Top 10 Heavyweights ever

[ShadowRun]

Fedor
Stipe
Cain
Nagannou
Nog
Miocic
JDS
Randy
Lesnar
Werdum

 

[Brazilian007]

JDS is a solid choice. The more I think about it, the more it looks like as long as you keep Fedor as #1 you can make solid arguments for like 10 different guys to fill out the rest in most any order you want.

I do

#1 Fedor
#2 Stipe
#3 Werdum
#4 Cain
#5 JDS or maybe Overeem? Or Ngannou?

I have Cain above Ngannou only for now but I would put Ngannou above after another win or 2. I dont see how you couldnt and he did beat Cain albeit a past prime last fight before retiring Cain.

JDS did beat Werdum but it was a hailmary punch. Werdum over all record is better and he beat Cain desceively over several rounds. I wish we saw JDS vs Werdum II I am positive K1 Werdum would of won maybe this fight will happen in PFL now that JDS seems done with the UFC.

If Stipe never lost to Struve ir if he avenged it I would have him over Fedor most likely. Fedor did lose to Werdum in his prime but it was a quick submission loss not a brutal beat down. We never saw a rematch and we dont know how it would of gone down.

 

[Brazilian007]

No, it's not all about resume. Longevity is a factor, and if it's all about resume, then Ngannous is pretty weak.

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

"Besides resume, Arlovski's longevity is also a factor"



LMAO....no, its all about the resume. AA handin around and collecting gift SDs against prelim'ers does nothing to enhance his resume.

You listed ONE elite fighter and he lost several times among those names.

I'm not even talking about what he's doing now, I'm talking about how long he was actually relevant. Ngannou has been relevant for like 5 years? 6? Arlovski was relevant for like 15.

Yeah, that matters to me.

 

[Exarch01]

Agree, there is. I do have a sincere question though anout something you said.

My question is, how exactly do you go about weighing that? For example, I was debating Volk and Aldo’s legacy recently. A poster said, “Well, Aldo has losses too, and you aren’t factoring that in.”
To which I asked, “Well, how should I do that?” Jose Aldo ran that division for like 6 years, and has 9 title defenses. After that, he lost some fights. Volk has not surpassed those things, and hasn’t even gotten to the point of his career that Aldo is at in which these losses are occurring. So how would I “factor in Aldo’s losses”? Does Volk somehow not have to achieve what Aldo did? Does he get some kind of pass? That seems absurd.

So regarding Fedor, he lost to Mitrione and Bader in his 42nd and 45th fights, 17 and 19 years into his career respectively. Why should that hurt him when comparing him to fighters who haven’t beat as many ranked opponents as him, didn’t have as many title defenses as him, weren’t undefeated as long as him, didn’t beat as many former champs as him, and haven’t even reached their 17th year or 42nd pro fights?



Oh I’m your guy for that. His resume is just littered with ghosts, zombies, and decomposing bodies (i.e., old, past prime, declined fighters)
His resume consists of : Blaydes x2 (those are good wins), shot Arlovski, shot Ovreem, Reallllly shot Cain, Rozenstruik (eh), declining Stipe (prime Stipe handled him easily), and Ciryl Gane (whom we think is a good win but really don’t know as his resume is quite thin as well). That’s it.
1 title win, 1 defense.

I’d put him toward the bottom of the top 15. I left a couple question marks at the end of my ranking list, but probably #9 and #10 should be Arlovski and Couture. That would mean I don’t have Barnett, DC, or Mir in my top 10, and I’d put them all before Francis. That makes Francis #14 at best imo. He’s jockeying for position with Sylvia and Brock.

Yeah so this is also down to personal opinion, and I think it's impossible to actually codify some sort of standards to assess someone's career. I firmly believe that you can't just declare that a fighter's losses don't count because they're past their prime. That's just cherry picking your favorite parts of a fighter's career and sticking your head in the sand when it comes to their decline.

