Why is Bas Rutten never mentioned among top 10 HWs ever?

He had like 1 UFC fight that many consider he lost. His belt was controversial to say the least and then he retires when he was suppose to rematch maurice smith. Not really a great UFC career tbh.
 
He was a beast in a weak era. If his body didn't break down and he was able to defend the belt a few times he'd probably be held in higher regard.
 
wilKO said:
Bas is one of the most likeable guys in mma but his resume is just outside top 10 at HW. How serious do we take Pancrease?
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honestly all those old pancrase matches should be removed from people's records... wasnt even really mma
 
Because he's really a LHW? On a serious note, he was a really skilled fighter. Just because the competition wasn't up to par when he fought is not a reflection on him. People do love bash early MMA it seems. Of course the fighters are more skilled these days than they were in the past. It should be quite some time before it even starts to level out given the infancy of the sport.
 
The same reason no one talks about Royce in the heavyweight top 10. Bas was under 200 pounds, fighting back in the 90s, winning against guys with extremely limited skill sets. Discounting the Randleman fight (a super questionable decision), his best wins were against Frank Shamrock (a guy naturally smaller than Nick Diaz), and Maurice Smith (a guy with a 14-14 records, one win over a top tier HW in Mark Coleman, and a pretty unremarkable career otherwise). I love Bas, he
 
Most of you f*ckers don't realise that Pancrase > UFC at the time and he was the longest reigning Pancrase champion.
 
Because he's not a top 10 heavyweight. I love Bas but name me some notable wins?
 
He was in a strange era where MMA/NHB was still figuring out what it was and he, personally, never left a mark on the sport. In comparison, Frank Shamrock was one of the first guys who went out of his way to cross-train and his victory over Tito shaped the LHW division for a very long time, if for no other reason that it convinced Tito that cardio had to be his first priority.

Mark Kerr and Mark Coleman are two other fighters who are never considered top 10 HWs and I'd say they both would deserve that recognition more than Bas. And I'm a huge Bas fan.
 
because his career was built fighting in pancrase when they had not yet adopted full mma rules (no closed fist strikes to the head, no strikes on the ground, rope escapes to get out of submissions, etc). his modern mma rules career is only 2 fights in the ufc -tk/randleman, and 1 fight in a defunct org against a can nicknamed warpath. if pancrase was full mma rules from the beginning then bas could've been even more successful and top 10 worthy. orrrr, if rickson had accepted his challenge and bas won that fight, then yeah, bas could be up there.
 
Ah yes, yet another Sherdog special, was fighter X ever really that good.

When will people ever get tired of this kind of thing? Injuries plagued him until he had to quit. Who knows what he could have accomplished otherwise. Sadly, he was unable to fulfill his potential, but at his peak he was one of the best in the world and that is good enough for me.

Edit, apologies to the op since it seems like my post is directed there, but it seems the discussion was easily high-jacked into what I described.
 
kikikhan said:
Most of you f*ckers don't realise that Pancrase > UFC at the time and he was the longest reigning Pancrase champion.
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The sport was brand new, and the general quality of talent during the mid 90's was considerably lower back then. That's true of all MMA including Pancrase.

Pancrase also had some weird rules, like no close fist strikes, and then there's fact that they had fixed fights. Most long-time MMA fans take wins in Pancrase with a grain of salt.
 
I dont think he cuts it as a HW.

His win over Randdleman was controversial and no one really would rate Kevin as a top HW.
 
kikikhan said:
Most of you f*ckers don't realise that Pancrase > UFC at the time and he was the longest reigning Pancrase champion.
Click to expand...

That's a pretty questionable position man. Which of his Pancrase wins exactly are you impressed by? Frank Shamrock's a good win, but Frank is not a HW, he's a lot smaller than Nick Diaz, and Maurice Smith is a fine win, but Maurice's only impressive win is Coleman, he otherwise had a pretty mediocre, 14 and 14 career, and he had no idea how to grapple when he faced Bas. Which other wins do you think are so great? Do wins over Kohsaka, Delucia and Funaki qualify a guy as a great HW. If we're going to call Bas a top 10 HW, we have to call 170 pound Royce a top 10 HW as well (actually managed to beat Shamrock, the King of Pancrase Bas couldn't get by), which is just manifestly crazy, and Shamrock too, and now we have 3 top 10 spots used up by guys who are too small and one dimensional to ever be in any serious conversation.
 
kikikhan said:
Most of you f*ckers don't realise that Pancrase > UFC at the time and he was the longest reigning Pancrase champion.
Click to expand...

Just compare how smooth Ken and Bas victories at Pancrase were compared to his matches at the UFC, and you can see Pancrase was very watered down by rules.

Punching on the ground would have affected the game plan of all fighters. Not to mention you could escape subs by touching the ropes pro wrestling style.
 
kikikhan said:
Most of you f*ckers don't realise that Pancrase > UFC at the time and he was the longest reigning Pancrase champion.
Click to expand...

Pancrase is Pancrase. It's not MMA and it wasn't even remotely close to NHB at the time. The ruleset is different enough for it to be a completely different sport. I don't count anyone's Pancrase fights when thinking about MMA.

Sherdog should never have put the oldschool Pancrase fights on the Fight Finder.
 
Even in 2004, and being a huge Bas fan, I forgot to put him on my list.

Bas may be one of those guys who dodges the GOAT list, but surely he is deserving... unless you look at his title and record being saved by "rope breaks."
 
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