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

[markg171]

No one cares Pride nerd

 

[Bruce Lee666]

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.

K1 title vs Muay Thai title it's like
comparing a university basketball title with an NBA title, the K1 title is the dream of every Striker on the planet.

is where the Elite of Kickboxing, Muay Thai and Karate meet.

you have many Muay Thai, Karate, Boxing champions in K1.





Back then if you're Champion of K1 you're the Best Striker in the world.

 

[Paolo Delutis]

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.

Fighter pay look into it..


Unfortunately its not too often u find d

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.

I'm going to disagree only on the sole basis that heavyweight is the only division really that skill was never going to be the major deciding factor at least not as much as something like power because the power is so high that the skill doesn't need to be as high so it's hard to judge the sport of MMA just on heavyweight because power such an equalizer in fighting

And as others mentioned here if you're in North America and you're over 6 ft and you're athletically built you're most likely already playing another sport that potentially pays better if the UFC paid more we'd see more crossovers

 

[markg171]

Juice them up like back in PRIDE and let’s see how things go.

In the early 2010’s the UFC’s heavyweights were actually pretty damn good with prime JDS, Cain, Werdum, Stipe, DC, Travis Browne was looking like a good prospect before Edmund, Carwin was great, Hunt was great. It was pretty decent.

There's a reason we're not allowed to talk about that period and it has nothing to do with talking about ability and skillsets.

 

[Benoitthegr8]

There's a reason we're not allowed to talk about that period and it has nothing to do with talking about ability and skillsets.

Ah, the days of having enough big guys to fill several promotions HW divisions up with elite champion class fighters. This is what Dana dreams about, when the top HW’s where more numerous and would fight for chump change… he dreams of Cain, Brawk, and Carwin, then it goes nightmare when Ngannou knocks them all out.

 

[jjjjjjjjjjohnny]

From my perspective, i appreciate the fact that Lewis was able to defend against a "9th degree" black belt and not get submitted. Disappointed that he could not make his game work at all.

Almeida is one dimensional and if you can't submit Lewis, he won't be champion ever.

 

[markg171]

From my perspective, i appreciate the fact that Lewis was able to defend against a "9th degree" black belt and not get submitted. Disappointed that he could not make his game work at all.

Almeida is one dimensional and if you can't submit Lewis, he won't be champion ever.

Lewis has only ever been submitted by Cormier and Spivak.

He actually normally gets KTFO standing.

 

[Gotosleepho]

We get it. You think Fedor is the GOAT.

 

[Robbocop]

Generally speaking, it seems like fighters go for the finish less often in modern UFC, maybe it's something due to the pay structure in the UFC, or the get cut after 3 losses rule, but you do find a lot less warrior spirit in UFC in general including heavyweight. That said you've got guys like Ngannou and now Pavlovich, who just go around finishing everybody. Aspinall also gets a lot of finishes. I don't think you could necessarily say the legends of old would beat newer top HWs like Stipe, Gane, Ngannou, Pavlovich, Aspinall. Put any one of those guys against an oldschool legend and you'd probably have a good fight.

 

[HeffDoesWant]

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.

If you include sponsorship I'd be very confident union pays better.

In New Zealand they are royalty, in many other countries union is the more upper class sport, thereby attracting unusually high sponsorship opportunities.

Mma however sponsorship is a fucking pittance.


Union the club pays for physiotherapy, coaches, training locations, travel.

Love to see data but I'm pretty confident in my assumption.

 

[HI SCOTT NEWMAN]

1000% agree, you speak the truth. Its true everything you said.

UFC HW has gone backwards badly, I don't know why people can't see it. Most of the fights are appalling and virtually none of them know how to grapple either.. its a sorry state.

 

[SideKickPro24]

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.

