The HW division is a perfect example of the sport-evolution fallacy

these days most mma fighters on the ufc roster are sloppy kickboxers with takedown defence and a mcdojo black belt.
 
Well Ngannou starched pretty much everyone, including prior champs. Sooooo
 
HeffDoesWant said:
Hmm disagree, mma has a higher top but lower average.
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Dunno about that. It'd be tough to work it out. Theres way way way more money at the top in MMA though. With a much smaller talent pool, maybe competing 30 times in your whole career (vs hundreds of rugby games) and the physical toll honestly isnt much worse than rugby overall.

Its actually pretty crazy how rugby isnt under fire much more for its pay. Its one of the most brutal sports in the world and has some of the best athletes, but pays like absolute shit even though its old and well established. It basically contradicts the idea that the only reason HW MMA sucks is poor pay.
 
Shilt was nowhere as good as Volkovski in mma. Shilt was clumsy. But yeah todays HWs aren't better then the old ones
 
Poirierfan said:
Gane might not be more accomplished than Overeem, but he's a legit undefeated Muay Thai fighter. Those tin belts don't mean as much as people think. I'd put Gane up against a prime Overeem in a kickboxing match any day of the week.
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Gane would die. Ubereem would walk him down. You can’t compare a bush level mauy thai champ to a k1 conqueror, that’s just wrong man
 
MMA has certainly evolved since its earliest days. The question is how much it has evolved in the past fifteen or so. I feel like we see certain new strategies utilized or certain techniques that have been integrated, but it isn't a massive leap. As far as HW and LHW, they have obviously regressed. I blame USADA. Guys that big aren't built to fight hard for 15-25 minutes straight without a little help.
 
Wait, is this post for real?

Volkov does nothing better than Schilt? In MMA?

Does anyone here realistically believe that Volkov would go 1-3 against any welterweight on any roster, hell, against any welterweight alive today?

Schilt lost 3 times to Yuki Kondo, who was a great fighter for his day but by modern standards is a smallish welterweight. Maybe even smaller, as he's fought as low as 161 pounds.

Name me a 155er who can beat Volkov. I'll wait.
 
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mjfan23 said:
Gane would die. Ubereem would walk him down. You can’t compare a bush level mauy thai champ to a k1 conqueror, that’s just wrong man
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HW muay thai is a joke but K1 was pretty shallow even then to be fair. Plus Reem was getting KTFO by slow as fuck Bigfoot not all that long after he won that K1 GP. Its not like he was untouchable. He'd have the power edge but Gane is quicker and much more technically skilled.
 
It’s not a bad theory but the time frame is important. Large, skilled men are not common…. Example, Stipe and Cain could absolutely compete with and maybe even beat Fedor….but time fucked all that up. It’s just difficult to find the talent at HW to succeed long term.
 
The sport really evolved in 5-10 years, but you gotta realize not every weight class has the same learning curve. you can't teach a HW to do the same things Sandhagen does and note xpect to get tired in 5 minutes; up to LHW you see well rounded fighters with good cardio and great skill set, but the risk of getting tired always stays
 
krelianx said:
Yes, the sport generally evolves, and the talent overall improves in time. But from this people conclude that every division now is necessarily composed of superior talent than before. That is not always the case.

HW is the paradigm example of that. Lots of people went ahead to claim that guys like Gane, Volkov, Tuivasa, Blaydes, Almeida and Lewis are "next generation talent". In truth, the HW division is in a pretty dismal shape, worse than I can remember it being since the Tim Sylvia days, and certainly a lot worse than after the Strikeforce and Pride acquisitions.

Nothing Volkov does Semmy Schilt did not do better; nothing Tuivasa does did Mark Hunt not do better. Almeida does nothing we haven't seen from guys like Arona, Filho, or Werdum.

Guys like Cyril Gane, who is not even a particularly accomplished kickboxer, is seen to be somehow superior to people like Overeem, Schilt, or Mirko, who were far more accomplished.
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No. Because you’re forgetting one thing :

the top Athletes over 230 aren’t doing mma as their primary sport. They are doing.....THE BIG 3 or just lifting weights .

come on. Use common sense before I smack some into you man. This is day 2 stuff
 
HW was, is, and always will be trash, but this is looking back through rose tinted glasses. Semmy Schilt may find some favorable style matches in this division, but the marjority would maul him. Almeida wouldn't have any more trouble with Mark Hunt than he did with Lewis.
 
Fight Professor said:
Weight cutting is a big reason for that. Some fighters like Poatan can fight at MW while 20 years ago they would have been HW fighters.

Imagine Jones, Alex, Jiri, younger Glover, Reyes, prime Gus… fighting at HW.
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This is a factor too. A young Fedor, Mirko, Randy (and he was for a while) Big Nog, Arvloski would all be LHW today. Late career I can see them moving up to HW. But 2000-2008 them all would cut to LHW today. OWGP Mirko weighed in less than Poatans fight weight apparently is.
 
In 2013 the UFC HW division consisted of these top 10 fighters:
Cain, JDS, Werdum, Cormier, Bigfoot, Barnett, Mir, Nogueira, Stipe, and Overeem

... if you swapped out Bigfoot's name with Fedor's, that's basically a list of the top 10 greatest HWs ever. Maybe it's missing Ngannou.

But the current HW division obviously does not compare, and you are an absolute noob homer if you think it does.
 
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Poirierfan said:
Gane might not be more accomplished than Overeem, but he's a legit undefeated Muay Thai fighter. Those tin belts don't mean as much as people think. I'd put Gane up against a prime Overeem in a kickboxing match any day of the week.
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Reem knocked out 5 time world muay thai champion Peter Aerts. Congrats to Gane for going undefeated in the local french muay thai circuit... the hell is wrong with you people lol
 
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TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle said:
HW muay thai is a joke but K1 was pretty shallow even then to be fair. Plus Reem was getting KTFO by slow as fuck Bigfoot not all that long after he won that K1 GP. It’s not like he was untouchable. He'd have the power edge but Gane is quicker and much more technically skilled.
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Reem only lost to big foot after blowing his own wand trying to finish him. Gane ain’t overcoming that punishment in the first place.

I see no point in comparing even a watered down k1 title (btw just look at the names he beat, all time greats) Vs MT.
Gane is a good fighter and even better athlete but the Reem prime for prime comparisons are just not genuine at this moment.
 
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