Is this the definitive top 5 MMA fighters ever?

It's hard to compare fighters to team sport athletes.
A Jordan or Gretzky proved their greatness above everyone else in 1000+ games.

Fighters who have 20 or 30 fights... A little luck on your side.. go on a winning streak and you become a legend.


As an example.. who knows what happens if Mir and Fedor fought in their prime? Fedor the favourite? Sure, but we will never know for certain.

We know how great Jordan and Gretzky were because we saw them against everyone.. over and over again.

 

Pretty much. I see Rua and Hughes (only recently) just outside. Nogueira will be up there for a while. Neither Anderson nor GSP are close to him in terms of resume. Nogueira unfortunately would have been a number 1 HW in any era except his own.

I once read a comparison with Kid Gavilan, saying Fedor was Nogueira's Ray Robinson.

 

Bingo and dont forget the fact that Gretzky was so dominant (even moreso than MJ) that he was scoring near 100 pts way past his prime.

 

Excellent point. Pretty similar path with the exception that Tyson was more spectacular in his wins but Fedor had a slightly better comp just because of Nog and prime Mirko.

 

Yep

 

Possibly more than probably, mine`s will likely be different, I`ll have a think & get back to you on this.

 

Fedor Emelianenko
Kazushi Sakuraba
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
Anderson Silva
BJ Penn/Wanderlei Silva (can`t decide)

 

Let me guess, Jon Jones is gony take his place :rofl

 

Remind me exactly who came close to Fedor in his prime ?.... I`ll wait :think

 

I love both fighters but only Sakuraba should make the list, Royce would be lucky to make a top 10 list tbh, he simply has not beat enough top level guys. Rickson doesn`t make the list for that exact reason & he is twice the fighter Royce is IMHO.

 

LOL at your head being up your arse.

Fedor is the undisputed best ever fighter in MMA history, the hardest question is who`s 2nd.

 

Too many things to take into account for me to make a list like that at this point. Era, skillset, significant wins, winning streaks, longevity. It is just too much for me to put it together to be honest, not a horrible list though.

 

Michael was scoring 20ppgs sure, down from only scoring in the 30s and his playmaking, efficiency and defense were not the nearly the same.

And if you say UFC was a joke when Fedor was dominating Pride, does that mean that all of MMA was a joke? This is ridiculous, revisionism is not holding to what people were already saying back then, revisionism is ignoring how much of an impact he made back then and saying that it doesn't mean **** because he lost 3 strait fights late in his career.

The Tyson comparison is wrong, he had a run as a young fighter and then went to jail. Fedor's undefeated run lasted 9 YEARS, 30 fights in a sport where losing is much easier. Fedor won the Pride HW tourney, and beat 3 other guys who won tourneys of their own. In MMA, it does not get better than this, deal with it.

 

Au contraire, Jordan's accomplishments were very Fedor-like