Where does the myth of the heavyweight division becoming worst comes from?

[No Skill Gap]

college athletes will make more money than 99,99% of MMA fighters (2022)

combat sports are dying

Yeah the Women's swim team is raking it in, not quite as much as the men's rowing team with their old boy father connections in the business world though.

 

[ConorFacts]

You have zero clue how he'd perform if he was 30 pounds heavier. The reason why his endurance is so good is because he isn't carrying any extra weight.

hes 220-225 right now bro.

wilder + his team know his body/limits better than me and you.

 

[arcadeperfect]

hes 220-225 right now bro.

wilder + his team know his body/limits better than me and you.

How do you know he weighs 220-225 right now? I'm going by what he weighs at FIGHT NIGHT. I'm stating facts and what is public knowledge. Everyone knows what Wilder weighs in each of his fights. I'm saying I DON'T KNOW how he'd perform if he was 245. given how most people are, it's LIKELY that he'd suffer in some way shape or form if he was considerably heavier.

 

[Taric]

Fedor, Nogueira, Werdum, Cro Cop, Barnett, Rodriguez, Randleman, and Coleman are all either champions or fought for a championship at HW in the UFC or PRIDE. All of those fighters fought in PRIDE from 2001-2006, which makes them from the same era. That's 8 elite fighters that all fought each other under one organization.

 

[ConorFacts]

How do you know he weighs 220-225 right now? I'm going by what he weighs at FIGHT NIGHT. I'm stating facts and what is public knowledge. Everyone knows what Wilder weighs in each of his fights. I'm saying I DON'T KNOW how he'd perform if he was 245. given how most people are, it's LIKELY that he'd suffer in some way shape or form if he was considerably heavier.

i doubt he will be 245 lbs vs Fury ... that takes shit ton of time.

 

[Doctor Grudge]

I think it is the perception from Ngannou and Lewis being contenders. They both look like fat brawlers who lack technical skill in both the ground and standing, but only win by virtue of KO power - so along with there being a lot of old past it guys in the division it gives a not so stellar impression.

Not saying that's all someone like Ngannou is, he's clearly quite athletic and would be a legit threat in any era - but it's the visual impression. Guys from past eras at least gave the impression they were skilled and had more athletic looking builds - better for perception.

I would say around the time of the UFC and SF merger the HW division was at its best. A lot of the guys floating around these days were in their primes at that time. All the UFC was really missing was Fedor, who was declining around this time anyway.

 

[Based and White Pilled]

I don't think anyone would deny that Stipe and DC are good enough to be in the top 3 in any era. Blaydes is looking pretty good as well.

After those three, the eye test is all you should need.

 

[ConorFacts]

I don't think anyone would deny that Stipe and DC are good enough to be in the top 3 in any era. Blaydes is looking pretty good as well.

After those three, the eye test is all you should need.

he looked good against 60 year old fighters.

Iam a WWE fan, but even I could see his TDs from a mile away ...

 

[Paladin]

Why the pride heavyweight division is belived to be so great by sherdogers in general? They had fedor, big nog, cro cop ( who couldnt defend a takedown to save his life in the beggining ) and thats it, somehow sherdogers say that was the prime of the division. Another argument is made for cain's era and again i just dont see it, cain defeated brock fucking lesnar to win the title, a guy that had to beat a 50years old man three times smaller than him to win the belt lol.

The heavyweight division of today sucks pretty bad, but still is better than every other period of its history

A division is “dead” not because there are no good fighters, but because there are no super stars or polarizing fighters. There’s no polarizing and exciting HWs besides DC , BB and maybe Nganou.. the rest are bland easy to forget guys. The other divisions like MW are exciting and have life due to the exiting fighters in that division.
.

 

[Glove]

Pride FC 2003-2007 had the best heavyweights in the world, in which the UFC never had such an array of skilled talent.

