Which MMA fighter has had the same impact on the UFC as Ali had in boxing? (I know no MMA fighter will ever match Ali`s fame though)
Nobody yet. Maybe someday though. Think how long it took boxing to produce Ali. The best MMA has is people like Conor, who is probably closer to a Jack Dempsey (no shame in that), i.e. really popular, but not a epoch-shaping figure like Ali. I think that's why mma GOAT conversation is kind of pointless too. It would be like asking who boxing's GOAT was when Tommy Burns was the heavyweight champ. Yes, I suppose there was a correct answer strictly speaking, but it takes decades of marination for things to get really interesting.
Dempsey was bigger than baseball at his peak because the heavyweight title was the most prixed honour in the sporting world at that point, no MMA fighter will ever reach Dempsey`s level of fame, it`s a different era.
I didn't say he reached Dempsey's level of fame. I said his status is closer to Dempsey than to Ali's, in that neither Conor nor Dempsey were political icons for a generation the way Ali was.
Agree. For casuals it's Connor even though he's not on the level of the guys below, a monster at FW but inactivity and struggling after he moved up in weight has hurt his legacy. In terms Ali in ring legacy : Georges St-Pierre Jon Jones and Anderson Silva have those PED asterik's next to their name, Jones never lost in the UFC and beat everyone but his legacy is tainted. GSP beat everyone, avenged his his two losses and does not have any PED bans so it's him for me.
What are you guys talking about? Who doesn't know conor McGregor or ronda rousey? relatives of mine who don't watch any combat sports know who they are. They are not Ali but they do have his fame.
to answer your question, In terms of skill, jon jones, mm Johnson, henry cejudo, fedor, gsp,silva etc have about same skill in their sport as ali in his. But his impact in terms of political and being a polarizing figure; none In mma.
I meant globally, a lot of people in the UK have never seen Conor fight, he`s nowhere near as famous in the UK as Ali was in his peak, Ali`s fights were on mainstreanm TV, the rumble in the jungle w watched by far more people in comparison to Conor v Floyd: The fight was watched by a record estimated television audience of 1 billion viewers worldwide, becoming the world's most-watched live television broadcast at the time. This included a record estimated 50 million viewers watching the fight pay-per-view on closed-circuit theatre TV. The fight grossed an estimated $100 million (inflation-adjusted $500 million) in worldwide revenue. Rousey is almost completely unknown outside the US. When Floyd Mayweather was asked if he would fight her before she got beat by Holm, he asked who this Ron guy was because he thought they were talking about a guy, he had never heard of women`s MMA fighting or Rousey, I only found out about Rousey because her name came up on google after I typed in something about MMA fighting and I`m from the UK, Ali`s fame could almost match Elvis Presley`s fame and that is pretty unheard of in the sporting world.
His resume in his respective sport was much better than Silva`s, the heavyweight division during the 70`s was great, but MMA during Silva`s prime hadn`t evoved to the level it`s at now because MMA fighting only started in the early 90`s, it took years to evolve into the sport it is today, boxing had been around decades before the 70`s, MMA had yet to catch up when Silva was fighting.
The same cunning, a representative of a passive, non-masculine style? Definitely Khabib Nurmagomedov.
