Why mma fans have such a hard time accepting that the sport evolves?

[PunchyMcSplodo]

Jackson said he was "in the best shape of his life", Bill Clinton said "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" and jon jones said "I have never used steroids or even did drugs".....

Tell me, little buddy, what did Dana White tell you to believe today?

Clinton and Jones lied to protect themselves.

Why the fuck would Rampage Jackson lie to give Jon Jones props, a guy he openly dislikes, even after the loss?

Get it together, man.

 

[PunchyMcSplodo]

Needless to say that he was not in his prime when he came to the UFC, HOWEVER, Dana White and the UFC P.R. machine had to spin it that way because their boy, Chuck, had just gotten manhandled by a Pride castoff.

I'm gonna trust Rampage's own words about his condition over yours, especially when Rampage's usual M.O. is to point out explanations for his losses.

If Rampage doesn't make excuses for his loss against Jones and says Jon beat the best version of him, you know it's legit.

 

[TrueFightFan]

Clinton and Jones lied to protect themselves.

Why the fuck would Rampage Jackson lie to give Jon Jones props, a guy he openly dislikes, even after the loss?

Get it together, man.

If he is paid well to toe the company line, then he does.

I'm gonna trust Rampage's own words about his condition over yours, especially when Rampage's usual M.O. is to point out explanations for his losses.

If Rampage doesn't make excuses for his loss against Jones and says Jon beat the best version of him, you know it's legit.

Did you forget his complaints of eyepokes and dirty kicks? Look, we know that you are a jones shill (I'm sure you've come up with a great reason why he "domestic batteried" someone). It is always their fault.

 

[PunchyMcSplodo]

If he is paid well to toe the company line, then he does.

Fucking LOL, dude.

Rampage was paid to be a Jon Jones shill and toe the UFC line as recently as 2021 on Brandon Schaub's Fight Companion? <45>

Rampage has been repeatedly saying he was in the best shape of his life for Jones over the last 10 years.

Get real.

Did you forget his complaints of eyepokes and dirty kicks?

Yeah, which only proves my point that pretending Rampage was lying about his shape and peak condition is stupid. He always calls it like he sees it and doesn't give a fuck.

Also, "dirty kicks" is hilarious. The evolution of the sport has involved learning how to check leg kicks and make side kicks miss. Jones was just ahead of Rampage when it comes to technique.

Anyway, Jones finished Rampage in his prime, and would do the same to the inferior Chuck and especially Tito.

Also, I wouldn't mention eyepokes to tarnish Jones if you're trying to stan for Chuck, bruh. He was notorious for them, too.

 

[koquerelle]

I always laugh at this type of thread. If mma evolved so much, can you explain why Hendo managed to be relevant for so long? Maia? Vitor?

 

[snackgod]

I don't get it is it the stakes the sport presents and sherdogers are too invested in the fighters and not the sport? I mean people pretty much accept this in other sports, as much as pele was a important soccer player people woudn't dare to compare him to ronaldo skill for skill cause the sport is much more competitive and different now.
Mma right now is bigger than ever right now with a way bigger talent pool than back in the days, still somehow the narrative perpetuated on sherdog by some is that some divisions are worse nowadays... Which its impossible to prove but mathematically it should be way off since talent coming to the mma world is more common now.
Anyway discuss.

cause casuals mma fans want wrestling banned and only want to see boxing fights in a cage.

 

[TrueFightFan]

Fucking LOL, dude.

Rampage was paid to be a Jon Jones shill and toe the UFC line as recently as 2021 on Brandon Schaub's Fight Companion? <45>

Rampage has been repeatedly saying he was in the best shape of his life for Jones over the last 10 years.

Get real.




Yeah, which only proves my point that pretending Rampage was lying about his shape and peak condition is stupid. He always calls it like he sees it and doesn't give a fuck.

Also, "dirty kicks" is hilarious. The evolution of the sport has involved learning how to check leg kicks and make side kicks miss. Jones was just ahead of Rampage when it comes to technique.

Anyway, Jones finished Rampage in his prime, and would do the same to the inferior Chuck and especially Tito.

Also, I wouldn't mention eyepokes to tarnish Jones if you're trying to stan for Chuck, bruh. He was notorious for them, too.

Fucking LOL, dude.

