The Definitive: Top 5 Heavyweights of All-Time.

acannxr said:
Criteria:
  • Number of top ten opponents at Heavyweight.
  • Time spent ranked as a top five fighter in the Heavyweight Division
  • Only listing #1-10 Heavyweight ranked opponents in candidates' resumes.

Honorable Mention - Cain Velasquez
ufc155_12_velasquez_vs_jds_045.jpg

Velasquez' resume:

#3 Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
#1 Brock Lesnar
#9 Antonio Silva
#1 Junior dos Santos
#3 Antonio Silva
#2 Junior dos Santos
#8 Travis Browne

Velasquez defeated seven, top ten opponents.
Velasquez was ranked in the top five from 1/1/10 to 1/1/15 and 7/1/15 to 10/1/17 for a combined total of 7 years and 3 months.

The overly redundant resume and the fact that a large portion of the time that Velasquez was ranked in the top five he was inactive due to injury, is why he gets only an honorable mention.

#5 - Fabricio Werdum
werdum-696x392.jpg

Werdum's resume:

#4 Gabriel Gonzaga
#1 Fedor Emelianenko
#5 Travis Browne
#5 Mark Hunt
#1 Cain Velasquez
#8 Travis Browne

Werdum defeated six, top ten opponents.
Werdum was ranked in the top five from 4/1/08 to 10/1/08, 7/1/10 to 10/1/11, 4/1/12 to 1/1/13, 7/1/13 to 4/1/18 for a combined total of 7 years and 3 months.

#4 - Stipe Miocic
nintchdbpict000331979555.jpg

Miocic's resume:

#5 Mark Hunt
#3 Andrei Arlovski
#1 Fabricio Werdum
#3 Alistair Overeem
#5 Junior dos Santos
#2 Francis Ngannou
#1 Daniel Cormier

Miocic defeated seven, top ten opponents.
Miocic was ranked in the top five from 4/1/14 to 7/1/14 and 4/1/15 to Today for a combined total of 4 years and 11 months.

#3 - Junior dos Santos
jdsbelt.jpg

dos Santos' resume:

#4 Fabricio Werdum
#9 Mirko Filipovic
#6 Shane Carwin
#1 Cain Velasquez
#4 Frank Mir
#9 Mark Hunt
#6 Ben Rothwell
#4 Derrick Lewis

dos Santos defeated eight, top ten opponents.
dos Santos was ranked in the top five from 10/1/09 to 4/1/10, 10/1/10 to 1/1/16, 7/1/16 to 1/1/18, and 4/1/19 to Today for a combined total of 7 years and 11 months.

#2 - Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
Antonio.jpg

Nogueira's resume:

#5 Valentijn Overeem
#5 Gary Goodridge
#3 Mark Coleman
#6 Ricco Rodriguez
#5 Mirko Filipovic
#10 Heath Herring
#9 Fabricio Werdum
#3 Josh Barnett
#9 Tim Sylvia
#5 Randy Couture

Nogueira defeated ten, top ten opponents.
Nogueira was ranked in the top five from 4/1/01 to 1/1/10 for a combined total of 8 years and 9 months.

#1 - Fedor Emelianenko
3234.jpg

Emelianenko's resume:

#8 Renato Sobral
#6 Semmy Schilt
#1 Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
#9 Gary Goodridge
#9 Mark Coleman
#7 Kevin Randleman
#2 Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
#4 Mirko Filipovic
#4 Mark Coleman
#7 Mark Hunt
#8 Tim Sylvia
#6 Andrei Arlovski
#8 Brett Rogers

Emelianenko defeated thirteen, top ten opponents.
Emelianenko was ranked in the top five from 4/1/02 to 1/1/11 for a combined total of 8 years and 9 months.

For those who will undoubtedly ask about Daniel Cormier:
Cormier's resume:

#6 Antonio Silva
#8 Josh Barnett
#7 Frank Mir
#1 Stipe Miocic
#5 Derrick Lewis

Cormier defeated five, top ten opponents.
Cormier was ranked in the top five from 7/1/12 to 1/1/14 and 10/1/18 to Today for a combined total of 2 years and 8 months.

