Top 10 Heavyweights ever

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

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.

I agree mostly but I don't believe Cormier did enough at HW to put him in the top 10 all time.

Top 10 all time across all weight classes, yes. Top ten HW? Not quite.

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

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)**

I don't include Barnett mainly for his repeated ped offenses. If you choose not to do it that way that's your prerogative.

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

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)**

Yeah Frank Mir being in the Top Ten is iffy, you could swap him out for a few different guys.

 

[Adebisi]

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.

How is that not a convincing argument when you have Frank Mir in your top 10? Lol

 

[MartinGibson86]

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.

Yep.

How'd AA do against Stipe?


Decisions...one in a title fight.

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

Yep.


Decisions...one in a title fight.

??? What? Are you saying Ngannou's only had one decision win in his career? So?

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

How is that not a convincing argument when you have Frank Mir in your top 10? Lol

Because you didn't actually say anything. I mean yea, that's impressive, but most guys on my list had similar win streaks.

 

[thobra]

Top 5 is pretty easy:
1. Fedor
2. Nog
3. Werdum
4. Stipe
5. JDS

the other 5 is quite hard. I guess in no particular order, some of these 8 guys?

Arlovski, Crocop, Mir, Semmy, Cain, Sylvia, Randy, Overeem…

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

Yep.

How'd AA do against Stipe?


Decisions...one in a title fight.

AA lost against Stipe. Stipe is also the greatest UFC heavyweight of all time. I don’t rank Arlovski ahead of Stipe. You know this, so why are you asking?

 

[JKS]

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.

First of all, what you have to understand is that skill set is irrelevant to a discussion about the best fighters of all time. It's the results and performance that counts. Skill set can be subjective. Performance, win loss, can not. You contradict yourself by placing someone like JDS much higher than Big Nog, but yet he's a completely one dimensional boxer that offered no ground game at all. Furthermore, a one dimensional fighter can have immense success and beat many well rounded fighters. So once again, skills are not part the discussion.

Here is the problem with putting Werdum at #3, at no point in his career was Werdum the consensus best HW in the world. Even at his peak when he won the title and was ranked #1, he lost it right away. At that point, he still wasn't seen as the best HW considering you had guys like Overeem, JDS, Cormier, and Stipe in there who either already beat him, or were favored to do so. Werdum had a great run at HW from 2010 to 2016, but it was not consistent. He beat Fedor and Bigoot, then lost to Overeem. He had a great UFC run, won the title and lost it right away. After him losing his title, Werdums UFC run is not worth much, went 3-3. Prior to him at SF, his career in Pride and before wasn't anything of note. So basically Werdums entire position in the greatest HWs comes down to a span of 6 years and 12 fights where went 9-3. Once again, anything Werdum did prior to getting to SF where he became a top HW and post him losing his title in the UFC, is not anything that is worthy of being regarded as one of the greats.

In that span of 6 years, he was a top 5 HW, beat some greats like Fedor, Cain, and had good wins over Bigfoot, Hunt, Browne, Big Nog (end of his career). I think it's a great run, I think his wins over Fedor and Cain, along with winning the UFC HW title carry some weight. But if you look at Werdums career, it's rather limited. I think it's great for him to be a #4 or #5 all time, but not top 3.

Big Nog at his peak was a consistent top 5 HW for 10 years. At his peak that I regard from 2001 to 2011 in Rings, Pride and UFC he went 28-6, look at the win list of HW's he had. Cro Cop, Barnett, Couture, Sylvia, Sergei, Henderson, Werdum, Herring 3x, Ricco, Shillt, Schaub, those are 13 wins of top 5/10 opponents. He was Pride champion, UFC champion, Rings champion. Prior to entering Pride, he won the Rings tournament that pretty much defined the best HW in the world. Big Nog was #1 in the world from 2001 to 2003, then #2 for a few years and top 5 till 2011.

You wanna compare Werdum's run of 6 years and 12 fights to Big Nog's run of 10 years and 34 fights, there is no way Werdum is ahead of him. Big Nog had a much longer run as a top HW than Werdum. He beat more top fighters, won more titles and just had much better run.

 

[GOATtalks]

Don't be ridiculous. Gagne has only 5 good wins in career, Cormier has 7-8 at HW, while Cro Cop has 17-19 good HW wins.

