Tom "Big Cat" Erikson was a beast

[dildos]

god damn, I forgot how brutal his beatdown of that Russian dude was. Thanks for posting this.

EDIT: and I had no idea he did kickboxing after wow

ofcourse you never knew. you are just a 2022 acct...

 

[Nimrod]

I remember he had considered unbeatable for some hardcore at that time. Then Herring sparked him, that was definitely a huge upset and Heath’s coming out party.

This was one of my favorite Pride moments...

The way Heath stood up after the separation was amazing.... "my turn now"

 

[don't ask]

Beneteau was a judo guy from Canada. Pretty good early fighter, but for some reason a much smaller Oleg Taktarov had his number (submitted him twice in like 1 minute or less).

Are those other guys wrestlers? Just checked Baroni and he was a good juco wrestler until he got expelled from school...kind of foreshadowing troubles later in life. Not sure if the others had strong wrestling credentials.

I'm pretty sure Kohler trained at Hammer House and Benedict was a wrestler. If you watch his fight with Renzo, he's like a cross between Mark Coleman and The Incredible Hulk lol

 

[usernamee]

There should be a division in the UFC designated to nuttin but big burly Murican men.

 

[Nathan LaMontagne]

KYHO, Hero1 and the old sherdog highlights.. Those were the days. I was very active on ironlife, also on the kakoutogi (spelling?) forums. Dribbles very much rings a bell, but this was like 20-25 years ago? Time flies.

Awesome seeing another from that time!

The sherdog highlights are what personally and permanently got me back in the sport.

Dribbles ran Ironlife, his AIM username was Dribbs4pres

I left sherdog around the tuf boom and left for ironlife and subfighter ( who actually sponsored me for a little while )

Good times, good times

 

[stronghulk]

Awesome seeing another from that time!

The sherdog highlights are what personally and permanently got me back in the sport.

Dribbles ran Ironlife, his AIM username was Dribbs4pres

I left sherdog around the tuf boom and left for ironlife and subfighter ( who actually sponsored me for a little while )

Good times, good times

Yeah ironlife and also the underground forum (mma.tv?) was were it was for me mostly.. Such a good time, MMA wasn't big so we got real close with some fighters. But I also remember Lee Murray and other fighters here on sherdog so I guess I was here for that aswell haha.

 

[Bork Neslar]

His signature strike seemed to be elbows to the back of the head

 

[mkt]

There should be a division in the UFC designated to nuttin but big burly Murican men.

If only we had a time machine to bring back the best version of those guys for that division. Severn, Erickson, Tank Abbott, Roy Nelson, Derrick Lewis, Lesnar, Bobby Hoffman, Goodridge, Tim Sylvia, Wes Sims....

 

[usernamee]

If only we had a time machine to bring back the best version of those guys for that division. Severn, Erickson, Tank Abbott, Roy Nelson, Derrick Lewis, Lesnar, Bobby Hoffman, Goodridge, Tim Sylvia, Wes Sims....

Don Frye!?

 

[mkt]

Don Frye!?

Sure. On the smaller side but he battled the big guys before weight classes. He also belongs in the first post of this thread as he was a D1 wrestler. He was definitely one of the first well-rounded fighters as he boxed a little before the UFC and even had some judo training. His destruction of BJJ black belt Bitetti was maybe the first true sprawl-n-brawl beatdown, but Frye even went to the ground with him a few times IIRC.

 

[AndrewGolota48]

Pretty crazy to think that an old school fighter like Erikson would still be one of the more talented heavyweights in the 2025 UFC division.

 

[mkt]

His signature strike seemed to be elbows to the back of the head

Legal in the early UFCs and some other places. I'm not sure about the smaller orgs where Tom fought in the 90s.

 

[TR1]

This was one of my favorite Pride moments...

The way Heath stood up after the separation was amazing.... "my turn now"

Heath had a couple of those moments.

He aped out when he got stoof up vs Kerr as well.

Good times.

 

[TRYHARD 2001]

If you thought that was bad, you should probably avoid checking out his run in K-1 where I think he was even older.

Ummm, that was the K-1 run I was talking about. Unless he had more than one?

Regardless, the fact that he was around for as long as he was and was as good as he was yet only had 14 MMA fights is kinda sad, really. His literal throttling of Matt Skelton is one of those funny fight moments that's just stuck with me.

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

Erickson was a high level D1 wrestler and was fucking massive. He'd benefit greatly from today's training.

 

[BowserJr]

The generation included even more: Olympians Hendo (who wrestled more early in his career), Kevin Jackson briefly and Mark Shultz even more briefly. There was probably more fear of American wrestlers taking over the sport than there is about Merab/Khamzat types taking it over now.

Where are the great American wrestlers today?

 

[BowserJr]

Young Erickson was better than Brock. Herring came back and beat him in a big way. The same Herring that got murked by Crcop & Fedor... puts things in perspective

 

[Legendary]

Erickson was a monster. I'll never forget when he Front Strangle choked Matt Skelton in pride. His wrestling was so good and he was a huge guy with bad intentions.

 

[mkt]

Where are the great American wrestlers today?

Not sure...been asking that question for a while. The late 90s was the peak of American wrestlers entering the sport.

 

[mkt]

Young Erickson was better than Brock. Herring came back and beat him in a big way. The same Herring that got murked by Crcop & Fedor... puts things in perspective

Herring was only 31 when he fought Brock, though. And he was coming off a win against fellow gatekeeper Kongo. I don't think he was that shopworn...he just didn't really evolve or have the elite skills to win a belt in either Pride of the UFC.