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Ranking the Female GOATS

Rather than typing it out again, I'll just quote myself from earlier this year:

Gamer2k4 said:
1) Cyborg (145 GOAT) - 1 loss to start her career and 1 fluke KO against Nunes. Otherwise undefeated for 20 years, with 17 title victories.
2) Shevchenko (125 GOAT) - Dominant 20-year career across multiple disciplines and weight classes. One of the most well-rounded WMMA fighters of all time. Avenged both her non-Nunes losses, and gave Nunes a heck of a fight twice despite being outweighed by 10-15 pounds.
3) Nunes (135 GOAT) - Great success across two weight classes, but hurt by her strength of schedule and five losses.
4) Zhang (115 GOAT) - Great record, great skills, and tied for the most title wins at her weightclass. Possibly the best all-around talent WMMA has ever had.
5) Joanna - The most well-rounded strawweight until Zhang came along, with the record and title wins to back it up.

Megumi Fujii gets an honorable mention for her dominance and success in the early years of WMMA, but she's off my list because I've never actually seen her fight and I have no clue about her strength of competition.

Ronda, reluctantly, also gets an honorable mention for being such an unstoppable force of nature during her title run. She's about as well-rounded as a box, but starting your career with 12 finishes (11 in the first round and 10 in about a minute or less) and 8 title wins is a resume that's hard to deny.
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fortheo said:
Pretty much this, but rose is too high and Zhang makes top 10 for me
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I think I may have Rose too high as well. Every time this topic comes up and k do a ranking, Rose has fallen lower. Holly maybe shouldn’t on the list at all, she has no title defenses but does have good wins across two weight classes.

Maybe a better list would be something like:
  1. Nunes
  2. Schevchenko
  3. Ronda
  4. Joanna
  5. Cyborg
  6. Miesha
  7. Rose
  8. Marloes
  9. Sarah Kaufman
  10. Maybe Holly? Andrade?
Kyojiro Kagenuma said:
Um, where's Zhang? How could you put her below Andrade, Miesha, and Holly? Like what? Wack.
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You ask me that every time, and my answer’s the same every time: I don’t think she deserves to be in the top 10 all time.

And ranking her Top 5? That’s just straight up ridiculous.

—I think she had an easy path to her first title shot (Taylor and Aguilar weren’t even in the top 15, I don’t think, and Tecia was #7). She had a great performance to win the belt against Andrade, and a good defense against Joanna. After getting sparked by Rose she got an instant rematch she didn’t deserve, lost to Rose again, and then only had to beat a declined Joanna who hadn’t fought in 2 years to get a TS again.Shes put together 3 defenses though, so that’s def noteworthy.

But again, a fighter like Sarah Kaufman has a better body of work overall: wins early in her career over Alexis Davis and Letourneau, won the HCF title and defended it once back before major orgs had WMMA, then won the Strikeforce title, defended that against Roxy, and even after losing it to Marloes she went on to beat Carmouche, Alexis again, Leslie Smith x2, Jessica Rose Clark, Pannie Kianzad, then won an Invicta title, then moved up to WLW and got a win in that weight class and ended her career with a win at WFW. That’s a better resume than Weili Zhang has, and Kaufman deserves to be top 10 more than Weili does.
 
El Fernas said:
Thats better but Rose should be closer to Joanna if not above her considering she beat her and also beat Zhang who some think she is also great and has wins over Joanna, who should be probably right below Rose, tied with or below Joanna.

7-10, its weird.
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Yeah, the last few spots are tough to rank.
Despite Rose beating Joanna twice, Joanna has a better resume overall. She’s got 5 defenses of the WSW belt, whereas Rose never had more than 1 defense in either of her reigns.
 
Zhang is easily top 10. Honestly, closer to top 5. How the hell do someone think Sarah Kaufman is top ten is beyond me.
 
Only Here for Attachments said:
#8 is a combined 4-0 against #4 and #5
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True, but would anyone say that Dennis Hallman was a better fighter than Matt Hughes because he beat him twice, or that Struve was better than Stipe, or Serra is as good as GSP because they're 1-1.
MMA math doesn't always add up. Sometimes style's make fights....
Rose was very good and yes beat these women twice (which is why she's on the list), BUT she was overall inconsistent, and didn't have the continued caliber of fighters on her resume.
 