Gagne: JDS, Rozenstruik, Volkov, Lewis, Tuivasa

Cormier: Stipe, Mir, Barnett, Tony Johnson, Nelson, Lewis, Bigfoot, Monson

Cro Cop: Barnett 3x, Fujita 2x, Wanderlei, Herring, Alex Eemelianenko, Vovchanchyn, Coleman, Randleman, Nelson, Gonzaga, Sakuraba, Yoshida, Waterman, King Mo, + Magomedov, Aliakbari, Ishii

Here is another good and objective list considering good wins of ATG HW's:
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/tck-star-rating-system-the-heavyweights.4106864/

Cro Cop has a lot bigger body of work than modern fighters.

CroCop has also way more loses. He lost to Fedor and Nog, got KOed by Randleman, lost to Hunt as well. Gonzaga separated him from consciousness, JDS finished him and he even lost to Brendan Schaub, lol. You can’t count wins, without counting the loses.

Gane has only lost to the champ in a close controversial decision.

 

[BFoe]

CroCop has also way more loses. He lost to Fedor and Nog, got KOed by Randleman, lost to Hunt as well. Gonzaga separated him from consciousness, JDS finished him and he even lost to Brendan Schaub, lol. You can’t count wins, without counting the loses.

Gane has only lost to the champ in a close controversial decision.

Well, yes, more losses tend to happen when you fight a long time.
Schaub was his 39th fight. Gonzaga was his 29th fight. Let me know when Gane gets there and we’ll compare.
Gane has 12. 12 fights. Cro Cop only lost to Nog (Interim champ) in his first 12 too.

And Gane losing to Ngannou was “close and controversial”?? You’re in rare form today.

 

[Brazilian007]

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?

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.

Cro Cop head to head vs Barnett wins out

Cain vs JDS head to head wins out over JDS

Stipe head to head wins out vs Cormier

It doesnt for Overeem vs Werdum due to the nature of the wins and lack of finishes and Werdum overall resume and common opponents being superior.

Nature of win should matter. It is one of many reasons I have Werdum above Big Nog because while they are tied 1 and 1 Nog was outclassed and finished by Werdum and submitted at his own strength BJJ. Also, most people would pick Werdum over Nog prime for prime and lastly Werdum had less can crushing and more killers he beat.

Mir is 2 and 0 vs Nog and also superior in common opponents so I have to value that over Nog.

Struve logically by most people would not beat Stipe in a rematch but the fact Stipe lost to Struve and never avenged the loss is a negative mark on his resume.

GSP avenged the Serra loss in a dominant fashion and showed no indications he would ever lose to Serra again except by fluke.

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.

Penn was considered P4P GOAT by many I remember those times but his claim today falls to someone like Anderson let alone Conor or Cormier who won at a higher level at 2 different weight classes. While Conor didnt defend a belt he had high level wins at 2 weight classes and even at WW and Cormier held 2 belts as well.

Let us look back

Penn was praised for losing at WW and at LHW vs Machida. I give Penn props for taking these fights and being small but the reality is losing should NOT get you praised. Before the Fitch fight he had a good claim for P4P based off not being finished vs a 225lb chubby Machida (prime Machida weighed 200lbs to 205lbs) while Penn weighed 191lbs.

Penn also beat Renzo and Rodrigo Gracie who were MWs and LHWs but Penn did weigh more than Renzo in that fight. Penn had also beat Hughes who was heavier than him at WW.

The thing is Werdum based off common opponents and later career progression would logically beat Nog. How could a 245lb HW with elite BJJ and Judo and striking that beats Mark Hunt and Cain and holds his own vs Overeem how could that man not possibly beat Nog? Espeically considering this man submitted Nog and is hard to takedown.

And the basis of JDS over Nog and MIR is common opponents and Mir is 2 and 0 vs Nog. And JDS a hard to takedown HW with elite striking would logically be a hard to takedown.

 

[Brazilian007]

CroCop has also way more loses. He lost to Fedor and Nog, got KOed by Randleman, lost to Hunt as well. Gonzaga separated him from consciousness, JDS finished him and he even lost to Brendan Schaub, lol. You can’t count wins, without counting the loses.

Gane has only lost to the champ in a close controversial decision.

If Gane keeps winning he will have to be above Cro Cop and JDS and the old school guys cant deny it anymore. If Gane becomes champ and beats Ngannou and defends well he will need to be ranked higher. Let alone imagine if Gane defends 3x and old school Priders still say he isnt higher than Nog that will be laughable.