Cormier has the least amount of top ten wins and the shortest amount of time spent in the top five rankings out of everyone in this list (including Velasquez).
Click to expand...

Well done.
 
faustian said:
I get it bud, for consistency sake I agree FightMatrix is probably the way to go, if for no other reason than the data is available

Regarding AA, at the time of the Fedor fight, 01/24/2009, he was ranked #2 in the world behind only Fedor according to the average rankings compiled from 23 MMA media outlets:

https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2009/1/11/716604/bloody-elbow-january-mma-m

Why would he be ranked ahead of Lesnar and Mir?

- He was on a 5 fight win streak (4 finishes -- including shattering Rothwell's 13 fight win streak via KO and being the first to ever KO Roy Nelson, on top of defeating Werdum) and his last loss was 2.5 years prior, to his nemesis Sylvia in a rematch for the UFC HW strap. Prior to that he was UFC HW champ

- Lesnar was on a 2 fight win streak, those wins being a decision over a washed Herring and finish over an absurdly undersized 45yo Randy Couture

- Mir was on a 3 fight win streak with finishes over Hardonk, Lesnar (2nd career MMA fight) and a strong finish of a still game Nog. Prior to that he'd dropped 2 of 3 to Brandon Vera and Marcio Cruz (who AA soon KO'd on his streak)

I mean I don't see anything objectively wrong with AA being ranked ahead of Lesnar/Mir at that point. You also gotta remember the context; the shiny UFC HW strap wasn't the be all end all of MMA back then that it is today. Brock and Mir's belt variations held a lot less water than the status of legitimately earning a TS vs the undisputed #1 fighter on the planet. The UFC HW division had not even come close to monopolizing the sport yet (only 8 of the top 20 ranked HWs in the world) and the big show was what was taking place over at the top of Affliction's HW division

Also, if FightMatrix doesn't have Heath Herring ranked in Nov 2002 then there's clearly an oversight on their part. According to this source MMA media rankings had Herring #3 overall worldwide mid-2002 before his Fedor fight:

https://www.mixedmartialarts.com/fo...ived-Rankings-for-HW--205-1998---2005:1519502

I like your research and I get why you had to use FightMatrix, but it is worth pointing out that it doesn't necessarily reflect the general consensus or context of the eras and specifically in January 2009 the methodology is flawed as it rewarded extra points for title fights when title and interim title fights in the UFC HW division were being passed around like damaged goods whereas Affliction was a brand new promotion with a grand total of one HW title fight to that point. Literally how else can you account for Couture -- on a 2-2 stretch fresh off getting smashed by Brock -- being ranked ahead of AA if not for the fact that his score was inflated by title fights
Click to expand...

this. And the #10 is pretty arbitrary in the first place. Semmy was def top 10 when Nog beat him and Sergei was one of Nogs finest wins/performances too and was ranked by various publications at the time. To leave out those 2 wins just seems like historical revisionism of not having watched at the time and retroactively using 1 new source
 
Bouboumaster said:
Nog was a legend in an era where a sumo wrestler was a credible opponent.
Fedor was THE legend of this era, and he's #1 for it (and the fact that he's still an animal today), but Stipe, Cormier, Cain and JDS are/were legits af
Anyone of those four would have fucking killed Big Nog
Click to expand...
Couldn't disagree more

Assuming we're talking about prime Nog (literally like 3-4 years before he took the UFC strap) the only bad stylistic matchup I see for him there is JDS. I don't see too many paths to victory for Nog there. But other than that; I think Nog handles Stipe and DC more often than not. Probably outpoints them if they manage to keep it standing; Nog never had heavy hands but he did have effective technical boxing and endless cardio with an indestructible chin, plus the constant threat of going to the mat

