Has the HW division actually regressed?

The UFC lot have alot of physical potential but have one strong dimension. The old timers were perhaps a little more well rounded.

Unfortunately this era has feasted on old timers and its hard to judge how far gone some of them are. Nevertheless the new timers are getting the props for beating them.

 

Yes it has gone backwards however you do still have good ones, Fedor, Overeem, Josh, JDS.....and couple of the less well known but top fighter in other orgs.

 

****en bull****.. its one of the most exciting times for heavyweights ever.. no one knows who is going to win just about any given match..

 

No

 

So tired of hearing this "well rounded" cliche. Was Coleman well rounded? Kerr? CC? Barnett etc? All the veterans in the past fought to their strengths and complimented their styles with facets from other styles. But they never neglected their base. They were successful because they fought to their strengths. This whole well rounded thing is a fallacy.

 

:deal

Strikeforce HW division can make some pretty good fights but not like the ones in PRIDE

 

fair point. I was thinking more of Nog and Fedor but CC and others played to their strengths.

 

Why the **** would you include AA. Now there is man who truly has a jaw made of glass. HW is better now as you have big athletic guys. Before you either had good technicians who were blown up LHW's or big lumps of **** that won more or less on size alone.

 

Results of environment, natural skills and rules.

Right now, the rules more than heavily favors wrestling technique, especially aspects of ground control. Unanimously, people on this very forum agree with it. So, fighters are going to employ strategies to win points, to win the match rather than to try to finish their opponent and win the fight.

We aren't always watching fights, sometimes we are watching grappling matches.

You want things to change, need to start with the rules.. The fighters are products of their environments.. In order to thrive in said environments, you need to have what it takes to win via the rules of said environment..

Like with Rashad, and to a lesser extent GSP and most recently with Shields. Why risk striking with a dangerous fighter, when you can just control him and win via control alone? You dont even have to throw punches or attempt submissions to win. You can just take a guy down and improve position to win a, "fight."

We don't always get to watch fights.. Sometimes we get to watch MMA matches. The difference is, in a fight, opponents have the intention of knocking out their opponent or submitting them..

In a match, a fighter will first aim to win a round, and then go for a sub or knockout, but only if there is an opportunity where there is very little risk, and extremely high reward.

 

Or a weight class between LHW and HW. It's quite a big gap and if your natural weight was somewhere inbetween you have to choose to either kill yourself making LHW or fighting at HW and always having a size disadvantage.

 

Yeah I agree. Those that say otherwise havent really seen the early days.