Was Renan Barao ever THAT good? (longish read)

There have been some interesting (read: retarded) viewpoints put forward about Barao on this site over the past 30 or so hours, but I've been thinking my thoughts and have decided maybe I should throw in my 2c and possibly add a balanced viewpoint on his loss to TJ, his career so far, his abilities and so on.

Firstly, I would like to say I never 'bought into the hype' for Barao. I do not in any way mean to say he is not an amazing fighter, because he is. I was just never someone who claimed he was #1 P4P or that he would have annihilated Cruz at the peak of his powers, or that his tears can cure cancer or anything like that. With that in mind I really want to answer the question:

Was Renan Barao ever 'that' good?

I've decided that he was 'that' good. But depending on your definition of 'that good'. See, I believe much of the negativity received by fighters like Anderson, Fedor, Barao, Jones and the like (ie dominant champs who have a great run but eventually are discovered to be mortal like the rest of us) is a massive overcompensation for the tiresome circle jerks deluded fans of such fighters insist on having on a daily basis. Now I believe the circle jerking can be excused to a point, because this is a discussion forum, and if anyone here doesn't want to read a topic they can pretty much fuck right off out of the thread and avoid any content that offends them. It isn't complicated. But why, after all this time, fans of fighters don't realise everyone is beatable is beyond me.

Regarding Barao, in recent weeks it seems he had gone from a once-beaten dominant champ into some sort of hideous, buck-toothed, dancing Brazilian reincarnation of Achilles himself and was considered utterly invincible. Which is ludicrous, since in the past year we've seen Jones get the piss beaten through him and win via grit and a last-ditch elbow, Silva get wrecked twice, GSP have the closest shave of the last 5 years at WW before shuffling off into retirement....it's been reinforced again and again, and very recently, that no fighter is invincible.

As a response to this it seems some fans (or anti-fans?) are gleefully dumping on Barao and loving the fact that he was so handily beaten, as if that somehow proves he was always a can. As if he were never 'that' good. I have several friends IRL that loved watching Barao get trounced and are happy to use a loss to a rampaging TJ as proof that he would never have beaten Cruz, wouldn't succeed at FW, was overrated etc etc.

Personally I think that kind of thinking really misses the mark. While never thinking he was the greatest cage warrior to have ever lived, I watched Renan virtually clean out BW, beating Faber handily twice, wrecking McDonald, stopping Pickett and Wineland...he was an extraordinary fighter, and likely remains so. So if the question was 'Is Barao the best BW going?', until last night the answer was deservedly yes. And in that sense I do believe that Barao was 'that' good.

As a fan of fights as well as fighters, I'd also point out that most of his recent fights (forget Faber 1) have been great to watch. Even his loss was an excellent fight and worth viewing. So not only did Renan demolish some seriously good opposition, but he did it in exciting fashion. I think he deserves recognition for that, because we watch the UFC because we are (allegedly) fight fans, and Renan often gave us a spectacle.

 

Fighter loses, he was never that good
Sherdog gonna sherdog...

EDIT: apologies to TS. I was mislead by the title.

 

this guy
+1

 

Ts said he was an extraordinary fighter

Did you read the thread?

 

No he didn't.

 

never change sherdog

 

Expected a garbage wall of text, but instead got a really good read.

Anyway, the best indicator of what Barao is, are his Ws over Faber who I feel is the best fighter never to hold the UFC belt not counting Fedor. I

 

Heading into the Dillashaw fight...



Barao's Wins vs Ranked Opponents:

WIN - Urijah Faber - Feb/1/2014 -- UFC 169: Barao vs. Faber
15 P4P - 2014 - Feb 1 - MMA Torch
10 P4P - 2014 - Jan 29 - ESPN
15 P4P - 2014 - Jan 28 - Junkie/USAToday
2 BW - 2014 - Feb 1 - MMA Torch
2 BW - 2014 - Jan 28 - Junkie/USAToday
2 BW - 2014 - Jan 17 - ESPN
2 BW - 2014 - Jan 5 - Sherdog
2 BW - 2014 - Jan 3 - Bloody Elbow-Meta

WIN- Eddie Wineland - Sep/21/2013 -- UFC 165: JONES VS. GUSTAFSSON
4 BW - 2013 - Sep 4 - ESPN
4 BW - 2013 - Sep 7 - Weekly
4 BW - 2013 - Sep 6 - Sherdog
4 BW - 2013 - Sep 3 - MMA Torch
4 BW - 2013 - Aug 28 - Bloody Elbow-Meta

WIN- Michael McDonald - Feb/16/2013 -- UFC on Fuel TV 7 - Barao vs. McDonald
3 BW - 2013 - Feb 4 - Sherdog
3 BW - 2013 - Jan 31 - Bloody Elbow-Meta
2 BW - 2013 - Jan 30 - Weekly
3 BW - 2013 - Jan 21 - LA Times
4 BW - 2013 - Jan 4 - ESPN