Rampage was paid to be a Jon Jones shill and toe the UFC line as recently as 2021 on Brandon Schaub's Fight Companion? <45>

Rampage has been repeatedly saying he was in the best shape of his life for Jones over the last 10 years.

Get real.




Yeah, which only proves my point that pretending Rampage was lying about his shape and peak condition is stupid. He always calls it like he sees it and doesn't give a fuck.

Also, "dirty kicks" is hilarious. The evolution of the sport has involved learning how to check leg kicks and make side kicks miss. Jones was just ahead of Rampage when it comes to technique.

Anyway, Jones finished Rampage in his prime, and would do the same to the inferior Chuck and especially Tito.

Also, I wouldn't mention eyepokes to tarnish Jones if you're trying to stan for Chuck, bruh. He was notorious for them, too.

Little Spoon Fed Sherdogger, I can see that you are a jones shill and have deviated greatly from the original topic and point that I was making...fighters have not evolved as much as the sport has. Much like Lebron to the NBA, players of old had to battle through getting smacked around while trying to get the "and 1" but today's players, like Lebron, only have to flop convincingly to get fouls and free throws. In my opinion, Jordan, Kareem and Bird would be bored out of their fucking minds scoring 100pts night after night with all of the freebies refs hand out like candy nowadays.

jones was a great fighter on the sauce but we have seen how he performs when his "ingestables" are under close scrutiny.

Let's test the waters here, do you think jones would have performed the same through his championship run had he been under the watchful eye of USADA like he is today? Your answer will speak volumes as to where your allegiance lies...to a fighter or to the sport.

 

[PunchyMcSplodo]

Let's test the waters here, do you think jones would have performed the same through his championship run had he been under the watchful eye of USADA like he is today? Your answer will speak volumes as to where your allegiance lies...to a fighter or to the sport.

Hell, no. I think post-USADA Jones is obviously worse.

Of course, it's an open secret that Randy, Tito, Chuck, Rampage, Wanderlei, etc. were also on various secret sauces, so I'm not sure what your point is. Drug tests ore-USADA were IQ tests, and most fighters were on something.

 

[TrueFightFan]

Hell, no. I think post-USADA Jones is obviously worse.

Of course, it's an open secret that Randy, Tito, Chuck, Rampage, Wanderlei, etc. were also on various secret sauces, so I'm not sure what your point is. Drug tests ore-USADA were IQ tests, and most fighters were on something.

At the very least, we agree on that. Now, does post-USADA jones beat Liddell, Ortiz and everyone else that he "ran" through after winning his title? I say, probably not, because I can't place Reyes or Santos anywhere close to the top tier of talent from 2000 to now... which leads me back to my original point, NO the fighters haven't evolved but the sport (rules, training and regulations) has.

 

[Lee_]

The short answer is nostalgia bias combined with glory days syndrome, combined with the idea that evolution generally impacts the average/middle of a distribution more than the superstars (it's easier to improve non-extreme values than extreme values), combined with the idea that some glamor divisions probably haven't evolved in the last dozen years in a meaningful manner, if at all.

There's also the idea that evolution/technical skill often doesn't correlate to having "fun" fights per se.

1) The glory days syndrome is matched by the youngsters who are biased to the current scene. That goes both ways.

2) Evolution of the middle and average is not evolution per se. That is called depth. Evolution is what happened between 1993 and 2003, when the best guys got much better. I would agree that the average guy that is not in the top 10 of each weight class is probably better now, but that is honestly not very meaningful. The UFC schedule is full of extremely weak cards; they don't have enough talent to hold all of those events. They lack evolution as well as depth really.

3) The sport was fun because there was great competitions with GP's and such filled with great talent that would easily beat most anyone at HW or LHW these days; not because they were merely "fun" and untalented fights. Stunt fights are bigger NOW.. The UFC champs of the late 2000's early 2010's were generally as good or better, and were more interesting than what we have now (GSP, Andy, BJ, etc.).

 

[pankrat]

Well in other sports it isn't neccessarily true for a variety of reasons(how popular was the sport in the past via today, does the sport reward better athletes with better results and if so how much etc etc) for example boxing used to get the best athletes many decades ago that it just can't today(at least in the US) which largely negates the evolution argument.

But in MMA it's obvious. When MMA started it was a fringe sport that was barely legal and as the sport becomes an actuallly feasible career path the level of athlethes was always going to improve dramatically. Vitor Belfort and Hendo are pretty much the only guys from the 20th century who were able to match the sports evolution even into the early 2010s.

