Sylvia was only ever UFC champion because all of the quality heavyweights were in Pride at the time. He's a scrub. Never deserved the belt and only held onto it because his physical dimensions allowed him to remain standing through fight after boring fight. If Mir hadn't suffered that motorcycle accident - Sylvia never would have regained the belt and wouldn't even be mentioned in this conversation.
If you don't count Ricco as one of the best HW's in the world at the time that Sylvia beat him, you are either an idiot or new to the sport; Ricco could have easily gotten the decision in the fight vs Nog.
Agreed you have to look at Ricco's tear at the time he had defeated TK, Monson, Bunetello, Arlovski, Couture and Williams leading up to Sylvia then IMO got screwed in the Nogueira fight a couple months later.
No need to be a snide ass about it, Beebs. Ricco was a top heavyweight when Sylvia beat him.. I'll concede that point - but Ricco also fell off after that fight and never fought at the top level again. I don't rate Sylvia high you can have him at your damn number one for all I care but he's a ****ing scrub that only made his way to the top because of his physical dimensions.
Oh please is his physical dimensions is all he had then ****ing Bob Saap and Hong Man Choi would be kicking asses. Tim developed decent takedown defense and decent boxing skills from working his ass off at Miletich and made a good career for himself.
Well if Hong Man Choi or Bob Sapp fought in the UFC while all the heavyweights were in Pride then they would have been champion as well.
Probably so. Especially the Bob sapp of that 2001 - 2003 era. You think Arlovski's chin would have taken one punch from him? No way. I don't know why you guys are on a Tim Sylvia love-in here - but I hated him when he was champ, hated every PPV he was a part of and can't stand him now - so I'm not changing my opinion on him any time soon. He was a perfect example of a guy that won fights by being bigger than his opponent. He knew how to jab well enough to beat scrubs like Cabbage and Gan McGee - and he could sprawl his legs out enough to prevent smaller grapplers from taking him down - but he never won impressively - except for his one fight against Rodriguez who never realized his own full potential because he was too busy partying all the time.
Yes. That is the point. You are letting emotions, your feelings about him, get in the way of an unbiased ranking.
theres a difference between hating him and respecting his achievements. id rather watch paint dry than see sylvia fight and i agree that he only won due in large part to his sheer size but at the end of the day he still won and if you measure him strictly on his merits its pretty illogical to call him a bum
I see a bit too much hatred for Tim here. I don't really rank him as a fighter but he is not a bum. His record speaks for itself. He beat an era of top contenders but the stars like Nog, Couture and Mercer have his number.