Who here doesn't think Fedor Emelianenko is not ranked in the top 5 MMA fighters of all-time?

[Deaths Head]

He’s done to much not to include him in top 5 for me even if his cage fights are poor and neglected UFC is a huge strike against him that should take him out of top 3 talks .

 

[RockyLockridge]

If someone doesn't think he is not top 5 doesn't that mean they think he is top 5?

Yeah thread title gives me a headache

 

[BFoe]

Lol, WAMMA? You mean that made up title, that was just created specifically for Fedor? Yeah, definitely the same as UFC gold. He fought Sylvia for it, who was coming off a loss and was 1-2 in his last 3. That’s ridiculous to even mention. Islam still has more title wins.

I have no idea what you mean by “made up title created for Fedor.” The title was created the way lots of titles are: 2 guys fight, the winner is crowned champ.

—The Strikeforce HW title was crowned by having two unranked HWs fight FFS (Overeem and Buentello, neither in the top 10 at the time).

—The DREAM HW title was created by having #10 Overeem fight unranked Todd Duffee.

Even the UFC HW title was sort of that way, as they merged their totally arbitrary openweight Superfight title with their Tournament title.

In the case of WAMMA, it was intended to be #1 Fedor vs #2 Couture, that’s hardly a title made up for Fedor to win. Sadly Couture couldn’t get out of his contract, so it ended up being #1 Fedor vs #5 Sylvia. There’s nothing wrong with that to crown a champ at all.
The 2 fights you’re giving Sylvia shit for losing were when he lost his title to Couture, and then lost an Interim UFC title fight that he had been doing well in until he got caught.
Sylvia had been the UFC champ just over a year prior to the Fedor fight and was still ranked #5.

Thank God MMA “evolved” though, and in a few weeks we can watch a LW title fight where neither fuckin guy deserves to be there. Or maybe Stipe will decide he deserves another TS after sitting on the couch for 3 1/2 years

Volk is not a fine win, it’s a great win. A greater win than anyone on Fedor’s record. Volk is not a small FW, he could never make BW and he had competed at LW and even WW before. He weighed 166 lbs on fight night while at FW. How is it small? Also like half of the greatest LW’s are former FW- Oliviera, Poirier, Topuria, Conor, Max etc.

Would it make you feel better if I said “good” win? Look, Volk is a beast but he’s not a LW. That’s the nature of those kinds of fights. If a guy moves up a weight class and wins he is a badass, but if a guy moves up and loses, that’s sort of expected. Same would be true if we’d have gotten to see Aldo move up to fight Pettis.

As for a Fedor comparison, Nogueira was the best HW in the world at the time, and many people still have him #2 HW all time, plus he’s actually, you know, in the same weight class. I’d say Fedor’s wins over Nogueira are better than Islam’s over Volk, personally.

Anyone who had ever tried has taken down and controlled Anderson, including Franklin, Lutter and Marquardt who aren’t know for their Olympic level wrestling. Anyway, MMA consists of 3 realms- wrestling, grappling and striking. Islam is clearly much better than Anderson in 2 of those categories, meaning he’s the more well rounded fighter.

Plenty of fighters have tried to take Silva down and failed completely, no idea what you’re smoking to make you think otherwise. But everyone knows Silva can be taken down, I’m not saying otherwise. I’m just saying he has solid wrestling that gets underrated a lot.
Islam can be taken down too, and has been.

This post is already a novel, so I won’t get too granular and nerdy here, but breaking down MMA into just those 3 broad categories is a major oversimplification. There’s all sorts of elements to MMA, and aspects of the things you mentioned: offensive wrestling and defensive, head movement and striking defense, footwork when moving forward, or backward, how one strikes moving forward vs backward, or leading vs counter, etc. Anderson and Islam have very different grappling styles, but I wouldn’t say Islam is a much better grappler. He has a different grappling background, and uses it differently because he’s got a totally different fighting style.

And striking? Not even remotely close. How is Islam’s Muay Thai, taekwondo, boxing, Filipino boxing, capoeira, wing chun…? These are all, things Anderson is proficient at if not exceptional. His striking is levels and levels and levels and levels and levels above Islam’s. Anyway, moving on.

FightMatrix are genuinely good rankings, but their all-time rankings are ridiculous. How can you justify BJ Penn higher than Islam? Or the fact that Topuria isn’t even top35 while Volk is #7 and Max is #8?

We mostly agree!
I’m generally fine with where Topuria is ranked. Max and Volk both too high. Islam should be above BJ Penn.

It’s by no means a perfect ranking, and like I said I’m not the hugest fan of their algorithm. But that ranking is far better than the crazy ass one voted on by Tapology members, that ranking was just bizarro world.