Lionheart7167 said:
True, but would anyone say that Dennis Hallman was a better fighter than Matt Hughes because he beat him twice, or that Struve was better than Stipe, or Serra is as good as GSP because they're 1-1.
MMA math doesn't always add up. Sometimes style's make fights....
Rose was very good and yes beat these women twice (which is why she's on the list), BUT she was overall inconsistent, and didn't have the continued caliber of fighters on her resume.
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Not MMA-math, just an interesting statistic
 
too many ppl are putting Nunes at #1 IMO

I imagine this comes down to her 'wins' over Shevchenko to decide this but let's break it down a little.... the 5 round title fight was a split dec. on MMAdecisions it's like 51% in Shev's favour in fan scores, and 20/19 in Shev's favor in media scores. It's basically a 'draw' and on another day there's a 51/49 chance another judge would have given it to Shev; would everyone then be saying Shev is #1 WGOAT on that coinflip? probably yes. (their first fight was also competitive and basically came down to a caught kick in round 2). So, how can you say Nunes is #1 on such a narrow coinflip, when...

(i) Shev fights at 125, while Nunes fights at 135 and 145, so it's more impressive that the smaller fighter took Nunes to a 'dead heat' - a greater accomplishment.
(ii) 125 is a much deeper division than 135 and 145 is not even a division at all. In fact 125 is the best women's division right now and 135 is the worst. So being 125 champ is 'greater' (and their reigns are about equal length... and Shev lost the belt for a bit to Grasso, who has skill, while Nunes lost the belt for a bit to Pena, who has no skill).
(iii) If you know what you're watching (like me) (and unlike you), it's clear to the eye that Shev is the more skilled fighter. Being skilled is greater than being less skilled. (indeed she's skilled enough to close the effective fighting gap between them to 0 as evinced by their fights, despite the size and power difference. How can the smaller fight be less great than the bigger one who can't clearly beat them, then?).

Therefore, it's clear, proven with #Science that Shev is above Nunes in the GOATness ranks. She's the #2 Greatest Woman Fighter Of All Times, behind only Carla Esparza.
 
Dirty Frank said:
images
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A better udder on that brown one than most 115 lb WMMA fighters
 
Lionheart7167 said:
Just curious how everyone would rank the top 10 female fighters of all time (UFC and otherwise)

Here's my list.

1. Nunes- Two-division champion, beat all the names in an unbelievable run including Rousey, Shevchenko, Cyborg, etc.
2. Shevchenko- Been on top of the FLW division for years, and still competing at the highest level. Close losses to Nunes and a draw with Grasso place her slightly lower. I put her higher than Cyborg because of the quality of her opponents
3. Cyborg- Incredible record. Still only two losses in her entire career (Nunes being one of them)
4. Zhang- Another incredible record, and only three losses (Rose beat her twice, but I don't think anyone would put her higher in the GOAT conversation)
5. Joanna- Incredible run at SW, and until the very end looked unstoppable.
6. Rousey- In spite of her dominance, she's a bit lower on the list because her opposition was never quite up to par.
7. Fuji- From 2004-2011 high level of domination. The only fighter on this list who fought outside the UFC
8. Rose- Rose was always inconsistent but when she was on, she beat amazing fighters
9. Esparza- I hate to put her on any list like this but she IS a two time UFC champ several years apart, beat Rose and Grasso
10. Tate- Was in the top 10 for many years

Honorables: Andrade, Marlos Coenen, Grasso, Holm

And no. In spite of Carano's importance, she was never an amazing fighter.
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Thank you for including Cyborg. It's absurd how she gets left out of these discussions.
 
BFoe said:
I think I may have Rose too high as well. Every time this topic comes up and k do a ranking, Rose has fallen lower. Holly maybe shouldn’t on the list at all, she has no title defenses but does have good wins across two weight classes.

Maybe a better list would be something like:
  1. Nunes
  2. Schevchenko
  3. Ronda
  4. Joanna
  5. Cyborg
  6. Miesha
  7. Rose
  8. Marloes
  9. Sarah Kaufman
  10. Maybe Holly? Andrade?


