Cain Velasquez was hailed as the best ever when he won his trilogy fight with JDS. But since then he's lost to Werdum and potentially retired. So is he still in contention or was it all too much hype too soon?
No way. He was good, great even... But too much inactivity and recycled opponents to be considered the GOAT. Werdums resume is far deeper, as are Fedor and Big Nogs... Probably top 5 though.
It was not too much hype too soon. Velasquez is arguably in contention, partly because this sport is still so young. It's been less than 24 years since Royce won UFC I, and 20 years since Mark Coleman became the UFC's first heavyweight champion. Velasquez' injuries have made his record shorter than we as fans would like but there simply haven't been that many people with better records in the past 20 years. Fedor had a great run, still has the sports best resume but mainly because he has 2 huge names on his record. Nogueira and Cro Cop are his biggest wins as they themselves are arguably the 2nd and 3rd best heavyweights in the sport's history. Nogueira had wins over everyone that was anyone outside of Fedor: Coleman, Barnett, Cro Cop and Randy Couture. Cro Cop's greatness is based largely on the fact that he beat Josh Barnett 3 times. For years the best heavyweight resume's belonged to Fedor, Nogueira, Cro Cop, Barnett and Couture. I think Dos Santos accomplished enough to argue his way to 3rd on that list, and is a head to head nightmare for any one of those 5. Velasquez beat Dos Santos 2 out of 3. I wouldn't argue Velasquez as the sports best ever at heavyweight, I haven't even mentioned Werdum yet, but it isn't inconceivable that someone would.
This. He started off as a good champion, but then started holding the belt hostage with almost 2 years of inactivity.
No, he's been too injured over the last few years to beat many of the top HWs. I do believe that inactivity and injury had a lot to do with him losing to Werdum but you can only judge a fighter on what they accomplish, not what they possibly could've done if all the stars aligned. Outside of JDS his championship resume isn't that good.