For Aldo and Fedor, yeah I consider them the GOATs for FW and HW, respectively. They had losses to the nest generation of fighters, but some wins too so they're legacies aren't completely fucked up. Same for like Shogun, Couture, Faber, Arvolski, Hendo, and plenty of other fighters I haven't thought of yet. But if the decline goes on too long, it can definitely start to overshadow their prior accomplishments.

BJ Penn is probably the ultimate example. If he had retired after the Matt Hughes rubber match, we'd still be talking about him in all-time p4p GOAT talks. But he hung around too long, and now it seems people remember him getting worked over by Diaz, MacDonald, Edgar, and some random drunk guy in Hilo instead of his early career success. Penn went from one of the greatest fighters in the sport to a walking meme in record time.

Other examples of late career ass kickings overshadowing earlier accomplishments include Renan Barao, Tim Sylvia, Tony Fergusson, and arguably Ronda Rousey (she only lost twice, but they were such embarrassingly noncompetitive fights that they still detract from everything else). Cody Garbrandt may be headed there as well.

On the other side, you have fighters like Khabib and GSP who retired on top. We can look at the entirety of their careers without having to factor in big losing streaks, and I think that counts for a lot in their overall legacy.

 

[Brazilian007]

Yeah so this is also down to personal opinion, and I think it's impossible to actually codify some sort of standards to assess someone's career. I firmly believe that you can't just declare that a fighter's losses don't count because they're past their prime. That's just cherry picking your favorite parts of a fighter's career and sticking your head in the sand when it comes to their decline.

For Aldo and Fedor, yeah I consider them the GOATs for FW and HW, respectively. They had losses to the nest generation of fighters, but some wins too so they're legacies aren't completely fucked up. Same for like Shogun, Couture, Faber, Arvolski, Hendo, and plenty of other fighters I haven't thought of yet. But if the decline goes on too long, it can definitely start to overshadow their prior accomplishments.

BJ Penn is probably the ultimate example. If he had retired after the Matt Hughes rubber match, we'd still be talking about him in all-time p4p GOAT talks. But he hung around too long, and now it seems people remember him getting worked over by Diaz, MacDonald, Edgar, and some random drunk guy in Hilo instead of his early career success. Penn went from one of the greatest fighters in the sport to a walking meme in record time.

Other examples of late career ass kickings overshadowing earlier accomplishments include Renan Barao, Tim Sylvia, Tony Fergusson, and arguably Ronda Rousey (she only lost twice, but they were such embarrassingly noncompetitive fights that they still detract from everything else). Cody Garbrandt may be headed there as well.

On the other side, you have fighters like Khabib and GSP who retired on top. We can look at the entirety of their careers without having to factor in big losing streaks, and I think that counts for a lot in their overall legacy.

It depends

Big Foot will still be remebered as scary in his prime for what he did to Fedor and others.

Bj Penn if he retired after the Hughes 3rd fight would of been cemented as a LW GOAT until Khabib came around.

Bj Penn was never p4p in my opinion his losses at FW and WW are too many and to brutal of losses. How can he be?

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

Ngannou may not have the overall resume, but I don’t see how you can leave him out of a top 10. Even if you value longevity/resume more, you can’t just ignore a fighter’s peak success and ability. The method in which he beats people at the highest level has rarely been seen in the UFC.

Obviously you can’t put him ahead of Fedor/Stipe/Werdum and 2-3 others, but the fighters at the latter parts of these lists absolutely wouldn’t beat him at his peak(they probably get destroyed, too).

He doesn't get credit for shit he's never done. It doesn't matter if they would beat him or not. It's overall accomplishment.

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

I actually like this list, and don’t have any real issues with it. I also find it tough to rank #8-10. If I’m being picky, I think I’d put Reem over Arlovski, but I also understand that Arlovski’s title run is better than what Reem achieved. Good list!

Reem is lower for the same reason Barnett doesn't even make the list. Juicing. Lots of it.

 

[MartinGibson86]

I'm not even talking about what he's doing now, I'm talking about how long he was actually relevant. Ngannou has been relevant for like 5 years? 6? Arlovski was relevant for like 15.