Cain is interesting because I personally value peak Cain extremely high and think he's up there with Fedor as the most overwhelming fighters ever, but then again I was surprised to see him jump into Doom's guillotine like that and how helpless he was once he got there. I do think Doom is better at finishing subs than Nog but Nog would still present similar issues for Cain that Doom did, i.e. the threat of potentially neutralizing and even exploiting one of Cain's greatest strengths (wrestling). Cain would have to pull of a masterclass in preemptive sub defense ala Fedor/Nog 1 if he wanted to take it to the ground but his best bet would probably be to grind against the cage. I see that matchup pretty even, perhaps 55/45 to Cain if he fights smart
 
Resume:
1. Fedor
2. Stipe
3. Werdum
4. DC, Cain
5. Reem

Ability:
1.Fedor, Cain
2. Stipe
3. DC
4. Werdum
5. Reem
 
First of all Fightmatrix did not exist before 2008, and it's calcuclations and alghoritms for times before that are often incorrect and in discrepancy with actuall historic rankings and authentic opinions of MMA public and media. With due respect to OP/TS this kind of thread should not be started and discussed based on Fightmatrix.
For example Heath Herring is not ranked at all by Fightmatrix in both Fedor title eliminator fight and 2001 Pride title fight vs Nogueira. Actually almost all relevant authentic historic rankings from that time had Herring ranked in Top 5 for both fights, and that was the real opinion of MMA public and real position of Herring at that time. Stephen Quadros had Herring ranked no. 5 vs Noguiera,
http://web.archive.org/web/20011103074215/http://www.stephenquadros.com:80/SQ_MMA_Top_Ten.html
and no. 3 vs Fedor.
http://web.archive.org/web/20021004064724/http://stephenquadros.com:80/SQ_MMA_Top_Ten.html
HEAVYWEIGHT 205 lb and up (93 kg and up)
1. Rodrigo Nogueira (PRIDE Heavyweight Champion)
2. Josh Barnett (UFC Heavyweight Champion)

3. Heath Herring

4. Randy Couture
5. Bob Sapp
6. Pedro Rizzo
7. Emelianenko Fedor
8. Ricco Rodriguez
9. Igor Vovchanchyn
10. Mark Coleman

Plenty of authentic and original historic rankings from 1997-2007 exist, such as: MMA Media Top 10, Stephen Quadros, MMA Writers Top 10 ADCC, MMARanks.com MMA Collective, Fightsport Associated Fight Press, MMA Weekly, MMA Fighting, Fighters Destiny, MMA News, Sav's NHB Chris Savarese, Domingo's NHB, International Valetudo, Magapi Valetudo, Tatame, House of Pain, Fightingtalk...

But they can't simply be just Googled or clicked on one portal. It requires a significant effort in time and knowledge (you have to know what rankings existed and were relevant in what historic period) to find and research them with web.archive.org Wayback Machine, and by reading magazines such as Black Belt etc.
Also threads and posts of people who spent significant effort and time in researching them have to be consulted. Special thanks to users Rester and CoffeeAndBeer who started documenting Top 10 wins with authenitc genuine historc rankings and collecting data years ago and spent a lot of their time, and NuMe for his effort. I apologize if I forgot someone.
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/top-10-wins-of-mma-fighters-list.3383459/
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/gsp-most-top-5-wins-hendo-most-top-10-wins.2483907/
https://web.archive.org/web/2015062...-top-ten-wins-mma-fighters-pride-ufc-2166169/
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/ufc-vs-pride-hw-evolution-1998.3659463/
 
Last edited:
Gregoire1 said:
Resume:
1. Fedor
2. Stipe
3. Werdum
4. DC, Cain
5. Reem

Ability:
1.Fedor, Cain
2. Stipe
3. DC
4. Werdum
5. Reem
Click to expand...
hmmm... makes absolutely no sense to have Fedor @ #1 & Nog out of the top5.

Fedor´s potential goatness depends heavily on Nog.
 
