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

Rex Kwon Do said:
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.
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Reasonable.
 
Rex Kwon Do said:
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.
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Eh that analogy doesn't work though. With track, the skills aren't constantly changing and you have hard numbers to compare. Guys just come along that are more athletic with modern training methods, they don't deal with a truly evolving sport. You can't get that in fighting. I mean I get what you are saying but in other sports there is a lot more "meta" there to talk about. Remember, evolution just means change and doesn't necessarily mean fighters are outright better, though they are in Bas' case. Point is, when you talk about greats, you have to consider that. 2007 Fedor absolutely could clean house in the UFC today, even though it has evolved

I do find it hard to call someone a "GOAT" that fought when the sport was barely defined. I agree with you there. He was a great fighter, and the best in his time though
 
Taric said:
Just so people know, Igor Vovchanchyn was considered the best fighter of Bas Rutten's era.
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Why?

You can criticise Igor the exact same way you criticise Rutten:

He fought a lot of nobodies. At least you can verify almost all of Rutten's opponents records.
He fought almost exclusively in no name organizations in eastern Europe, who knows what their rules were like. Noone does because noones seen most of his fights.

If people only consider Rutten's UFC fights as real fights, then you can only consider Vovchanchyn's PRIDE fights real fights.
 
Oshime2 said:
Why?

You can criticise Igor the exact same way you criticise Rutten:

He fought a lot of nobodies. At least you can verify almost all of Rutten's opponents records.
He fought almost exclusively in no name organizations in eastern Europe, who knows what their rules were like. Noone does because noones seen most of his fights.

If people only consider Rutten's UFC fights as real fights, then you can only consider Vovchanchyn's PRIDE fights real fights.
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Igor's fights, including the obscure tournaments, were fairly easy to track down for a number of years. Even the mr. strongman stuff.
 
Rex Kwon Do said:
The UFC probably inducted Bas into the HOF recently to improve their relationship and thus prevent a possible Bas vs. Kimbo grudge match in Bellator.
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Aren't Kimbo and Bas friends, though? I'm pretty sure Bas trained him for a good while and I never heard of them having any problems with each other, lol.

I'd still like to see it, though. Shit, I'd love to see Bas just come out of retirement and fuck somebody's liver up!
 
Oshime2 said:
Why?

You can criticise Igor the exact same way you criticise Rutten:

He fought a lot of nobodies. At least you can verify almost all of Rutten's opponents records.
He fought almost exclusively in no name organizations in eastern Europe, who knows what their rules were like. Noone does because noones seen most of his fights.

If people only consider Rutten's UFC fights as real fights, then you can only consider Vovchanchyn's PRIDE fights real fights.
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Again, Pancrase has a huge stigma around it in regards to fixed fights during that era.
Early PRIDE did as well, but it was always surrounding the pro-wrestlers. Of which Igor fought almost none (and Bas fought dozens).
 
ligthandshadow said:
Igor's fights, including the obscure tournaments, were fairly easy to track down for a number of years. Even the mr. strongman stuff.
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They still are easy to track down. And not only that, people have to realize he fought many bareknuckle cage fights. You know, the stuff that would never fly nowadays. He was involved in some real brutality.
 
He wasn't one of the top 10 HWs ever. Not even close. And he is sometimes mentioned among the top 10 HWs.
 
That209 said:
Aren't Kimbo and Bas friends, though? I'm pretty sure Bas trained him for a good while and I never heard of them having any problems with each other, lol.

I'd still like to see it, though. Shit, I'd love to see Bas just come out of retirement and fuck somebody's liver up!
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They had a falling out, AFAIK. I think Bas said Kimbo was hardheaded or something. It didn't seem to an amicable split.
 
Blayt7hh said:
Eh that analogy doesn't work though. With track, the skills aren't constantly changing and you have hard numbers to compare. Guys just come along that are more athletic with modern training methods, they don't deal with a truly evolving sport. You can't get that in fighting. I mean I get what you are saying but in other sports there is a lot more "meta" there to talk about. Remember, evolution just means change and doesn't necessarily mean fighters are outright better, though they are in Bas' case. Point is, when you talk about greats, you have to consider that. 2007 Fedor absolutely could clean house in the UFC today, even though it has evolved

I do find it hard to call someone a "GOAT" that fought when the sport was barely defined. I agree with you there. He was a great fighter, and the best in his time though
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Fair enough. We'll have to use a sport that doesn't involve hard numbers, but rather performances against opponents, like tennis. If you take the consensus best tennis player from 100 years ago and pit him again Federer, Djokovic, Nadal, Murray, et. al, he'd get smoked. Shit, Serena Williams would rape him. Best of his era, nothing more, nothing less.
 
Not considered a top HW because he's a true LHW half of whose wins came against MW's and WW's.
 
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therealnod said:
They still are easy to track down. And not only that, people have to realize he fought many bareknuckle cage fights. You know, the stuff that would never fly nowadays. He was involved in some real brutality.
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Exactly.

Bas fought with open palm strikes and rope escapes.

Igor fought multiple 8-man tourneys with pretty much UFC 1 rules.

There is just no comparing.
 
Bas doesn't have a win against: Fedor, Cain, JDS, mir, Cro Cop, Big Nog, Werdum, Josh Barnett, Handy, Arlovski, Sylvia

Or Oleg, Coleman, Kerr, Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn, Marco Ruas, Pedro Rizzo, Igor, Kimo

But he does have a win over Maurice Smith
 
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He was an early MMA pioneer and didn't have a long enough career to crosspaths with other really widely recognized top HW's. If he fought in PRIDE and beat Wanderlei, Fedor, Nog, Crocop, that'd be a diff story.
 
Because he is not. Big fan of the guy but he is not.
 
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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Well fight finder should only count Pride fights, if you wanna get wiseas* about rules.
 
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