You ask me that every time, and my answer’s the same every time: I don’t think she deserves to be in the top 10 all time.

And ranking her Top 5? That’s just straight up ridiculous.

—I think she had an easy path to her first title shot (Taylor and Aguilar weren’t even in the top 15, I don’t think, and Tecia was #7). She had a great performance to win the belt against Andrade, and a good defense against Joanna. After getting sparked by Rose she got an instant rematch she didn’t deserve, lost to Rose again, and then only had to beat a declined Joanna who hadn’t fought in 2 years to get a TS again.Shes put together 3 defenses though, so that’s def noteworthy.

But again, a fighter like Sarah Kaufman has a better body of work overall: wins early in her career over Alexis Davis and Letourneau, won the HCF title and defended it once back before major orgs had WMMA, then won the Strikeforce title, defended that against Roxy, and even after losing it to Marloes she went on to beat Carmouche, Alexis again, Leslie Smith x2, Jessica Rose Clark, Pannie Kianzad, then won an Invicta title, then moved up to WLW and got a win in that weight class and ended her career with a win at WFW. That’s a better resume than Weili Zhang has, and Kaufman deserves to be top 10 more than Weili does.
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I think you're being straight up ridiculous lol. You put her below Andrade. ANDRADE! There's no universe that makes sense.

She absolutely is in at least the top 10, and if Zhang isn't going up then Rose sure as hell isn't getting any lower. How about Zhang's win over Suarez? Saying Sarah Kaufman has a better resume than Zhang is just absolutely wild.
 
RockyLockridge said:
Exactly she has good match ups but isn't as complete or as dominant I don't think rose has ever won 5 fights in a row. Joanna was an undefeated champion with 5 title wins
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Rose Hasn't even won 4 fights in a row sadly. She's very impressive but also drops the ball
 
Kyojiro Kagenuma said:
I think you're being straight up ridiculous lol. You put her below Andrade. ANDRADE! There's no universe that makes sense.

She absolutely is in at least the top 10, and if Zhang isn't going up then Rose sure as hell isn't getting any lower. How about Zhang's win over Suarez? Saying Sarah Kaufman has a better resume than Zhang is just absolutely wild.
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Let’s look at quality wins,

Weili

Tecia
Andrade
Joanna x 2
Carla
Lemos
Xiaonan
Suarez

Andrade

Penningotn
Pacheco
Penne
Calderwood
Hill
Gadelha
Tecia
Karolina
Rose
Chookagian
Calvillo
Lemos
Murphy
Dern
Rodriguez

Kaufman

Davis x2
Letourneau
Miesha
Baszler
Roxy
Carmouche
Smith x2
Rose-Clark
Kianzad
Miele


—You don’t see the issue here? Andrade has nearly double the quality wins that Weili has. Kaufman has several more quality wins than Weili has, and across 3 weight classes. Come on now.
 
BFoe said:
Let’s look at quality wins,

Weili

Tecia
Andrade
Joanna x 2
Carla
Lemos
Xiaonan
Suarez

Andrade

Penningotn
Pacheco
Penne
Calderwood
Hill
Gadelha
Tecia
Karolina
Rose
Chookagian
Calvillo
Lemos
Murphy
Dern
Rodriguez

Kaufman

Davis x2
Letourneau
Miesha
Baszler
Roxy
Carmouche
Smith x2
Rose-Clark
Kianzad
Miele


—You don’t see the issue here? Andrade has nearly double the quality wins that Weili has. Kaufman has several more quality wins than Weili has, and across 3 weight classes. Come on now.
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No, you come on now. Zhang Weili is a two time dominant champ with a win over Andrade herself (Starched her I might add) and what, 4, 5 Title defenses? Andrade is a one time champ with no title defenses. Andrade doesn't hold a candle to Weili skill wise or accomplishment wise.

You're wacky bro. There's no universe Andrade has a better record than Zhang just cause she fights all the time stacking up wins against people who do nothing for her legacy while also losing half the time. Calvillo? Come the fuck on, dude. Everything Zhang does something incredibly impressive, you ignore it and act like it's not big deal. It's pretty ridiculous.
 
Cyborg definitely needs to be included. one of the earliest pioneers of the sport.
 
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