DayV said:
First of all Fightmatrix did not exist before 2008, and it's calcuclations and alghoritms for times before that are often incorrect and in discrepancy with actuall historic rankings and authentic opinions of MMA public and media. With due respect to OP/TS this kind of thread should not be started and discussed based on Fightmatrix.
For example Heath Herring is not ranked at all by Fightmatrix in both Fedor title eliminator fight and 2001 Pride title fight vs Nogueira. Actually almost all relevant authentic historic rankings from that time had Herring ranked in Top 5 for both fights, and that was the real opinion of MMA public and real position of Herring at that time. Stephen Quadros had Herring ranked no. 5 vs Noguiera,
http://web.archive.org/web/20011103074215/http://www.stephenquadros.com:80/SQ_MMA_Top_Ten.html
and no. 3 vs Fedor.
http://web.archive.org/web/20021004064724/http://stephenquadros.com:80/SQ_MMA_Top_Ten.html/
Click to expand...
Heath was indeed a legit quality win. The Big Cat fight opened many eyes.
 
frye666 said:
Nog was a pride and UFC heavyweight champ. He already had 34 fights BEFORE he joined the UFC. UFC Nog was a far cry from prime Nog
Click to expand...

I understand. It's not his fault too, but still, Stipe and co. fought more legit competition IMO
 
Pakman said:
Cain did kill him, albeit many moons after Nog was the #1 fighter in the entiire sport.

And head to head hypothetical match-ups are not how ALL time rankings work. You don't seem to understand that, so I'll explain.

It doesn't matter if DC or JDS could beat Nog (JDS would never fight him in the first place if you had a clue), it matters about their resume.

If you want to say Stipe due to winning the belt multiple times, beating the top guys of this era (which is lolbad HW is literally one of the worst divisions in all of MMA), cool.

JDS has a better resume in the UFC than the other guys you mentioned.

DC isn't even fucking close. Like, not even remotely close.

You don't seem to realize how many top tier wins Big Nog had. Nor what it meant to be the #1 fighter in the sport. Not just the HW division, but Big Nog was widely considered the ABSOLUTE BEST FIGHTER IN THE ENTIRE SPORT.

Literally 0 of those guys were considered that, aside from a brief moment in time when Cain looked like the baddest man on the planet.
Click to expand...

I understand really well, but the caliber of the fighters back then was shit.
More than today.
 
gono btw said:
hmmm... makes absolutely no sense to have Fedor @ #1 & Nog out of the top5.

Fedor´s potential goatness depends heavily on Nog.
Click to expand...
??? Why?
Fedor was undefeated 10 years, he would beat all current HW IMO, but Nog lose to 3-4 top current HW. Its like say that Jon Jones greatness depends heavily on Gus or Macihida.
 
ExitLUPin said:
this. And the #10 is pretty arbitrary in the first place. Semmy was def top 10 when Nog beat him and Sergei was one of Nogs finest wins/performances too and was ranked by various publications at the time. To leave out those 2 wins just seems like historical revisionism of not having watched at the time and retroactively using 1 new source
Click to expand...

Big Nog has many more top 10 wins that what is listed in this thread. When that thread of most top 10 wins in MMA was up here on Sherdog years ago I want to say Fedor had like 12-13 top 10 wins and Big Nog had like 14-16 but I think that thread got lost when they updated the format of Sherdog and added likes.
 
Bouboumaster said:
I understand. It's not his fault too, but still, Stipe and co. fought more legit competition IMO
Click to expand...

No, Stipe has not fought more legit competition than Big Nog. Big Nog's strength of schedule is greater than almost everyone at HW with Werdum being the only one to arguably have a tougher strength of schedule.
 