This…

I used to call this the Brock Lesnar effect back in the day. Because once led ar came up to hw, anyone who wasn’t a real HW ( couture, Vera, etc. dropped down to LHW. So LHW got bigger, and the guys who were on the cusp of LHW dropped to MW so in and so forth.

back in the early 2000’s guys like rockhold, Romero, Jacare, weidman, would have all fought at LHW. They’re big dudes. And a guy like Matt Hughes ( who was a dominant champion) at WW would be a LW now. All the weight cutting tricked down. I can remember when ppl were saying aldo was to big for FW lmao. How times have changed.

that being said, there was more speed and dexterity (skill) at HW back then because the guys weren’t as big.

But who’s to say which one wins. Sometimes the extra size can overcome skill, and sometimes it’s works the opposite way. When Bigfoot beat fedor, fedor was past his prime. But he was still more skilled than Bigfoot. He was still faster, a better grappler, and an overall better fighter. He just couldn’t get the big man off of him and lost. I think it’s the same thing when Randy fought Brock. Couture was clearly more skilled, but Brock was too big for him.

So, I can’t necessarily say that a Frank Mir would beat Lewis, or that a cro cop would beat Gane. I can’t say the alternative either, but Because the strength disparity is significant.

 

[Vile]

We had multiple out of prime Pride era fighters still competing just few years back and we still have guy like Arlovski in the roster. That should be proof enough that current heavyweights suck.

 

[SideKickPro24]

Be prepared to see Gane KTFO. Alistair is an old man, but in his prime was literal K1 WGP champ, in a time when talented giants walked the land in kickboxing. Gane doesn't have the power to stop Alistair, nor the tricks to keep himself at distance Vs Ubereem at all.

shogun, and Chuck Ko’d ream. I think Gane has enough power to do so.

 

[613]

HW has always been terrible

 

[gspieler]

HW MMA evolved up until the mid-2000's. On paper, Brock and Reem would've been the pinnacle of HW MMA evolution. In reality, the more mobile midsize HW's seem to have been the top of the heap.

In any case, it's obvious HW MMA has not progressed at all in the last 15 years or so. And in all likelihood, has regressed. You'd probably have to go back to the early 2000's to locate a HW top 10 list, that today's top 10 list would get the better of.

 

[gspieler]

There is zero doubt HW is laughable compared to those earlier times, and the same can be said of LHW.

The whole "talented big guys don't choose this sport" is totally irrelevant to the point. If we were to hypothesize that this idea were true, it would have always been true. Remember big guys ALWAYS had better opportunities, but we still had a lot of good big guys at one time.

The point is, HWs and LHWs have devolved overall during the last 5-7 years or so. They have not gotten better, nor have they stayed the same.

This is a valid point. It's not like elite HW athletic talent was entering the sport in droves, in the late 90's. Big money sports always paid better. The question is why has HW regressed in spite of the sport growing, overall.

 

[Lee_]

This is a valid point. It's not like elite HW athletic talent was entering the sport in droves, in the late 90's. Big money sports always paid better. The question is why has HW regressed in spite if the sport growing, overall.

LHW has regressed also though, even worse; lots of guys from the past that could beat either of the LHW fighters in the title match.

Elite fighters are hard to come by; that's why even in the lower weight classes, you tend to get a couple of guys that can beat everyone else. The non-elite fighters are surely more well-rounded than they were in the past in the lower weight classes, but I don't see anyone I'm sure could beat GSP, Anderson, etc.

 

[gspieler]

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.

2010 would've been the intersect between the two best HW era's in mma history, IMO.

Fedor, Nog, Randy, Barnett, and Arlovski were still big names.

Brock, Mir, Carwin, and Bigfoot, were at their peaks.

Cain, JDS, Reem, Werdum, were just entering their primes.

And plenty of mid-tier scrapers around, a la Struve, Kongo, Gonzaga, and Barry. Not to mention anomalies like Hunt. Those were some exciting times in HW MMA.

 

[markg171]

We had multiple out of prime Pride era fighters still competing just few years back and we still have guy like Arlovski in the roster. That should be proof enough that current heavyweights suck.

I like how you're pretending any of those guys were highly ranked.