Yeah, that matters to me.

Hes been a chinny "win 2 lose 1 fighter" his entire career and has several embarrasing ko losses.

 

[Exarch01]

It depends

Big Foot will still be remebered as scary in his prime for what he did to Fedor and others.

Bj Penn if he retired after the Hughes 3rd fight would of been cemented as a LW GOAT until Khabib came around.

Bj Penn was never p4p in my opinion his losses at FW and WW are too many and to brutal of losses. How can he be?

Yeah I forgot about Bigfoot. He has some outstanding highlights, but that's definitely a guy who needed to stop fighting a long time ago.

I'm not going to dig through archives and tell you his exact rankings at the time, but I'm pretty certain from like 2004 to 2010 Penn was absolutely considered a p4p all time great. Someone else can fact check me on this, but I think after he submitted Gomi and Hughes in succession some respectable media outlets had him simultaneously ranked the #1 LW and #1 WW in the world. Then he was the first fighter two win championships in two separate divisions. Those are big accomplishments. I think the only time a fighter has been ranked #1 in two separate divisions at the same time is Henry Cejudo like 15 years later. So yeah that's why and when he was a p4p great.

But again, we're not picking our favorite parts of a fighter's career and ignoring the parts we don't like, and now I don't think anyone considers Penn a GOAT.

 

[JKS]

He has Nog above Werdum and Cain....



I have

#1 Fedor
#2 Stipe
#3 Werdum
#4 Cain
#5 JDS
#6 Overeem
#7 MIR
#8 Nog

Well Fedor and Kharitnov had good defense back then as did Cro Cop. Would they get hit? Yeah sometimes but usually not. I just looked at some if his highlights and almost everyone smashed his face up. I am saying Nog would not match up well vs todays HWs.

I value head to head record. You may not but that is your nostalgia speaking. To lose 2x to a guy by being finished cannot logically make you better than them. Imagine if Mir got to face the Ricos, ensons, Valejtin and other cans of the world his record would have more wins

LOL, you lost all credibility when you placed Mir and Overeem over Big Nog. Like I said, anyone who doesn't have Big Nog in their top 5 is either bias, or frankly, just has no idea what they are talking about. Cain has no business at #4, Overeem at #6 makes no sense, Mir at #7 makes even less sense. There is not one reasonable argument to place Mir or Overeem over Big Nog.

HLs. LOL, how about you actually watch Big Nog's actual fights my friend.

Come on amigo! Let's get our head straight here.

1.Fedor
2.Stipe
3.Big Nog
4.Werdum
5.JDS
6.Cormier
7.Cain

There is your top 7. The rest you can have Cro Cop, Overeem, Barnett, Ngannou, Arlovski, Mir etc.

 

[Brazilian007]

LOL, you lost all credibility when you placed Mir and Overeem over Big Nog. Like I said, anyone who doesn't have Big Nog in their top 5 is either bias, or frankly, just has no idea what they are talking about. Cain has no business at #4, Overeem at #6 makes no sense, Mir at #7 makes even less sense.

Come on amigo! Let's get our head straight here.

1.Fedor
2.Stipe
3.Big Nog
4.Werdum
5.JDS
6.Cormier
7.Cain

There is your top 7. The rest you can have Cro Cop, Overeem, Barnett, Ngannou, Arlovski, Mir etc.

Nog cant be over Werdum that is laughable... common opponents Werdum owns Nog and in head to head they are tied but Werdums win is more impressive.

I could respect your list if you at least put Werdum as #3 but you guys are stuck in the past. Nog was a 1 dimesional fighter who didnt have to face as many killers as Overeem and Cain later had to face or even Mir. To NOT put the guy who raped Nog 2x in 2 fights over him is just major cope. Also Cormier at #6 but no Overeem?

