WAR ROOM LOUNGE V13: Ministry of Silly Talks

[Fawlty]

Man, people really overestimate Pride guys post-Pride. Wandy, Fedor, Rampage, Nog, CroCop, Barnett, Shogun, others - they were all fucking finished after Pride. Every one of them was way past their peak. This is not acknowledged enough.

 

[Limbo Pete]

Man, people really overestimate Pride guys post-Pride. Wandy, Fedor, Rampage, Nog, CroCop, Barnett, Shogun, others - they were all fucking finished after Pride. Every one of them was way past their peak. This is not acknowledged enough.

Not all of them, bud

 

[Fawlty]

Not all of them, bud

Please. All of them were beat the fuck up, roided out skeletons of themselves when they came over. Like Tyson after prison. It's a joke and people are retards.

 

[Limbo Pete]

Please. All of them were beat the fuck up, roided out skeletons of themselves when they came over. Like Tyson after prison. It's a joke and people are retards.

Spoiler

 

[Jack V Savage]

Mir beat Nog twice. The first time he was still pretty damn good. That's better than any win Magny ever had by far.

See, I thought Nog looked maybe rusty, maybe shot against Herring and then shot against Sylvia. Posted at the time that people shouldn't sleep on Mir in that fight. It's like Magny beating Hendricks. And then you have Gastelum, Condit, Lombard, and some other decent wins. I don't say that there's a big gap here--they've had comparable careers, Neil's a little better.

Also, back to the pedantry, you absolutely were. No one says so and so was a former promotional belt holder. The common parlance is to call them an ex-champ. Correcting it was pedantic, and pretty irritating, frankly. We both knew what I was talking about, and you introduced uncommon terminology to bolster your position. It was weak, and pedantic.

Maybe the language was pedantic, but I think the concept was clear, and that "well, actually Sylvia was technically the champ at the time" when no one outside his immediate family actually thought he was the real champ is pedantic.

Is Khabib the real LW champ right now, or just a promotional belt holder?

Conor is the LW champ unless he doesn't come back.

 

[Fawlty]

Spoiler

Hunt has done the best as far as retaining form, but he also hasn't won a fight against the best comp in the UFC so hasn't really been in the title picture. This despite having mostly awesome fights and some of the best finishes.

 

[Jack V Savage]

The truth is that rankings are meaningless in MMA and the belt is the only possible peak above a deceptively flat valley (regardless of who holds it or how they got it).

I think there's a difference between a belt and The Belt. That's my point. Fedor was the HW champ in 2004, and Frank beat the consensus No. 5 HW.

But I'm in favor of looking at different methods. Fedor also had the top Elo score, was the top-ranked HW by Fight Matrix, and other quantitative methods had him No 1. Qualitatively, it seemed to me and pretty much every observer I know of that Fedor was better than Sylvia.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Man, people really overestimate Pride guys post-Pride. Wandy, Fedor, Rampage, Nog, CroCop, Barnett, Shogun, others - they were all fucking finished after Pride. Every one of them was way past their peak. This is not acknowledged enough.

Fedor was still the top HW for a while after Pride. Werdum was the best HW of the post-Fedor era, though people didn't realize it until he was past his prime. Barnett remained an elite guy. Shogun climbed back to the top of the mountain. The guys who were looking past it in Pride looked more past it later.

 

[brothir]

to lesson it's importance

*lessen
*its

 

[Anung Un Rama]

Man, people really overestimate Pride guys post-Pride. Wandy, Fedor, Rampage, Nog, CroCop, Barnett, Shogun, others - they were all fucking finished after Pride. Every one of them was way past their peak. This is not acknowledged enough.

Shogun, Rampage, and Nog still had enough to win titles in the UFC. Hendo was also a Pride guy; not UFC belt, but I wouldn't call what he did in the UFC the acts of a finished fighter.

 

[Fawlty]

Fedor was still the top HW for a while after Pride. Werdum was the best HW of the post-Fedor era, though people didn't realize it until he was past his prime. Barnett remained an elite guy. Shogun climbed back to the top of the mountain. The guys who were looking past it in Pride looked more past it later.

They were good relative to the lackluster UFC divisions (especially HW god help us). But all of them were well over the hill. And so obviously over the hill that it really baffles me how people don't see it.

 

[Anung Un Rama]

Spoiler

Hunt actually got better in the UFC.

 

[Fawlty]

Shogun, Rampage, and Nog still had enough to win titles in the UFC. Hendo was also a Pride guy; not UFC belt, but I wouldn't call what he did in the UFC the acts of a finished fighter.

My cousin's childhood horse had enough to win UFC titles in that era...10 years after it died.

 

[Jack V Savage]

They were good relative to the lackluster UFC divisions (especially HW god help us). But all of them were well over the hill. And so obviously over the hill that it really baffles me how people don't see it.

I think the guys I mentioned except Werdum were past their absolute peaks but not so far past that I'd call them over the hill.

 

[Limbo Pete]

Hunt has done the best as far as retaining form, but he also hasn't won a fight against the best comp in the UFC so hasn't really been in the title picture. This despite having mostly awesome fights and some of the best finishes.

Nope nope nope
Ya can't call every Pride crossover a washed up, broken roid shell and neglect that Hunto drastically improved after getting to the UFC. He has the opposite arc from basically all those guys, regardless of how high it went.

 

[HereticBD]

It's always been weird to me that he has hardcore fans. You don't see similar-caliber fighters like, say, Neil Magny or Justin Gaethje (who, like Mir, is very fun to watch) have a group of posters committed to pushing them as all-time greats.

What is so confusing? He's a big name former champ with big moments, and was one of the fighters in the mix during the mainstream evolution of the UFC, and maintained his status throughout the years. He's also a character whose personality sticks out. He's the first guy to TKO Nog. He welcomed Brock Lesnar into the UFC.

Then there's the whole redemption story attached to him, from the motorcycle accident. He's got quite a story. I'm not even much of a fan, but the footnotes of his career stick out way more than the guys you mentioned, who I couldn't even tell you who they ever fought without looking it up.

Anybody as notable as him, is gonna have his fair share of hardcore fans. He's definitely a hall of famer.

 

[Limbo Pete]

I think there's a different between a belt and The Belt. That's my point. Fedor was the HW champ in 2004, and Frank beat the consensus No. 5 HW.

But I'm in favor of looking at different methods. Fedor also had the top Elo score, was the top-ranked HW by Fight Matrix, and other quantitative methods had him No 1. Qualitatively, it seemed to me and pretty much every observer I know of that Fedor was better than Sylvia.

There's no actual difference. You have it or you don't. The rankings are meaningless, ultimately, with regard to it.

 

[HomerThompson]

Conor is the LW champ unless he doesn't come back.

 

[Fawlty]

I think the guys I mentioned except Werdum were past their absolute peaks but not so far past that I'd call them over the hill.

Well, most don't have as keen an eye as I do for these "subtleties" like moving slower, having waterheads, being chinny, fatter, less power, etc. It's all very subtle stuff.

 

[Limbo Pete]

Hunt actually got better in the UFC.

Yup yup yup