Early days UFC were ****. Ron Watermen vs Andre Roberts was just a poor man's street fight. Watermen got hit 3 times in a row after he was dominating and got destroyed after it. No guard, no head movement. Nothing. All he was doing was holding and kneeing and punching anyway. So many **** fighters back on those days. John McCarthey said he felt he could beat a lot of then before the game eventually evolved. Now obviously not all guys were ****. But the question again when did you think the UFC fighters became truly elite.
Around the time of Anderson Silva and Georges St Pierre. Late 2000s MMA had reached a mature advanced skillset. You also had a Fedor in Japan a couple years before.
There seems to be an increase in the people taking up MMA and a larger pool of talent and the top ones making it into the known promotions. Look at Australia, when UFC first came here, the only fighter we had was ELvis who was only given a contract so Australi a had something to cheer for. He wasn't very good. Now look at the talent pool. have had 3 world champs, and some excellent guys coming through. Similar has happened all around the world. They realise you can't take short cuts these days and have to be well rounded to suit all styles.
By the mid/late 00s the overall talent pool was pretty solid. There were good fighters around here and there from the beginning though. As for Waterman and Andre Roberts, I definitely wouldnt say they were bad fighters, they may have had crude overall MMA skillsets but both of those guys were ****ing huge and strong. Waterman could probably pick up some wins at the fringes of the top 15 even today, and Roberts was so big he wouldnt even be able to ****ing make 265.
I dont think thats necessarily universal though. The US, Brazil, Japan and Canada have all regressed to varying degrees. Holland doesnt really produce fighters of note anymore, the UK is about the same as it was 15-20 years ago etc etc.
When did UFC fighters become good?? Never! Those glass jawed jokes couldn't compete in a real sport like boxing. Maybe they can roll around on the ground to protect those fragile mandibles - but force them to stand up and fight like men and they're taking canvas naps!!!!
C'mon man, it's well known these MMA guys don't have the sturdiest mandibles. If they're forced to take punches from even mid-level boxers they're going to sleep - just like this guy: This content is protected
Look up Marvin Vettori. He's eaten heavy leather fight after fight without hitting the deck even once.
The issue is "forcing" them to take your punches, which you cant reliably do unless you make them fight you under boxing rules. If boxers were confident in being able to beat MMA guys at "striking" they would be having these crossover fights under kickboxing rules as a compromise.