WIN- Urijah Faber - Jul/21/2012 -- UFC 149 - Faber vs. Barao
12 P4P - 2012 - Jul 5 - MMA Torch
14 P4P - 2012 - Jul 10 - 411mania
2 BW - 2012 - Jul 18 - Weekly
2 BW - 2012 - Jul 18 - LA Times
2 BW - 2012 - Jul 10 - ESPN
2 BW - 2012 - Jul 2 - MMANation-Consensus
2 BW - 2012 - Jun 27 - Sherdog

WIN- Scott Jorgensen - Feb/4/2012 -- UFC 143 - Diaz vs. Condit
5 BW - 2012 - Feb 1 - Weekly
4 BW - 2012 - Feb 1 - MMA Bay (U.K.)
5 BW - 2012 - Jan 27 - Bloody Elbow-USAT Consensus
5 BW - 2012 - Jan 17 - Sherdog
6 BW - 2011 - DEC(jan10) - Globo/Combate

WIN- Brad Pickett - Nov/5/2011 -- UFC 138 - Leben vs. Munoz
7 BW - 2011 - Nov 2 - Weekly
8 BW - 2011 - Nov 2 - MMA Bay (U.K.)
8 BW - 2011 - Oct 27 - Elbow-USAT Consensus
8 BW - 2011 - Oct 16 - MMA Torch
8 BW - 2011 - Oct 11 - Sherdog

 

Was Fedor ever THAT good?
Was Anderson ever THAT good?
Was Liddell ever THAT good?
Was BJ Penn ever THAT good?
Was Junior Dos Santos ever THAT good?
Was GSP ever THAT good?

Future threads:
Was {Insert FLW Champ Name Here, after they lose} ever THAT good?
Was {Insert BW Champ Name Here, after they lose} ever THAT good?
Was {Insert FW Champ Name Here, after they lose} ever THAT good?
Was {Insert LW Champ Name Here, after they lose} ever THAT good?
Was {Insert WW Champ Name Here, after they lose} ever THAT good?
Was {Insert LHW Champ Name Here, after they lose} ever THAT good?
Was {Insert HW Champ Name Here, after they lose} ever THAT good?

 

Did not. At least not before I posted.
Misleading title + big read

Sorry, TS. My mistake.

 

Why cant it just be that the better fighter won that evening?

 

What a great site. People post but haven't even read the thread.

 

Normally i hate thse threads. I call them shertards and all sorts. I remember the days hughes lost to gsp and people said hes overrated, not even top 10 etc.

But this time i agree.

Whenever anyone said barao is number 1 p4p id b like bitch please. This is ridiculous.

First off no way should he ever be ranked higher than aldo. Or jones.
2nd, i was never impressed by him. Nothing about his stand up made me think, wow this guy is amazing or even good. Wineland won his round before an early stoppage. He got a earlg stoppage over faber.
And beating pickett and mcdonald dont make you p4p top 10 let alone amazing p4p.

Dude had heavy hands and aome skills. But really was never on aldo levels. Very average stand up. And i mean, really average. He aint no elite sniper. Hes certainly no aldo or petits.

So, he never beat cruz and had crappy early stoppage title wins. The world saw what i thought, he was never an outstanding fighter. Lmao pickett. Please.

Cruz would have whooped him too

 

Bar

 

He wasn't #1 P4P, that's for sure.

 

You need to add cliffs. Sherdog will crap all over this thread without even bothering to read.

 

Every new fight result tells you something new.

It was justifiable to have Barao among the elite P4P, before his loss to Dillashaw. Now that we saw what Dillashaw did, we can adjust our view of Barao accordingly.

So yeah, he was that good (elite P4P).
And now, he's the 2nd best BW, still top 15 P4P.

 

I was going to slaughter you based on the title, but your post echoes exactly how I feel.

No fighter is invincible, everyone has off-days, everyone has a guy who is their kryptonite. There's no shame in losing, it's putting the streak together in the first place that's incredible.

And this is no slight on Weidman, Hendricks, Gus, Dillashaw- writing it off simply as a bad stylistic matchup seems to diminish their accomplishments. But ultimately, until they actually defend their title 5/6/7 times and mirror the great accomplishments of the top guys, there's no way of knowing how good they are, and how much is just matching up well against the top.


It's also overlooked that being on the top is a fucking hard place to be. You have to maintain focus and discipline despite having less motivation (you're already at the top). You're also fighting guys with less of a spotlight on them, whilst every single trick in your book has been analysed for years by your opponents. When a guy gameplans for years to target your weaknesses, you've gotta be pretty incredible to keep winning against those odds.

Let's see what TJ can do now- let's see if he's going to be a new great too.

 

10/10

Agreed on all counts.

Still, I'm still with Bar

 

Rematch only will settle how good he is. For now, TJ deserves to be where he is. He came up with his A game. Barao didn't.