You make some good points but I can promise you that JG, DP and conrat would have whooped any versions of overrated el knockdowns ass lol
Hendo was coming off a loss to Rampage when he fought Silva. So scratch that
Fitch was good but p4p elite and alves ...
Rampage was just on a 2 fight streak when he got a title shot
Lyota been getting his ass kicked by Shogun and Rampage. He beat Randy to earn a title shot lol
Agree that this isn’t clear cut but I think you are picking and choosing a bit here.
For starters, no, you cannot promise that any version of Tony loses to DP/JG/CM. It’s revisionist nonsense the way fans have declared that the dangerous guys that Tony DID fight (and beat) were actually all just washed and the dangerous guys that he DID NOT fight are, by an astonishing coincidence, all guys who would have beaten him. If he’d never fought Barboza, Cerrone or Pettis you guys would be claiming that they would’ve styled on him like Justin and if he hadn’t fought Lee, Tibau and RDA you guys would be claiming that they would’ve smothered him like Charles and Beneil. Once Tony hit his stride in that winning streak (beginning was admittedly so-so), by hook or by crook he ended up being too much for every single guy he faced. He stopped almost all of them and the only guys who survived (Thomson and RDA) are warriors who absorbed a ton of abuse. During that same period of time Conor lost to Nate Diaz, Dustin lost to Michael Johnson, and Justin lost to Eddie Alvarez.
Moving on to some of your data points:
• I don’t think it’s reasonable to discount a win over the Pride 185 champ, who had just sparked Wanderlei at 205, because he lost a competitive decision to a larger Rampage who was a champion and at the peak of his powers. Would we throw out a win over Izzy right now at 185 because he’s coming off a competitive decision loss to Jan at 205? Same exact thing.
• The nature of 205 when Jon arrived was a small group of similarly skilled guys who passed the belt around. So yea, they wouldn’t have been on long winning streaks when they faced Jon, because they kept beating one another. You characterize it as if they all just backed into a title shot, but the reality is that the four had separated themselves from the pack (by sparking legends like Liddell, Wanderlei and Randy and fending off very tough challenges from guys like Henderson, Hamill, Thiago Silva, Bisping, Jardine, Tito and Forrest (who also happened to be the one guy to grab a win against this group who wasn’t in the group around this time).
• Fitch was at least as established as a P4P guy when he faced Georges as DP and JG were when they fought Khabib (Conor is a weird one, he had more genuine title credentials but was also in a new division and coming off a long layoff). He came into the UFC on a big winning streak, then won a bunch more in a row (I think 8) to get his title shot, then ran off a bunch more (I think maybe 5) before his draw with Penn. Fitch very likely would have been a champion for many years across many defenses had it not been for GSP.
• Alves has become very under-appreciated over time IMO. It’s been largely forgotten, but 170 was essentially that era’s version of what the stacked lightweight division is today, and Alves best comp is ironically probably Gaethje only without a loss comparable to Alvarez. Like Gaethje, Alves got beat by both the world champion and the guy widely considered to be the MMA version of the intercontinental champion (Fitch/Poirier), but otherwise smashed pretty much everyone. The welterweight division that spanned the back end of the Hughes reign and the front end of the GSP reign had, IMO, had a tier of contenders that largely separated itself from the pack (Fitch, Alves, Koscheck, Sanchez, Parysian, ultimately in that order based on the results) and then a bunch of very tough guys below that (guys like Nick Diaz, Chris Lytle, Josh Burkman, Mike Swick, Matt Serra, Drew Fickett, Joe Riggs, etc.). Alves capped off the dominant winning streak that lead up to his title shot with stoppages of Hughes, Karo and Lytle and the brutal leg kick clinic on Koscheck. He couldn’t keep Georges or Fitch off him, but he was otherwise the best welterweight in the UFC for a solid five year period. Crushing Fitch, BJ and Alves in row is a serious accomplishment. If GSP took as many hiatuses as Khabib did, is almost certain that Fitch and Alves would’ve been wearing interim belts the same way DP and JG were.
We are ultimately gonna end up splitting hairs here, because all of these guys cleaned out their division (well, Khabib didn’t quite but he came close enough).
