The Most Underrated Fighter of All-Time?

[JustBleed69]

In your opinion, who is the most underrated or underappreciated fighter in MMA History?

My vote is Sean "The Muscle Shark" Sherk.

Record of 36-4, Former UFC Lightweight Champion, Former Welterweight Title Contender, only losses were to 4 All-Time Greats and Champions (BJ Penn, Matt Hughes, Frankie Edgar, & Georges St. Pierre).

He went on a 19 Fight Win Streak in his first 19 fights followed by another 12 Fight Win Streak later in his career.

Notable wins include Karo Parisyan x2, Manny Gamburyan, Nick Diaz, Kenny Florian, Hermes Franca, & Tyson Griffin.

He was always undersized in terms of height and reach, but was athletic and strong enough to compete at a very high level. He also had some of the fastest level change takedowns that I have ever seen.

WAR THE MUSCLE SHARK, inb4 PEDs

 

[qw3rty]

Ronda

 

[Taric]

Murilo Bustamante. He didn't start losing until he started to fight at 205. At 185 he was a beast.

 

[Taric]

Alexandre 'Pequeno' Noguiera

This is a good answer.

 

[SwiftHennessy]

Junior Dos Santos.

 

[Thunderchild]

I am going to go against the grain on Sherk and say this
Matt Hughes dominated him, I know I know, Sean was able to go all 5 rds and may have won 1 of them, but it was definitely a dominating loss
GSP dominated him
BJ dominated him
Look at Franca, Gamburyan and Tyson Griffin's record and you see that they weren't really that good
Karo Parisyan was like 19 years old when he fought Sherk
Most people thought he lost to Dunham

He beat Kenny Florian and Nick Diaz. He was about that good, good enough to beat KenFlo and wrestlefuck Nick, but would lose badly in fantasy matchups vs. alot of other LW"s with good TD defense

In today's era a guy Sherk's size would have cut to flyweight or bantamweight. No shame in losing to GSP one of the GOATs, or BJ who was on a roll back then.

 

[humdizzle]

Cerrone or Masvidal until recently when they finally got some shine.

 

[JustBleed69]

I am going to go against the grain on Sherk and say this
Matt Hughes dominated him, I know I know, Sean was able to go all 5 rds and may have won 1 of them, but it was definitely a dominating loss
GSP dominated him
BJ dominated him
Look at Franca, Gamburyan and Tyson Griffin's record and you see that they weren't really that good
Karo Parisyan was like 19 years old when he fought Sherk
Most people thought he lost to Dunham

He beat Kenny Florian and Nick Diaz. He was about that good, good enough to beat KenFlo and wrestlefuck Nick, but would lose badly in fantasy matchups vs. alot of other LW"s with good TD defense

He did lose badly, but again, he had giant win streaks and was normally massively undersized.

 

[Octupus Samurai]

Masvidal with the right mentality he could be a champion

 

[Taric]

I think it's Aldo. He's never in the GOAT discussions but he easily could be the best fighter ever fundamentally.

What are you rambling about? Aldo is talked in the same vein as Fedor, Jones, Anderson, and GSP.

 

[kerykda]

bisping was always underated, up until recently had the most wins, only really lost to ped users, never popped himself and defended the belt against arguably the most notorious k.o in ufc history, consistently stayed in the top 10 for te years and fought with a fucked up eye too from the vitor loss.
Plus he took salty lukes soul so this alone is worth the mention

 

[Siauliai]

Its fookin Frankie Edgar and not even close
Wins over : BJ x3 times
Chad Mendes
Sean Sherk
Jeremy Stephens
Gray Maynard
Uriah Faber ( first time i saw Frankie to be a bigger guy)
Cub Swanson twice
Jim Miller.

 

[Noraaq]

Big Nog, maybe the greatest resume in all of MMA if taken into context of prime opponents

 

[DelanoRunnymede]

Its fookin Frankie Edgar and not even close

Most overrated perhaps

 

[Perrichet]

Jake Shields

 

[FreddieRoachsVoice]

I am going to go against the grain on Sherk and say this
Matt Hughes dominated him, I know I know, Sean was able to go all 5 rds and may have won 1 of them, but it was definitely a dominating loss
GSP dominated him
BJ dominated him
Look at Franca, Gamburyan and Tyson Griffin's record and you see that they weren't really that good
Karo Parisyan was like 19 years old when he fought Sherk
Most people thought he lost to Dunham

He beat Kenny Florian and Nick Diaz. He was about that good, good enough to beat KenFlo and wrestlefuck Nick, but would lose badly in fantasy matchups vs. alot of other LW"s with good TD defense

Classic sherdog bullshit and straight up revisionist history here. Maybe watch fights instead of relying on Wikipedia because you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

1) He DID have a very competitive fight with Hughes who was one of the best fighters on the planet at the time and a horrible match-up for Sherk's skill-set. LOL @ dominated but w.e. it takes to fit your narrative eh?

2) The BJ fight also wasn't a domination. He stood with BJ for 3 rounds and didn't try to use his wrestling at all because if he did, he very likely could have won.

3) LOL @ you using 3 losses to top 10 GOAT fighters as a way to disparage someone

4) He outstruck Diaz and didn't rely solely on his wrestling. Again, watch the fight

5) Sherk had a combination of skills that would be successful in any era of mma. He had an iron chin, some of the best cardio of all time, fast hands that set up takedowns well, relentless wrestling, and he was basically unsubmittable. I have no idea who these mythical "LWs with good TDD" you speak of are because it looks to me like the division is full of strikers being ruled by the only decent takedown specialist around.

Offensive submissions are near extinct now and elite wrestlers are getting harder to come by leading to a rise of strikers in this era. With this in mind, anyone with a brain knows Prime Sherk would be extremely successful in the modern era (more than BJ) and he is truly one of the most underappreciated fighters of all time.

Lesson over; ignored

 

[Bork Neslar]

CM Punk.

 

[GrayArea]

Jake Shields

Solid post.

Won two rounds off prime GSP and two rounds off a green Woodley.

 

[Perrichet]

Solid post.

Won two rounds off prime GSP and two rounds off a green Woodley.

And has a win over Anderson’s best win in his whole career

 

[Pierced7681]

“Relentless” Paul Taylor. All action, nonstop pace, high level kickboxing. Should have been fighting at 155 his whole career, but still gave the 170 pd guys a good scrap and his record is nowhere near indicative of how good he was.