebars. Tamura's career is muddled by RINGs liberal mixture of works with shoots and indeed, some of Tamura's best shoot performances were, confusingly, bouts against people like Khosaka, Kanehara or Yamamoto, whom he'd also had works with. But ultimately, in spite of being hampered by his less than favorable matches in Pride or the lack of a true middleweight division in RINGs, he has a terrific resume.
 
blaseblah said:
I would put KZ above Okami and absolutely above DHK. He's reached title contention like Okami (which DHK never did) and he has had more longevity as a top fighter than both of them. And that's with taking 2 years off for military service.
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I can see a case for KZ to be ranked above Okami but based on longevity at the top...I dont think so.

When do you say KZ started to be considered a top fighter? And how many fights he had since then? Okami was arguably beating Jake Shields in 2006, another close fight in a UFC tittle eliminator vs Franklin in 2007, and still in 2014 he was ranked top10 at MW.

Within that period of time Okami had 20+ fights. KZ has had 7 fights in the last 9 years...
 
Kforcer said:
Sakurai was also the #1 lightweight in the world by Sherdog's rankings after Gomi was defeated by Diaz. Either way, his latter day accomplishments at lightweight, after what was certainly a Hall of Fame worthy career at welterweight, are definitely worth mentioning. And then, even after that, when he moved back up to welterweight, clearly a little small for the division, he pulled off a great, dominant win over a peak Aoki.

These lists are hard to compile, but Masakatsu Funaki and Kiyoshi Tamura both deserve acknowledgement, in my book. Funaki, according to Sherdog's defunct power rankings, was, for a while, the #2 Japanese fighter of all-time behind Sakuraba and was the top fighter in the world for multiple years and a consistent top 3. The fact that he was a top guy among the first wave of Pancrase fighters and still essentially top dog among the next wave, that included guys like Kondo, Shibuya, etc., while many of his peers had fallen off, was pretty impressive. Not to mention, things he seemingly innovated, like the K-guard, are among the most popular and effective moves in contemporary grappling.

Tamura also has a sterling resume and like Funaki, had an uncanny ability to pull off lightweight moves like flying armbars and rolling kneebars. Tamura's career is muddled by RINGs liberal mixture of works with shoots and indeed, some of Tamura's best shoot performances were, confusingly, bouts against people like Khosaka, Kanehara or Yamamoto, whom he'd also had works with. But ultimately, in spite of being hampered by his less than favorable matches in Pride or the lack of a true middleweight division in RINGs, he has a terrific resume.
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Yeah I forgot about Funaki. Just like Sato though, just hard to place some of these guys since I wasn't really around during their peaks, and competition they faced, hard to kinda compare for me, you know against, these other guys. But he should definitely be up there somewhere, though not sure if he makes top 10.
 
Masakazu Imanari also tends to be vastly underrated by people. He's had an amazing career. He unified two serious titles, the DEEP featherweight title and the Cage Rage featherweight title, which is an extremely unusual feat in the history of MMA. And he defended both belts. He beat Mike Thomas Brown not long before Brown toppled Faber and while people were touting Faber or Kid Yamamoto as the top dogs at featherweight, Imanari was walking around with two world titles in that weight class and a slew of quality wins. For his longevity, the quality wins he's picked up and his ability to submit top-level grapplers, I think he certainly merits a mention.
 
pankrat said:
I can see a case for KZ to be ranked above Okami but based on longevity at the top...I dont think so.

When do you say KZ started to be considered a top fighter? And how many fights he had since then? Okami was arguably beating Jake Shields in 2006, another close fight in a UFC tittle eliminator vs Franklin in 2007, and still in 2014 he was ranked top10 at MW.

Within that period of time Okami had 20+ fights. KZ has had 7 fights in the last 9 years...
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He had 9 fights in last 10 yaers. That's ridiculous low number of fights to put KZ in top 5. Like I mean that makes no sense.
 
Kforcer said:
Masakazu Imanari also tends to be vastly underrated by people. He's had an amazing career. He unified two serious titles, the DEEP featherweight title and the Cage Rage featherweight title, which is an extremely unusual feat in the history of MMA. And he defended both belts. He beat Mike Thomas Brown not long before Brown toppled Faber and while people were touting Faber or Kid Yamamoto as the top dogs at featherweight, Imanari was walking around with two world titles in that weight class and a slew of quality wins. For his longevity, the quality wins he's picked up and his ability to submit top-level grapplers, I think he certainly merits a mention.
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oh yeah I forgot about him too, good call.

I don't think him getting ktfo by Hansen helped much.
 
Kforcer said:
Masakazu Imanari also tends to be vastly underrated by people. He's had an amazing career. He unified two serious titles, the DEEP featherweight title and the Cage Rage featherweight title, which is an extremely unusual feat in the history of MMA. And he defended both belts. He beat Mike Thomas Brown not long before Brown toppled Faber and while people were touting Faber or Kid Yamamoto as the top dogs at featherweight, Imanari was walking around with two world titles in that weight class and a slew of quality wins. For his longevity, the quality wins he's picked up and his ability to submit top-level grapplers, I think he certainly merits a mention.
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You think Ilia Topuria can avoid getting leg locked by Hall?
 
Kforcer said:
Masakazu Imanari also tends to be vastly underrated by people. He's had an amazing career. He unified two serious titles, the DEEP featherweight title and the Cage Rage featherweight title, which is an extremely unusual feat in the history of MMA. And he defended both belts. He beat Mike Thomas Brown not long before Brown toppled Faber and while people were touting Faber or Kid Yamamoto as the top dogs at featherweight, Imanari was walking around with two world titles in that weight class and a slew of quality wins. For his longevity, the quality wins he's picked up and his ability to submit top-level grapplers, I think he certainly merits a mention.
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Absolutely. I forgot him. There are many J fighters i probably forgot.
 
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