 

[DayV]

CroCop has also way more loses. He lost to Fedor and Nog, got KOed by Randleman, lost to Hunt as well. Gonzaga separated him from consciousness, JDS finished him and he even lost to Brendan Schaub, lol. You can’t count wins, without counting the loses.

Gane has only lost to the champ in a close controversial decision.

So what.
Ye, because Cro Cop actually fought during his career, which fighter should do, and gave opportunities to all comers to fight him; while they did not. They fought once per year, calculating, and avoiding taking risk. Modern MMA makes a taboo out of losing (guess UFC drew it's analogy from professional boxing) and taking fights and aditional risk. If you did not fight additional opponents, that does not mean that you are unbeatable. If you fought only a few top opponents, it does not mean that someone lesser known HW can not beat you if he has his day. You have an example of JDS who is basically the only modern fighter HW who fought from his early 20s to late 30s, and as soon as he accumulated a little bit more matches, he came from unbeatable look, and 15-1, to 10 losses. Fighter should fight as many different dangerous opponents of different profile as possible, and not bussiness optimising his career taking as few matches as possible. And they got their shots to get titles and belts when it was their turn, whie due to unforseen circumstances when it was Mirko's turn to fight for no. 1 place against Fedor, he instead fought anonymous Gonzaga in rules that totally changed over night.

The more you fight, the more you will lose; the more different MMA rulesets you change, the more you will lose.

The claim that fighter should fight as less as possible in order to avoid losses, so he would "look unbeatable", which is a modern paradigma, is apsurd and against fighting spirit. Credit goes to fighter who fought more, got more defeats, took more risk, but significantly more good wins, than to fighter who fought less in order to fakely look "allways" good and "unbeatable".

 

[MartinGibson86]

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?

Bigfoot wasnever scary. TET or not. DC and Cain obliterated him abd Reem was pounding him til gassing

Top 5 is pretty easy:
1. Fedor
2. Nog
3. Werdum
4. Stipe
5. JDS

the other 5 is quite hard. I guess in no particular order, some of these 8 guys?

Arlovski, Crocop, Mir, Semmy, Cain, Sylvia, Randy, Overeem…

Mir, SEMMY (???) and Sylvia...


No DC or Francis


Randy is like 16-8 for his career

 

[SuperBadAzz]

If you’re the best in the world at an evolving individual sport, you’re the best to ever do it. Athletes only get better in a sport that is growing..

Is this top 10 based purely on legacy, comparative superiority to their competition, or just overall ability? If the formula is to combine all 3 my Top 10 is:

1. Ngannou
2. Stipe
3. Cormier
4. Werdum
5. Cain
6. Fedor
7. Overeem
8. JDS
9. Big Nog
10. Cro Cop

 

[Brazilian007]

If you’re the best in the world at an evolving individual sport, you’re the best to ever do it. Athletes only get better in a sport that is growing..

Is this top 10 based purely on legacy, comparative superiority to their competition, or just overall ability? If the formula is to combine all 3 my Top 10 is:

1. Ngannou
2. Stipe
3. Cormier
4. Werdum
5. Cain
6. Fedor
7. Overeem
8. JDS
9. Big Nog
10. Cro Cop

Remove Cormier and put him below top 5 and I agree

I can agree with this on who would win in a fight

 

[Deleted member 504083]

If you’re the best in the world at an evolving individual sport, you’re the best to ever do it. Athletes only get better in a sport that is growing..

Is this top 10 based purely on legacy, comparative superiority to their competition, or just overall ability? If the formula is to combine all 3 my Top 10 is:

1. Ngannou
2. Stipe
3. Cormier
4. Werdum
5. Cain
6. Fedor
7. Overeem
8. JDS
9. Big Nog
10. Cro Cop

Ngannou, Jiri, Sterling, Edwards and Oliveira are definitely far superior than past champs in their divisions

 

[Brazilian007]

Ngannou, Jiri, Sterling, Edwards and Oliveira are definitely far superior than past champs in their divisions

Well roundness Overeem, and Fedor are superior to Ngannou and Stipe. However, Ngannou beat Overeem albeit an older past prime Overeem and not Ubereem.

The thing is I have Fedor above Ngannou due to longevity and resume but while I love Fedor I dont believe Prime Fedor would beat Ngannou 3/3 if they fought 3x. Maybe Fedor wins 1 match or so but Ngannou is too hard to takedown, has cardio for 3 rounds, is to explosive and good of a boxer and large for most to overcome. And I cant see prime Fedor doing what Stipe did in their first fight to current Ngannou