Fedor Emilanenko
Antonio Rodrigo Nougeria
Mirko Filipovic
Fabricio Werdum
Josh Barnett
Semmy Schilt
Sergei Kharatonov
Mark Coleman
Kevin Randleman
Heath Herring
Igor Vovchanchyn
Mark Hunt
Gary Goodridge

 

[THEfightsAREfixed]

If you have never tried to spar or wrestle/roll with monsters like HWs as a normal sized person you can't really comprehend how difficult it is to defeat them in hand to hand combat, you just see them relatively evenly matched against each other or one get decimated and think that's not impressive but the reality is the amount of force and the mechanics of being that size are much different, you would see way more LHW move up to HW and do well if that wasn't the case, for example Jones is incredibly talented and has a decent frame for HW but he has trained with HWs so he knows it's not a game he really wants to play even with his skills

That is to say, Fedor is the goat

 

[Big Tuppy Hole]

I don't believe Pride HWs were the best of all time but they had great packaging and promotion. It made the guys seem larger than life. Technically the majority of Pride guys weren't that good. In that era, people used to jerk off to fighters throwing a headkick or lowkick. A lot of stuff is standard now.

Pride HWs
Big Nog
Fedor
Cro Cop
Alecks
Kharitonov
Werdume
Schilt
Herring
Randleman
Coleman
Barnet
Schilt
Hunt. Show me a better list of HWs

 

[Big Tuppy Hole]

HWs now have more skills than in the past Pride era.
But compared to all other divisions - HW has always been the weakest

The ground game if HWs has declined, name 5 competent HW grapplers that didnt come frim the old guard

 

[MMAcolyte]

Who's throwing headkicks in the top 10 right now? Everyone just boxes and brawls.

In the Pride era the striking of Sergei, Schilt, Crocop, Aleks and early Fedor was light years ahead of UFC.

Later on Fedor and Sergei just became brawling headhunters.

Once Werdum got his Muay Thai half decent as a more complete striker he was picking apart guys like Cain.

And Cain boxed Nog's fucking head off. Nog could/did beat all the other guys you mentioned except Fedor, and Fedor dominated him on the ground (whereas Cain wiped him out with a striking attack).

 

[Steve-French]

Why the pride heavyweight division is belived to be so great by sherdogers in general? They had fedor, big nog, cro cop ( who couldnt defend a takedown to save his life in the beggining ) and thats it, somehow sherdogers say that was the prime of the division. Another argument is made for cain's era and again i just dont see it, cain defeated brock fucking lesnar to win the title, a guy that had to beat a 50years old man three times smaller than him to win the belt lol.

The heavyweight division of today sucks pretty bad, but still is better than every other period of its history

Pride was awesome, but it gets a little over-hyped around these parts. They had good fighters, but they also had Pro Wrestlers and other less skilled fights on their roster too. We also saw the Pride guys have mixed results when they entered the UFC. Imo the best HW division we've seen is when the UFC had finally swallowed Strikeforce.

 

[Based and White Pilled]

he looked good against 60 year old fighters.

Iam a WWE fan, but even I could see his TDs from a mile away ...

We'll see. Decent power can do a lot to help set up takedowns and vice versa

 

[tequilaboy]

Theu current division is not bad, they are just washed out.

 

[XXXXXLPREDAT0R]

Ngannou new generation HW Breed I don’t even think he’s human so much KO punch power

 

[cmw43]

And Cain boxed Nog's fucking head off. Not could/did beat all the other guys you mentioned except Fedor, and Fedor dominated him on the ground (whereas Cain wiped him out with a striking attack).

That was zombie Nog 40 fights into his career. Its like how Cain is washed up now, you put him in the cage today with any of those Pride guys in their 20s and they'd beat the crap out of him.

Nog had decent hands at one point. Even Lil Nog won a Pan American games boxing Silver Medal in his younger days, now he's 10 years past his prime getting KOd by Ryan Spann...

 

[JarlSkuld]

Well, looks at the average age of fighters in the top 15 compared to every other division. That means something when you can be 38 years old and still be relevant in your division. It means HW sucks.

Jarl