I am a Fedor fanboy but the Nog fan boy stuff is just delusion. Fedor was well rounded and explosive and a good striker with good defense, hands, and takedowns and bjj, Nog was slow, immobile, easy to hit with poor takedowns and terrible striking. The idea that Nog could somehow be a top HW today in a division were everyone has goos takedown defense is just laughable.

 

[Goodfella86]

1. Fedor
2. Nog
3. Werdum
4. Crocop
5. Barnett

Don't even think about challenging my list. I'll be busy listening to the PRIDE theme.

Spoiler

 

[Adebisi]

He doesn't get credit for shit he's never done. It doesn't matter if they would beat him or not. It's overall accomplishment.

12-2 in the UFC, 1 of his only 2 losses was against the greatest of all-time. 11 finishes in 14 matches and he has never been finished lol

Sorry, I know nostalgia is really powerful, but that’s an extremely impressive run.

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

Hes been a chinny "win 2 lose 1 fighter" his entire career and has several embarrasing ko losses.

And Ngannou was absolutely humiliated by Stipe and had the worst fight of all time in a decision loss to Derrick Lewis.

Also, Arlovski wasn't a win 2 lose 1 fighter, he had bouts of prolonged success and bouts of prolonged defeat. He would win 5 in a row, all by finish, then go on a losing streak. During his prime, which was like 2005 to 2010, he lost to Sylvia and Fedor and that's it.

His loss to Fedor is where I end his prime and he goes on that awful losing streak. Then he had that resurgence, but he wasn't the same guy as before, and then he had another losing streak. He really only started losing a lot towards the end of his relevance, which is what happens to almost all fighters. The only difference is Arlovski adapted and managed to reinvogorate his career, even after a 4 fight losing streak that would cause most people to retire.

Ngannou is in his prime right now, maybe at the end of it with this knee injury.

 

[BFoe]

For sure my top 4 dont change

#1 Fedor
# 2 Stipe
# 3 Werdum
# 4 Cain

Hold on now—I didn’t say head to head wins are meaningless. But it’s not my main criteria, I look at other things. You must be looking at other things too, because Werdum beat Fedor, but you don’t have him above Fedor. JDS beat Werdum, but you don’t have him above Werdum. So what is it you’re looking at?

After that it gets funny. Ngannou should be top 10 he beat everyone just about. And JDS has an impressive list only losing to Cain and Overeem.

You have to value head to head it is the most logical and people do it in team sports and in championships. War and battles are also valued on head to head as are chess champs. It is literally nonsensical and doing some 4d chess cope to argue that going 0 and 2 or 0 and 3 vs an opponent somehow doesnt matter.

Barnett career work is more impressive than Cro Cop but Cro Cop beat Barnett 3x. What are the chances each time Barnett was injured and that somehow Cro Cop had no injuries? Extremely slim and is still an excuse. Cro Cop is a better HW than Barnett and while Barnett has more top 10 wins the fact Cro Cop owned Barnett 3x should mean Cro Cop is superior to Barnett

Other sports: I’m old enough to remember when Buster Douglas beat Mike Tyson in 1990–it was insane. When Danny Williams beat Tyson in 2005, it was far less amazing.

Schooling Michael Jordan on the court is a big deal. But are we talking 1993 Bulls Jordan, or 2003 Wizards Jordan? There’s a difference, and that difference matters. It’s not a matter of cope, it’s a matter of honest historical evaluation.

On some level, you must agree with this. After all, Stefan Struve beat both Stipe and Bigfoot (Bigfoot of course having wins over Fedor and Overeem both), but you’re not trying to rank Struve—because you know his resume isn’t deserving of it.

Head to head matchups are kind of a tiebreaker for me. Barnett and Cro Cop are actually a pretty good example.
I’ll explain the thought process, but I’ll put it in spoiler tags since it’ll be a bit long-winded.

