Which GOAT matches up best against the other GOATs?

Jones is a hard matchup for Khabib, Silva and GSP, Fedor could catch him and he gets completely destroyed by Aldo. 50:50 with DJ.

Aldo destroys everyone but Anderson could be tricky for him.
 
Drugstore Cowboy said:
Jones is a hard matchup for Khabib, Silva and GSP, Fedor could catch him and he gets completely destroyed by Aldo. 50:50 with DJ.

Aldo destroys everyone but Anderson could be tricky for him.
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Don't think a juiced up Jones vs DJ is 50:50 at all.
DJ is clearly the better fighter in every regard imo, but especially in terms of footwork and striking.

I also doubt Aldo would destroy DJ.
DJ has a (way) better gas tank and is very hard to consistently land clean on.

That said, Aldo deserves (way) more respect and would definitely tool Jones.
 
The fighter from the heaviest weight class wouldn't beat a LW and FLW?
 
blastoff said:
So, the common consensus is that these guys are the GOATs (no particular order). Obviously not everyone will agree but these are the names that are most commonly brought up.

- GSP
- Jones
- Khabib
- Fedor
- Silva
- Aldo
- DJ

I'm an Anderson Silva fan but honestly he matches up extremely poorly against all of these dudes in a pound-for-pound sense.

Khabib, GSP, Jones, Fedor would all outwrestle him, and Aldo/DJ are 50-50 fights.

Tbh I think prime Aldo actually does the best here, because he is an elite striker that is a nightmare matchup for all grapplers.
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If prime Aldo was 6' tall, he beats them all.
 
RondoPG said:
The fighter from the heaviest weight class wouldn't beat a LW and FLW?
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Obviously not.
This thread is about hypothetical matchups in which all are the same weight.
 
blastoff said:
He's never faced a wrestler or grappler like Khabib though

Coleman and Randleman were good wrestlers but had nowhere near the array of moves Khabib has, and also had suspect submission defense/cardio.

I'm not going to use Bigfoot as an example because Fedor was past-prime and was outweighed by 50lbs, but a smaller Arona also had significant top time on Fedor and even mounted him. If Arona was allowed to punch from mount, that fight would've looked a lot different.
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This is what makes these fantasy matchups fun to speculate on. I’m the same way that we have the Arona example for Fedor, we have the Tibau example for Khabib: a dude who was a state wrestling champ in Brazil, and Khabib couldn’t take him down for shit. He was left having to strike with Tibau, and his hands looked pretty bad. That said, I do think Khabib’s hands improved over time.
Fedor-Arona is hard to judge because of the ruleset, and because both were early in their MMA careers. Some ppl say Fedor would’ve lost that fight under unified (or PRIDE) rules, but really it would’ve just been a completely different fight altogether I think. It’s interesting to note that in those two examples, Fedor still won his fight as did Khabib.
We’ve never seen Fedor totally shut down by a smothering grappler (with Bigfoot being the possible exception, and Fedor also defended a TD from him in rd 1) nor have we seen Khabib lose at all, which makes it a tough fight to pick P4P. But since I think Fedornis probably a good enough grappler to neutralize that threat for the most part, and he is light years better than Khabib standing, I have to lean Fedor to win.
 
BFoe said:
This is what makes these fantasy matchups fun to speculate on. I’m the same way that we have the Arona example for Fedor, we have the Tibau example for Khabib: a dude who was a state wrestling champ in Brazil, and Khabib couldn’t take him down for shit. He was left having to strike with Tibau, and his hands looked pretty bad. That said, I do think Khabib’s hands improved over time.
Fedor-Arona is hard to judge because of the ruleset, and because both were early in their MMA careers. Some ppl say Fedor would’ve lost that fight under unified (or PRIDE) rules, but really it would’ve just been a completely different fight altogether I think. It’s interesting to note that in those two examples, Fedor still won his fight as did Khabib.
We’ve never seen Fedor totally shut down by a smothering grappler (with Bigfoot being the possible exception, and Fedor also defended a TD from him in rd 1) nor have we seen Khabib lose at all, which makes it a tough fight to pick P4P. But since I think Fedornis probably a good enough grappler to neutralize that threat for the most part, and he is light years better than Khabib standing, I have to lean Fedor to win.
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All fair points

But tbh Tibau has statistically the #2 takedown defense in MMA history (min. 20 attempts) after Usman, so it's not like he was some scrub in that aspect of MMA.
 
blastoff said:
All fair points

But tbh Tibau has statistically the #2 takedown defense in MMA history (min. 20 attempts) after Usman, so it's not like he was some scrub in that aspect of MMA.
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Definitely not, Tibau was very hard to take down. 92% TDD is no joke. My point was just that against another high level wrestler, Khabib wasn’t nearly as effective. We’ve seen Fedor fight high level judo players like Ishii and Ogawa, as well as high level wrestlers like Coleman, Randleman, Lindland and even Chael, and no one held him down and smothered him or landed heavy GNP. There’s the Arona fight we mentioned, and then Bigfoot. But like you said, Bigfoot is tough to judge because Fedor had declined quite a bit and his own sloppy striking allowed for the TD, by a dude who outweighed him by 50 lbs, was a BJJ black belt, and had previously failed a PED test. And Fedor even defended one of Bigfoot’s takedowns.
 
blastoff said:
So, the common consensus is that these guys are the GOATs (no particular order). Obviously not everyone will agree but these are the names that are most commonly brought up.