Boxing went through the same evolution from semi legality to an institution and if anyone thinks John Sullivan or Courbett would stand a chance of even going the distance against any elite boxer from even the 1920s nm the 30s onwards they're kidding themselves.

Don't know about Sullivan but Corbett - and Peter Jackson - would definitely stand a chance vs contenders from the 20s or 30s. Not with modern elites though, of course.

 

[pankrat]

I'm not saying that Liddell and Ortiz win easily, either, but it's a "pick'em" fight and that should tell you all that you need to know about the "evolution" of MMA. I will take you one further, Belfort was able to secure an armbar pretty easily against jones, do you think prime Royce Gracie doesn't?

WOW

#1 p4p most delusional poster in sherdog lol menudo julio

 

[TrueFightFan]

WOW

#1 p4p most delusional poster in sherdog lol menudo julio

Delusional in the fact that I keep thinking that Sherdog minds are a little more realistic but hey, whoever the UFC tells you is the greatest of all time today, I guess we'll just follow that.

 

[OmegaRugal]

Serious lol @ the notion that HW is now the best it has ever been. Or LHW.

It is. Francis would KO any version of Fedor.

 

[Dionysian]

It is. Francis would KO any version of Fedor.

A guy with no grappling and no cardio is the best HW ever? Christ slow down drinking the marketing kool-aid man

 

[pankrat]

Delusional in the fact that I keep thinking that Sherdog minds are a little more realistic but hey, whoever the UFC tells you is the greatest of all time today, I guess we'll just follow that.

I probably follow mma out of UFC more than you do. Jones or Cormier are superior fighters than Chuck/Tito doesn't matter what promotion they fight for.

Actually Jones and Cormier are way more proven worldwide than Tito or Chuck who were champs in a 2nd tier promotiom back in Pride days.

It turns out that YOU are actually the clown who swallows UFC bullshit thinking Tito and Chuck were the top of the food chain in 00s the same as Jones and Cormier were universally recognized so in the 10s.

You should hear to other fighters, coaches and pundits, instead of UFC promotionals julandra.
You would find out that your opinion is fucking laughable.

 

[Huligani]

It's mostly the forum goer types, so you see it around here: emotionally invested, overly nostalgic fans who can't get over the fact that their favorite 2000s fighters are not as skilled as today's fighters because the sport and its training and its athletes keep evolving. And so when their favorite fighters lose, it's purely because they suddenly, magically got old over night. Nostalgia poisons judgement. Whereas I only care about the fights and the skill on display, I hold no attachment to who I grew up watching so it's easy for me to see the evolution.

 

[OmegaRugal]

A guy with no grappling and no cardio is the best HW ever? Christ slow down drinking the marketing kool-aid man

A guy that KO'd Stipe, Cain and Blaydes twice.

You know ... HW wrestlers ...

 

[tramendous]

FEDOR GOAT. He'd slap stipe, jones and ngannou easily.

 

[TrueFightFan]

I probably follow mma out of UFC more than you do. Jones or Cormier are superior fighters than Chuck/Tito doesn't matter what promotion they fight for.

Actually Jones and Cormier are way more proven worldwide than Tito or Chuck who were champs in a 2nd tier promotiom back in Pride days.

It turns out that YOU are actually the clown who swallows UFC bullshit thinking Tito and Chuck were the top of the food chain in 00s the same as Jones and Cormier were universally recognized so in the 10s.

You should hear to other fighters, coaches and pundits, instead of UFC promotionals julandra.
You would find out that your opinion is fucking laughable.

The UFC hated Ortiz and as for Chuck, I wasn't a big fan but it was hard to take him down and he could punch through fucking concrete (by the way, he KO'd Overeem, whom jones wouldn't dare set foot in the ring with). So, I ask you, does jones, who couldn't take down a one-legged Santos, got his ass whipped by Gustaffson and Reyes, was arm-barred into a "submission" by Belfort, just steamrolls through Ortiz and Liddell? Is this what you are saying? Just tell me how those fights go, in the most unbiased way that you can muster, and I will leave you alone to your imagination. He doesn't take either of them down and he isn't ko'ing anyone with his limp wristed, Rousey-like punching technique, so is he outpointing them for 5 rounds without getting KO'd by Liddell or taken down by Ortiz? Do tell, oh wise one.