 

[MMACro]

Anderson had great wrestling

No he didnt,not elite grappler either
Solid TDD and thats about it when it comes to his wrestling

 

[GOATtalks]

It honestly sounds like you didn't really understand how MMA worked. Anderson Silva was a highly established fighter coming into the UFC, so he got a title shot quickly (after destroying someone who was undefeated). This still happens...Jiri did the same exact thing, Kai was even faster.

Regardless, his competition was still much higher on average than Islam's. You cannot compare prelim fighters to championship contenders, regardless if you think they are "shit". The way you think MMA is split into 3 divisions or that Silva's BJJ is just "ok", while someone who doesn't even do traditional BJJ is galaxies ahead of him is very odd. It's like you're trying to gamify MMA. Do you mean to say that Islam is better at fighting on the ground than Anderson Silva? That isn't the same thing as BJJ.

Also...what the hell are you talking about in regards to Daniel Cormier and Chael Sonnen? The 200+ pound wrestling specialist took down Anderson Silva? Wow, that's harsh. Also, you do know that Chael Sonnen also didnt take him down - they fought twice. Anderson Silva fought Daniel Cormier in his 40s and on short notice... I am pretty sure Daniel Cormier would beat up Islam.


You're sitting here saying that Silva is not in the same galaxy in BJJ as Islam, but somehow think that Silva is "maybe just a little better" at striking - someone who literally did exactly what Islam has done except only with striking (even using your own standards, you have just described that Silva is not as well rounded, yet his success is comparable with just striking, and thus...he might not be a better striker in your eyes?).


It's pretty obvious you likely do not understand the landscape of how MMA works, and probably got into the sport during the ESPN era and didn't bother to learn anything about what happened before or how to contextualize it. You probably think BJ Penn was a trash fighter.





Silva for the most part still fought and beat better fighters than Islam. He was less picky about who he fought, would fight on short notice, would fight while injured, and finished nearly all his opponents. For every fighter you want to tear down that Silva fought, you could find an Islam equivalent. Like, how is someone going to be like Forrest Griffin sucks, but JDM is amazing - they are nearly equivalents for their eras.

You likely have no idea how colossal a win over Dan Henderson is, who was a top ten fighter of all time when he retired, and will try to rationalize he wasn't that good it because you looked up that he got laid and prayed by Jake Shields years later. That seems to be the type of logic you're using here. Instead of just lazily saying the MW division sucks (which is funny, considering most of those fighters had success in neighboring divisions), you could step back and realize that Silva killed several fully established top guys.

Islam at the end of the day has "only" fought like 3 elite guys at LW, and 1 guy at WW who was not exactly a dominant champion. Silva has beaten more than 4 good guys, and we can increase it to 5 since he beat Volk twice. No, Volk at 155 is not lightyears ahead of Dan Henderson, who was literally a world champion at 185.


I have Islam well within my top ten of all time, but this analysis of how Silva isn't that good because...basically he is not a grappler and he is "only" a 1 division champion is pretty fucking stupid. He was literally seen as an equal to GSP, and most of the arguments against him were braindead propaganda like MW's aren't good or something (ignoring that he beat guys who were champs in other divisions).

Lol, Chael literally took down Anderson in less than 5 seconds of their 2nd fight. WTF are you smoking? Anderson had shit wrestling, he got taken down by Franklin, Travis Lutter and Marquardt. None of them was a great wrestler.

I’ve been a hardcore fan for more than a decade now and I’ve watched all of the 90’s UFC events, all of Fedor’s, GSP’s, Anderson’s and Jones fights. Unlike you, I see them for what they are, without a nostalgic bias. That’s why we disagree.

Islam is more well rounded than Anderson for sure. Islam’s striking is much better level than Anderson’s wrestling. Islam is also the better grappler. Islam is elite everywhere, Anderson was just an elite striker.

Volk is definitely higher than Hendo in all time p4p list and therefore I regarded it as a better win.

Anyway, personally I have Anderson slightly above Islam for now, but it’s really not difficult to rank Islam higher. Especially if you care about PED use

 

[GOATtalks]

I have no idea what you mean by “made up title created for Fedor.” The title was created the way lots of titles are: 2 guys fight, the winner is crowned champ.

—The Strikeforce HW title was crowned by having two unranked HWs fight FFS (Overeem and Buentello, neither in the top 10 at the time).

—The DREAM HW title was created by having #10 Overeem fight unranked Todd Duffee.

Even the UFC HW title was sort of that way, as they merged their totally arbitrary openweight Superfight title with their Tournament title.

In the case of WAMMA, it was intended to be #1 Fedor vs #2 Couture, that’s hardly a title made up for Fedor to win. Sadly Couture couldn’t get out of his contract, so it ended up being #1 Fedor vs #5 Sylvia. There’s nothing wrong with that to crown a champ at all.
The 2 fights you’re giving Sylvia shit for losing were when he lost his title to Couture, and then lost an Interim UFC title fight that he had been doing well in until he got caught.
Sylvia had been the UFC champ just over a year prior to the Fedor fight and was still ranked #5.

