Ranked on accomplishments rather than head-to-head. Any weightclass. 1. Wanderlei Silva 2. Fedor Emelianenko 3. Matt Hughes 4. Dan Henderson 5. Kazushi Sakuraba 6. Randy Couture 7. Takanori Gomi 8. Masahiko Kimura 9. Royce Gracie 10. Tito Ortiz or Bas Rutten Difficult trying to figure out the exact weighting for all of these, I'm confident in the end product.
Wandy at number 1 is very, very debatable considering he has quite a few outstanding losses that he has not avenged. Other than not holding the LHW belt in Pride, Shogun has beaten the more significant fighters than Wandy has, Chuck as well, over the past few years. Drop him behind Hendo and bump 2-4 up one spot and it's more on the money. Gomi doesn't feel right where he is, either. The lack of Liddell anywhere is also very wrong IMHO.
I would say Shogun has beat better fighters than Wanderlei and done it in more convincing fashion. (with the exception of Nakamura)
well lets see he retired at 28-4-1 he was pancrase heavyweight champ beating future champs frank shamrock, mo smith, guy mezger. then in his only two ufc fights he beat Tsuyoshi Koshsaka (the only guy to beat fedor, even if it was from an illegal elbow, and still was a good contender) and Kevin Randleman (who was a big badass at the time) so a good record + two heavy weight belts + being a pioneer + beating really good competition = atg
Mark Coleman has to be in the top 10. Still to this day, he is the only person to win a Pride GP, and be a UFC Champion. He was the UFC Champion, the UFC Ultimate, Ultimate Champion. Won the first pride GP, and won two UFC Tournaments.
He just started late in age. He didn't start fighting in MMA until he was 31 years old. We never got the chance to see what a prime Coleman could do, if properly trained in MMA.
I'm going to do a top 15, ranking Royce to me is like ranking Jim Jeffries and truly old time boxers of the primitive days, but his accomplishments can't be ignored. 1. Fedor Emelianenko 2. Randy Couture 3. Wanderlei Silva 4. Matt Hughes 5. Kazushi Sakuraba 6. Dan Henderson 7. Chuck Liddell 8. Masahiko Kimura 9. Mark Coleman 10. Bas Rutten 11. Tanakori Gomi 12. Royce Gracie 13. Frank Shamrock 14. Tito Ortiz 15. Don Frye How's this?
Nice to see Kimura up so high--few give him the credit he deserves. All in all, it's a great list, and re-emphasizes that I must place Coleman higher. :good
I really enjoy Frank Shamrock's work, it's too bad he never accomplished what he was capable of, he could have been a definite top 5 under the right circumstances. But as it stands, I have him bottom top 15. Do you think Royce should be over Coleman? I personally don't. In a top 20, I'm wondering if Severn, Funaki, K. Shamrock would be in there... Notice Rickson's nowhere to be found? He's not even in my top 35.
Well, Royce beat the #2 and #3 guys of his era, so that should count for something. Then again, Coleman was a wrecking machine. He probably belongs a hair above Royce, now that I think a bout it. Funaki deserves to be a bit below Shamrock and Rutten, since both managed to win titles in the UFC in addition to their Pancrase accomplishments.