Spoiler: Quick Barnett/Mirko rundown

The thought process runs like this:

—Who has the better wins? It’s pretty darn equivalent imo. Maybe Barnett by a bit.
—Who has better title wins/runs? Cro Cop by a hair. Barnett “won” a UFC title but was immediately stripped. He never won the Strikeforce belt. PRIDE belt, or either of those orgs’ Grand Prixes. Cro Cop did win a PRIDE GP.
—Is Mirko’s GP win enough to outweigh Barnett’s very slight edge on wins? Since their resumes are pretty close, I’d say it does probably push Cro Cop over Barnett. But it’s hard to say. It’s close to a dead heat.
—Since it’s practically a dead heat, did they ever meet head to head? If so, when, and were they in good form at the time? Answer: Yes. They fought 3x in 2004, 2005, and 2006. They were both in very good form. Result? Mirko won all 3, and although the first fight was a fluky injury, the other 2 were not. In fact, Cro Cop won that PRIDE GP title by beating Barnett.

Therefore, I think we can safely rank Mirko above Barnett.

Could there be a scenario where resume wins out over head to head? Sure. Overeem is up 2-1 on Werdum, but I don’t rank him higher. You don’t rank him higher. No one really ranks him higher.

 

[Adebisi]

I love how the cutoff for “when prime ended” is so biased lol it’s always conveniently suited for the argument.

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

And Ngannou was absolutely humiliated by Stipe and had the worst fight of all time in a decision loss to Derrick Lewis.

Also, Arlovski wasn't a win 2 lose 1 fighter, he had bouts of prolonged success and bouts of prolonged defeat. He would win 5 in a row, all by finish, then go on a losing streak. During his prime, which was like 2005 to 2010, he lost to Sylvia and Fedor and that's it.

His loss to Fedor is where I end his prime and he goes on that awful losing streak. Then he had that resurgence, but he wasn't the same guy as before, and then he had another losing streak. He really only started losing a lot towards the end of his relevance, which is what happens to almost all fighters. The only difference is Arlovski adapted and managed to reinvogorate his career, even after a 4 fight losing streak that would cause most people to retire.

12-2 in the UFC, 1 of his only 2 losses was against the greatest of all-time. 11 finishes in 14 matches and he has never been finished lol

Sorry, I know nostalgia is really powerful, but that’s an extremely impressive run.

K, that's not at all a convincing argument.

Again, I have no nostalgia. I came into this sport 4 years ago. I know recency bias is really powerful, but please try to be objective here.

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

I love how the cutoff for “when prime ended” is so biased lol it’s always conveniently suited for the argument.

Prime begins when a prolonged success starts and ends when the prolonged success stops. For some fighters it's easy to see. For others it's harder.

For Ngannou I would say his prime started around when he faced Overeem and Arlovski, and he's still there now, though it looks to be coming to an end soon.

 

[CoffeeAndBeer]

My list:

1.Fedor
2.Stipe
3.Nog
4.Werdum
5.Dos Santos
6.Cain
7.Cro Cop
8.Arlovski
9.Overeem
10. Mir

Not sure who would win out my ten spot.

DC is fantastic but he didn’t spend enough time in heavyweight for me to put him in heavyweight top 10. He's in my all time top 10 tho.

Francis isn't there yet lol. Arlovski has had a legendary career, had two title defenses, (interim and undisputed) and has the most ufc heavyweight wins. I fail to see what Ngannou has accomplished over Arlovski and Reem.

Frank Mir only has 5 wins over Top 10 Ranked Opponents for his entire career.

I'm a strong proponent of Longevity mattering in GOAT discussions/rankings, but Frank Mir is the proverbial "monkey wrench" on the matter.

Frank Mir started in 2001 and just got his last win in 2019. He fought a Who's Who list of HWs across almost every era of MMA. But along the way, Frank seemed to fight opponents who were NOT ranked Top 10 when he beat them.

Josh Barnett is above Frank Mir (for one)
Daniel Cormier has 6 Top 10-Ranked Wins at HW (From 2011 to 2018)


**I have an extensive list of Rankings going back to the Dark Ages of MMA that I compiled over the years that I'm basing this on. Not just speculating (waybackmachine / Internet Archive)**