Thank God MMA “evolved” though, and in a few weeks we can watch a LW title fight where neither fuckin guy deserves to be there. Or maybe Stipe will decide he deserves another TS after sitting on the couch for 3 1/2 years


Would it make you feel better if I said “good” win? Look, Volk is a beast but he’s not a LW. That’s the nature of those kinds of fights. If a guy moves up a weight class and wins he is a badass, but if a guy moves up and loses, that’s sort of expected. Same would be true if we’d have gotten to see Aldo move up to fight Pettis.

As for a Fedor comparison, Nogueira was the best HW in the world at the time, and many people still have him #2 HW all time, plus he’s actually, you know, in the same weight class. I’d say Fedor’s wins over Nogueira are better than Islam’s over Volk, personally.


Plenty of fighters have tried to take Silva down and failed completely, no idea what you’re smoking to make you think otherwise. But everyone knows Silva can be taken down, I’m not saying otherwise. I’m just saying he has solid wrestling that gets underrated a lot.
Islam can be taken down too, and has been.

This post is already a novel, so I won’t get too granular and nerdy here, but breaking down MMA into just those 3 broad categories is a major oversimplification. There’s all sorts of elements to MMA, and aspects of the things you mentioned: offensive wrestling and defensive, head movement and striking defense, footwork when moving forward, or backward, how one strikes moving forward vs backward, or leading vs counter, etc. Anderson and Islam have very different grappling styles, but I wouldn’t say Islam is a much better grappler. He has a different grappling background, and uses it differently because he’s got a totally different fighting style.

And striking? Not even remotely close. How is Islam’s Muay Thai, taekwondo, boxing, Filipino boxing, capoeira, wing chun…? These are all, things Anderson is proficient at if not exceptional. His striking is levels and levels and levels and levels and levels above Islam’s. Anyway, moving on.


We mostly agree!
I’m generally fine with where Topuria is ranked. Max and Volk both too high. Islam should be above BJ Penn.

It’s by no means a perfect ranking, and like I said I’m not the hugest fan of their algorithm. But that ranking is far better than the crazy ass one voted on by Tapology members, that ranking was just bizarro world.

Lol, you’re just getting ridiculous now.

Fedor is the only WAMMA champion that ever existed. It was created specifically for him. It has no history or prestige and it doesn’t even come close in relevance to a UFC title today.

I like how you’re trying to move goalposts. First you said that Volk is a small FW. He isn’t. Now you’re saying beating a champ from a lower weight class doesn’t matter, because that is expected. You’re wrong again. Most champions who moved up in weight won their second belt. Couture, BJ, GSP, Conor, Jones, Cejudo, Topuria, Islam, DC and Poatan are all double champs. Only Izzy and Volk failed moving up. It’s actually harder to get a belt moving down, Frankie, Aldo, TJ all failed trying.

Volk is definitely ranked higher than Nog in all time p4p rankings and already that alone makes him a better win than Nog. It’s just funny to me that you’re trying to paint him as this random small FW and that that’s an irrelevant win at LW.

Do you really want to break down each technique, strike and submission into its own category? Lol. It’s simpler than that, it really comes down to striking, wrestling and grappling. I could agree that fight IQ and pace/stamina could be considered as additional factors too. But it’s really more simple than that. Like, MVP’s striking is elite, but he has shit wrestling and grappling. Or like Maia had elite grappling, but his wrestling and striking were mid at best. Anderson was an elite striker, with weak wrestling and okay grappling. Islam is elite at wrestling and grappling and a very good striker. Honestly, I’m not even 100% sure prime Anderson would beat Islam. Islam walks around 190-200 lbs. Anderson is maybe 5-10 pounds heavier. I think Islam could take him down and have his way with him on the ground.

But anyway, let’s put everything together.

Titles:
Anderson > Islam

UFC win streak:
Anderson = Islam

2 division titles:
Anderson < Islam

Overall record ( wins and losses) :
Anderson < Islam

PED issues:
Anderson < Islam

Quality of opponents:
Anderson = Islam

More well rounded:
Anderson < Islam

Honestly, before this discussion I had Anderson above Islam, but I’m actually leaning towards Islam.

And you honestly don’t rank Topuria in all time top35? Really? Like how would you rationalise guys like Leon, Lawler, RDA, Eddie, Poirier, Faber above him? Honestly I have him somewhere in top15

 

[MyNameisMyName]

Because being 50 pounds heavier than someone when you're over 200 pounds probably means you are fat lol.

HW is one of the least competitive weight classes in every combat sport. Fedor's best opponents were nowhere near 50 pounds heavier than him, if anything they were lighter than Fedor.

It's not like Fedor was regularly fighting Overeem, Ngannou, Lesnar's of the world. He was not considered undersized.

Man Choi gad over 100 lbs on him.