- GSP
- Jones
- Khabib
- Fedor
- Silva
- Aldo
- DJ

I'm an Anderson Silva fan but honestly he matches up extremely poorly against all of these dudes in a pound-for-pound sense.

Khabib, GSP, Jones, Fedor would all outwrestle him, and Aldo/DJ are 50-50 fights.

Tbh I think prime Aldo actually does the best here, because he is an elite striker that is a nightmare matchup for all grapplers.
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would've been very cool to see prime Aldo with his great TDD against DJ
 
BFoe said:
I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Fedor was prone to being taken down—but a lot of people seem to think that. Like I mentioned in my earlier post, he had 83% TDD over the course of his career. I don’t see any reason that Fedor, who is himself a Master of Sport in sambo and a high level judo black belt, would struggle with Khabib taking him down. Could Khabib take him down at some point? Sure he could. But I don’t think he keeps Fedor there, and probably Fedor lights him up standing.
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I mean to be fair any man who ever lived would be under serious grappling threat to Khabib P4P and I can see the arguement he would be Fedor's biggest test although I think there is a difference between the "just stand up" tactics fighters use today and that Khabib is so good at blocking and Fedor exploiting off of his back or going for subs. The kinds of sweeps he pulled off on Randleman and Nog are a much higher level of skill.

Generally I think he does have the advantage as the most rounded guy as well, won fights grappling with grapplers and kickboxing with kickboxers showing extreme finishing ability in all phases of fighting.
 
Take all the roiders and greasers off of the list.
 
BFoe said:
This is what makes these fantasy matchups fun to speculate on. I’m the same way that we have the Arona example for Fedor, we have the Tibau example for Khabib: a dude who was a state wrestling champ in Brazil, and Khabib couldn’t take him down for shit. He was left having to strike with Tibau, and his hands looked pretty bad. That said, I do think Khabib’s hands improved over time.
Fedor-Arona is hard to judge because of the ruleset, and because both were early in their MMA careers. Some ppl say Fedor would’ve lost that fight under unified (or PRIDE) rules, but really it would’ve just been a completely different fight altogether I think. It’s interesting to note that in those two examples, Fedor still won his fight as did Khabib.
We’ve never seen Fedor totally shut down by a smothering grappler (with Bigfoot being the possible exception, and Fedor also defended a TD from him in rd 1) nor have we seen Khabib lose at all, which makes it a tough fight to pick P4P. But since I think Fedornis probably a good enough grappler to neutralize that threat for the most part, and he is light years better than Khabib standing, I have to lean Fedor to win.
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Khabib’s striking has improved, but he’s still hittable. I always thought that he’d have a problem in these hypothetical matchups against guys with exceptional TDD, like Aldo, BJ Penn, and ofc Fedor. I’ve been flamed for saying it, but the right version of BJ could be a tough match for Khabib imo.
 
moreorless87 said:
I mean to be fair any man who ever lived would be under serious grappling threat to Khabib P4P and I can see the arguement he would be Fedor's biggest test although I think there is a difference between the "just stand up" tactics fighters use today and that Khabib is so good at blocking and Fedor exploiting off of his back or going for subs. The kinds of sweeps he pulled off on Randleman and Nog are a much higher level of skill.

Generally I think he does have the advantage as the most rounded guy as well, won fights grappling with grapplers and kickboxing with kickboxers showing extreme finishing ability in all phases of fighting.
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I think that’s a great assessment. Khabib is such a dominant grappler that he’d be a problem for anyone. But someone like Fedor would be hard for Khabib to control, I think. You’re absolutely right that Fedor’s sweeps were really high level. He swept Randleman from side control IIRC.
Hespectfully said:
Khabib’s striking has improved, but he’s still hittable. I always thought that he’d have a problem in these hypothetical matchups against guys with exceptional TDD, like Aldo, BJ Penn, and ofc Fedor. I’ve been flamed for saying it, but the right version of BJ could be a tough match for Khabib imo.
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I agree with you. I think we’d have to favor Khabib against BJ, but BJ had great strikes, was extremely quick, and obviously was a fantastic grappler in his own right. I also agree with your view on Khabib vs guys like Aldo or Fedor P4P. If Khabib can’t implement his wrestling on those guys, he’d probably be fucked standing.
 
Fighters (blue) and their worst stylistic matchup (orange):
Anderson Silva ---> Khabib
Khabib --> DJ or GSP
Aldo --> Anderson Silva
GSP --> Fedor
DJ --> no one, he's the best. No known weaknesses.
Fedor --> Jones
Jones --> Aldo
 
GSP embarrasses Kahbib on the feet... the fight would be completely one sided.
 
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