Who truly is the best fighter to never win the title?

markg171 said:
Tony. There was never any fundamentals behind what he did, his chin was always overrated in that it was recovery based and not actually great at taking a shot which is why he was always getting hurt, and he skated by on a lot of questionable, lucky, and even illegal calls.

The whole thing was always balanced on a knife. He nearly lost during his streak about a dozen times. His present losing streak should be surprising nobody, even if obviously yeah he's also totally past his prime too by now. That's exaccerbating his issues, not his primary issue.

Plus I wouldn't really favour him over any of RDA, Eddie, Conor, and Khabib, who were the champs during his streak. Yeah he beat RDA in RDA's first fight post-title reign, but he also needed an eyepoke in the 2nd to actually get his 48-47 scorecard. Tony only actually took over in the latter rounds while RDA won all the early ones except the one he got badly eyepoked in. Eddie can outbrawl anybody, Conor KOs him, and Khabib takes him down with ease.

Ironically though he's also probably the one with the uncrowned greatest claim to a title. People forget that the UFC decided to strip both Conor and himself at the same time to create a new vacant belt for him and Khabib to fight over rather than just promote Tony to undisputed champ and have him defend. Tony getting injured and having to pull out just justified everything in hindsight, but they were doing that before his injury and he was being screwed out of ever being the undisputed champ.
Click to expand...

I believe God was shining on Tony the fact we could never get Khabib vs Tony. Lhabib would have mentally broke an already mentally ill human being. History will question if Tony has CTE, Did he get it from fighting battles but I think he always proved himself an absolute weirdo as far back as the TUF house
 
Oenomaus said:
I’ll mention my guys Maia and Jacare - they were both climbing the rankings at the same time at one point and it was a very very exciting time as a fan. Maia deserved the WW title shot 1-2 fights before he got it, but unfortunately I don’t think he was going to ever beat Woodley. Had Condit won over Woodley I think Maia would’ve been champ :( Jacare never got the shot he deserved, still salty about it as he was already getting up there in age and had limited time to compete
Click to expand...
Jacare was an absolute beast who deserved a title shot
 
Pedro Rizzo before he fell off a cliff.

Think he has like 6-7 wins over former UFC HW champions, and should of won in the first Couture match.
 
Wonderboy was a half step behind Woodley. Over 10 rounds he came up 1 round short on 2 of 3 scorecards. That's as close to championship level as I think you can be without being champ.

I used to say Chael because he was 10 seconds from being champ. It was pointed out to me that even if he got the belt he'd have been stripped and his win overturned when his test came back.
 
Are we only counting Pride and UFC Titles?

If so, then I would say Hayato Sakurai, Yves Edwards, and Kyoji Horiguchi by far...
 
jx820 said:
Wonderboy was a half step behind Woodley. Over 10 rounds he came up 1 round short on 2 of 3 scorecards. That's as close to championship level as I think you can be without being champ.
Click to expand...
He also got absolutely screwed that he even had to fight Woodley for the belt instead of Lawler.

Woodley got a title shot on a 2 fight win streak simply for making weight against Hendricks after Hendricks had already been medically pulled from their bout for his own weight cut which Dana really liked. Meanwhile Wonderboy actually KOs Hendricks in the 1st in Hendricks very next bout a few months later and the UFC gives him Rory instead of the title shot. Who he also beats, now giving him a 7 fight win streak that also included Ellenberger, Cote, and Whittaker.

Which is obviously way better than Woodley's DHK and Gastelum (split) streak, yet he gets the title shot 6 weeks later and beats Lawler, making it that we get Woodley/Wonderboy instead of Lawler/Wonderboy. Which holy fuck, what a fight, how did you NOT make that???

Just absolutely dumb matchmaking at the time.
 
markg171 said:
He also got absolutely screwed that he even had to fight Woodley for the belt instead of Lawler.

Woodley got a title shot on a 2 fight win streak simply for making weight against Hendricks after Hendricks had already been medically pulled from their bout for his own weight cut which Dana really liked. Meanwhile Wonderboy actually KOs Hendricks in the 1st in Hendricks very next bout a few months later and the UFC gives him Rory instead of the title shot. Who he also beats, now giving him a 7 fight win streak that also included Ellenberger, Cote, and Whittaker.

Which is obviously way better than Woodley's DHK and Gastelum (split) streak, yet he gets the title shot 6 weeks later and beats Lawler, making it that we get Woodley/Wonderboy instead of Lawler/Wonderboy. Which holy fuck, what a fight, how did you NOT make that???

Just absolutely dumb matchmaking at the time.
Click to expand...

What a weird whine post.

Maybe Thompson should of gotten the shot before Woodley, whatever.

He got two title shots after, came close, but failed twice.
 
giphy.gif
 
markg171 said:
He also got absolutely screwed that he even had to fight Woodley for the belt instead of Lawler.

Woodley got a title shot on a 2 fight win streak simply for making weight against Hendricks after Hendricks had already been medically pulled from their bout for his own weight cut which Dana really liked. Meanwhile Wonderboy actually KOs Hendricks in the 1st in Hendricks very next bout a few months later and the UFC gives him Rory instead of the title shot. Who he also beats, now giving him a 7 fight win streak that also included Ellenberger, Cote, and Whittaker.

Which is obviously way better than Woodley's DHK and Gastelum (split) streak, yet he gets the title shot 6 weeks later and beats Lawler, making it that we get Woodley/Wonderboy instead of Lawler/Wonderboy. Which holy fuck, what a fight, how did you NOT make that???

Just absolutely dumb matchmaking at the time.
Click to expand...
And if Wonderboy had beaten Lawler there's a strong chance he would have won those decisions against Woodley, since judges tend to favor the champ in close rounds. It's a good example of how matchmaking can entirely change someone's career.
 
Like I tend to, I’m going to skew and stretch everything, but at his best,

Guy Mezger​

Was piecing up Reem, Liddell, and others.
 
LEWIS540 said:
What a weird whine post.

Maybe Thompson should of gotten the shot before Woodley, whatever.

He got two title shots after, came close, but failed twice.
Click to expand...
Whining? There's no maybe about it that Woodley didn't deserve the shot. Woodley was only on a 2 fight streak over DHK and Gastelum.

He got it because he simply weighed in against Hendricks after their bout was already off and so showed good will and professionalism to the UFC. If he'd actually fought and beaten Hendricks he would've had a claim to it, but he never did. He should've been given a contender or Hendricks rescheduled, not a title shot.

Wonderboy actually fights and KOs Hendricks in the 1st in one of the biggest UFC beatdowns ever a few months later, which is now 6 in a row, and instead gets given Rory instead of the title shot. His bout with Rory is announced before Lawler/Woodley so Lawler was still free to fight the actual worthy contender instead of nonsensically making this fight instead. Wonderboy has to win 7 fights in a row over far better fighters, far more more impressively, and with over 3x as many wins.

Of course it should've been Wonderboy, not Woodley. The winner of Lawler/Wonderboy could've defended against Woodley, even if he still didn't actually deserve the title shot without at least another win in the mean time. But it made no sense to give it to him at the time over Wonderboy.

Not even to mention the other glaring elephant in the room which was that Lawler's last fight before this was Condit which everybody thinks he lost. So even disregarding giving Wonderboy the next title shot as he deserved they could've just done Lawler/Condit 2.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,248,241
Messages
56,247,721
Members
175,128
Latest member
Adventureseeker64

Share this page

Back
Top