DayV said:
First of all Fightmatrix did not exist before 2008, and it's calcuclations and alghoritms for times before that are often incorrect and in discrepancy with actuall historic rankings and authentic opinions of MMA public and media. With due respect to OP/TS this kind of thread should not be started and discussed based on Fightmatrix.
For example Heath Herring is not ranked at all by Fightmatrix in both Fedor title eliminator fight and 2001 Pride title fight vs Nogueira. Actually almost all relevant authentic historic rankings from that time had Herring ranked in Top 5 for both fights, and that was the real opinion of MMA public and real position of Herring at that time. Stephen Quadros had Herring ranked no. 5 vs Noguiera,
http://web.archive.org/web/20011103074215/http://www.stephenquadros.com:80/SQ_MMA_Top_Ten.html
and no. 3 vs Fedor.
http://web.archive.org/web/20021004064724/http://stephenquadros.com:80/SQ_MMA_Top_Ten.html
HEAVYWEIGHT 205 lb and up (93 kg and up)
1. Rodrigo Nogueira (PRIDE Heavyweight Champion)
2. Josh Barnett (UFC Heavyweight Champion)

3. Heath Herring

4. Randy Couture
5. Bob Sapp
6. Pedro Rizzo
7. Emelianenko Fedor
8. Ricco Rodriguez
9. Igor Vovchanchyn
10. Mark Coleman

Plenty of authentic and original historic rankings from 1997-2007 exist, such as: MMA Media Top 10, Stephen Quadros, MMA Writers Top 10 ADCC, MMARanks.com MMA Collective, Fightsport Associated Fight Press, MMA Weekly, MMA Fighting, Fighters Destiny, MMA News, Sav's NHB Chris Savarese, Domingo's NHB, International Valetudo, Magapi Valetudo, Tatame, House of Pain, Fightingtalk...

But they can't simply be just Googled or clicked on one portal. It requires a significant effort in time and knowledge (you have to know what rankings existed and were relevant in what historic period) to find and research them with web.archive.org Wayback Machine, and by reading magazines such as Black Belt etc.
Also threads and posts of people who spent significant effort and time in researching them have to be consulted. Special thanks to users Rester and CoffeeAndBeer who started documenting Top 10 wins with authenitc genuine historc rankings and collecting data years ago and spent a lot of their time, and NuMe for his effort. I apologize if I forgot someone.
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/top-10-wins-of-mma-fighters-list.3383459/
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/gsp-most-top-5-wins-hendo-most-top-10-wins.2483907/
https://web.archive.org/web/2015062...-top-ten-wins-mma-fighters-pride-ufc-2166169/
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/ufc-vs-pride-hw-evolution-1998.3659463/
Click to expand...

The Sherdog archives are the best source for older rankings, if they actually load that is.
 
faustian said:
Couldn't disagree more

Assuming we're talking about prime Nog (literally like 3-4 years before he took the UFC strap) the only bad stylistic matchup I see for him there is JDS. I don't see too many paths to victory for Nog there. But other than that; I think Nog handles Stipe and DC more often than not. Probably outpoints them if they manage to keep it standing; Nog never had heavy hands but he did have effective technical boxing and endless cardio with an indestructible chin, plus the constant threat of going to the mat

Cain is interesting because I personally value peak Cain extremely high and think he's up there with Fedor as the most overwhelming fighters ever, but then again I was surprised to see him jump into Doom's guillotine like that and how helpless he was once he got there. I do think Doom is better at finishing subs than Nog but Nog would still present similar issues for Cain that Doom did, i.e. the threat of potentially neutralizing and even exploiting one of Cain's greatest strengths (wrestling). Cain would have to pull of a masterclass in preemptive sub defense ala Fedor/Nog 1 if he wanted to take it to the ground but his best bet would probably be to grind against the cage. I see that matchup pretty even, perhaps 55/45 to Cain if he fights smart
Click to expand...

Cain fought in an era/division when no one was really dangerous on the ground. Big Nog fought in an era/division where most of the top 10 had very legit high level submission games. I don't think Cain would have done nearly as well in the HW division in Pride as he did in the UFC's HW division.

I picked Werdum to beat Cain and thought he was a bad match up for Cain since Cain's primary style is to brawl into the clinch and take people down and I thought Werdum had better kickboxing and Cain wouldn't want any part of Werdum on the ground so the threat of the takedown wouldn't really be there for Cain. I was surprised at how many people thought Cain would be able to take Werdum down easily and be in no danger when he's literally never fought anyone dangerous on the ground(not counting landing some finishing GnP shots on Zombie Nog).
 
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