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

Because Pancrase records during Rutten's time should not be taken seriously. With that said, Bas Rutten's record should 3-0 against Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, Kevin Randleman and Ruben Villareal. That resume does not even whisper top-20, much less top-10.
 
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kikikhan said:
Hey buddy, time travel doesn't exist.

He fought the best MMA fighters at the time and was a dominant HW champion.
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How was he a dominant champion when he didn't even defend the belt? I'm a Bas Rutten fan but your argument is dogshit.
 
moonwolf said:
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.
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He would get the benefit of close fist strikes, but guys like Kerr, Coleman, Randdleman would get the benefit of takedown +GnP.

Just looking at the era its clear big wrestler dominated the post Gracie era of MMA, under the old pancrase rules wrestlers didnt had a chance since they could only go for subs on the ground.

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kikikhan said:
I mean the man has won 12 consecutive fights for the lineal nr. 1 position.

He has top wins over: Suzuki, Maurice Smith 2x, Mezger, Frank Shamrock 2x, Funaki, Kohsaka and Randleman (controversial).

And don't give me the competition crap because Pancrase had the best fighters in the world at the time.
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Frank was 20lbs lighter and definitely lost the randleman fight
 
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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Yeah, Pancrase > UFC for restricted rules, scripted outcomes, probably fight fixing, and guys winning fights with Northern Lights Suplexes and other bullshit.
 
Darwinist said:
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.
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I completly agree with this. Even in legit matches, the ruleset was too diferent to be identified as mma.
 
Because of this:

frank-shamrock-vs-bas-rutten-o.gif


Even WWE is tougher than that.:)

 
He has a number of things against him

The era. There just wasn't many good fighters for him to fight. Also because of the time he fought, almost no one on these boards REALLY knows his opponents or his career that well. He fought in Japan on a show that never was broadcast overseas. There was no real way to see it on the internet at the time, hell probably almost no one was talking about it online. This was at a time when hardly anyone knew what NHB was, so think about how far removed from the public eye that puts him. Then think about how little we know about most of his opponents even today.

I love Bas and think he was a great fighter. But he fought in such and awkward and unique era of fighting. I mean he wasn't allowed to closed fist punch people in the face and they wore shinpads in the ring. I just don't think you can say that he was one of the best fighters ever, even though that isn't his fault.
 
I actually competed in Pankration tournaments in 2000-2002, having done some greco, jiujitsu, and boxing... i actually preferred that to "MMA" at the time.
 
Darwinist said:
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.
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RINGS should be disqualified too for various rules and shenanigan similarities to Pancrase.
 
Who doesn't mention Bas? Show yourselves.

And for the people saying he got subbed by Ken, it was Pancrase which means 5 submissions with rope breaks, which meant they both subbed eachother a lot, leg locks especially because they wore big wrestler boots and heel hooks and kneebars are wat easier to do on shoed opponents.

Also he got tapped out by a couple of Japanese fighters who were a big deal back then too. Funaki especially... But Bas was a Muay Thai guy who was asked to be the striker in the new production... He bashed his first 2 opponents so badly with open palms and liver kicks they nearly died. Both of them. Then he lost some fights because he was green on the ground, but after a mixed start he went on a 20something undefeated run, which he retired on due to injury.

Bas GOAT.
 
Bas was actually an Openweight Champion, as Pancrase didn't adopt weight classes until after he left. IMO thats more prestigious.

Bas fought extremely few nobodies. At worst you could say he fought a lot of journeymen or guys who would continue to fight long past their primes. But the guys he was fighting all had a lot of fight experience. Much more than the guys fighting in the UFC at the same time. Take Manabu Yamada, a random not very famous guy Bas fought in January of 1995. Dude had 22 fights going in. Compare that to the winners of UFC 5, 6, 7 and the UU 1995:

Dan Severn - 6 fights after UFC 5, 10 fights after UU 1995
Oleg Taktarov - 8 fights
Marco Ruas - 4 fights

And everyone considers those guys legends. Why? Because more people watched their fights, so they have more name recognition. But in 1995 Manabu Yamada was just as legitimate of an opponent as any of the UFC winners at that time.

The man also fought at a ridiculous frequency, roughly 6 times a year for most of his career. When you're willing to fight that often, you're not gonna face a top 3 fighter every time out.

And yes, Pancrase didn't follow the Unified Rules in the 90s, but you know who else didn't follow the Unified Rules? Every other organization that existed during the 90s.

Bas gets a ton of respect sure, but recently he gets more and more of this bizarre criticism from people who've never fought a day in their lives telling him he didn't actually fight MMA. Ridiculous.

EDIT:
Some of you motherfuckers also need to realize, that just because you're fighting open handed doesn't mean you cant get KO'd. You can still get kicked in the head, kneed in the face, hit in the body.
 
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armbarforhire said:
Only 3 of those fought at HW, some were even small for LHW.
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Well ok but Bas is a LHW himself.

That's another thing that makes judging his record hard to do. Weight classes barely existed at the time, hell for some of his early fights I am pretty sure they didn't exist at all
 
Darwinist said:
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.
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I agree.
 
Pancrase was a pro-wrestling organization during that era more than an MMA organization.
 
The whole "he was the best in his era" argument holds no water. Let's say he was the best at the time. Ok, then that's what we'll say about him: he was the best in his day. It doesn't go any further than that, though. His day was weak as hell. I know all you hipsters like to pretend like MMA hasn't advanced much, but it has.

That old English dude that broke the 4 minute mile was a beast. But if we're talking about the top 10 fastes milers in the world, he doesn't come close. He gets props for being a pioneer, but he doesn't factor into a "greatest milers" list if we're concerned about being fast just like Bas doesn't rank as top 10 if we're concerned about guys fighting and beating the best fighters.
 
Just so people know, Igor Vovchanchyn was considered the best fighter of Bas Rutten's era.
 
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