prime Igor Vovchancyn against top fighters from today....

Velasquez and Brock came from wrestling but theyve shown far less skills on the ground than Igor.

Velasquez is a college wrestler the same was Lesnar, Coleman is a silver medalist in world champion wrestling and 7th overall in the Olympics.

Someone needs to watch videos from the archives again, your knowledge is pretty abysmal.

 

No, what's abysmal is that you rely completely on reading resumes to determine a fighter's skill. Velasquez is an outstanding wrestler. He has a great double and single and his chain wrestling is unparalleled for a HW MMA wrestler.

If you think Velasquez effortlessly dumping a great collegiate wrestler in Lesnar and passing guard like a hot knife through butter on EVERYONE he's faced is less impressive than Vovchanchyn flailing away at cans in Japan and Coleman getting submitted every time he fought someone with a guard and couldn't headbutt, then there's no point in us conversing further because you're outside the realm of reality.

 

Even if we said acknowledge his loss to Coleman in the GP even though he was coming off two tough wins over Sakuraba and Goodridge. You still have to consider he faced the BEST wrestler in the world at the time Mark Kerr who was an ADCC level grappler. Both men were considered the top heavy's at the time. Vochancyn beat him on the mat. Albeit there was a discrepancy around the rules at the time over the knee's. But Kerr complained to PRIDE got his chance and Igor did the same again in the rematch.

Back then you had Olympic calibre wrestlers in PRIDE. That standard of wrestler does not exist in the UFC.

I remember watching Bas fawning over Igor's ground skills. Absolutely Igor ground game is being ignored here. As he was very competent on the mat. Look what he did to one of Shooto's premier champs in Enson Inoue. He put him in hospital for 3 months with a swollen brain.

 

Do you REALLY think that Enson even begins to compare to the level of fighter we have today? Do you really believe that Cain or even Fedor would have had trouble with Sakuraba and Goodridge? Hell, Fedor showed you what a legitimate HW would do to Goodridge, which is destroy him like the bum he was. I can't even begin to fathom the amount of self-delusion one must undergo to cling this stolidly to the belief in PRIDE's superiority.

Now, I'm not one of these revisionist people that claim that the '03-'06 guys can't hold up to modern champions but Vovchanchyn's era was most obviously nowhere near as legitimate nor as competitive as today's. Just LOOK at the bums and cans that were vying for championships.

 

Look at the fighters and their fights. Back then you have Fedor, Igor, prime Nog and the like. All are great at other sports and in MMA, all very experinced, and all warriors who could take a beating and give it in turn.

Now you have Brock who doesnt know how to submit people and cant take a punch, you have Carwin who doesnt know how to last more than round 1, you have Cain who hasnt submitted ANYONE, and you have Nelson who cant get rid of his child bearing years.

Fighters today arent better, on the contrary they look more inferior.

 

Yes, you're absolutely right, look at the fighters and their fights. In 2000 it was a novel idea for a wrestler to have ANY sort of punching or guard passing ability and good stand-up meant standing on a dime and windmilling hooks with your chin out. Until Mirko came along the best striker was Vovchanchyn who I've already explained had completely trash boxing or kickboxing ability. Coleman was the best wrestler around and that's a guy who could never throw a proper punch, pass guard, submit anyone, OR keep himself out of a submission. Really, if you think these one-dimensional hacks were better than guys like Velasquez, Dos Santos, Overeem, or even Carwin for that matter, you're just ****ing stupid, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The only HW from that era worth comparing to contemporary champions is Fedor.

 

wrestlers today have below average standup aka Brock, those that do have good standup doesnt have a good ground game aka Cain. Then you have Carwin who doesnt have cardio and Mir who doesnt have a chin.

Vovchanchyn has trash boxing and kickboxing, really kid, are you for real? Igor is the russian kickboxing champion with 61 Wins, 2 Losses. His first K1 fight which he did very well but ultimately lost was against a prime Ernesto Hoost. His standup isnt a classic boxing or kickboxing style but was closer to Fedor's style.

Coleman has more submission wins than Brock and Cain combined and has had many KO and TKO wins. Coleman is easily more well rounded than Brock and has shown more rounded MMA skills than Cain.

 

Velasquez doesn't have a good ground game? The guy won the No-Gi BJJ championships at the blue belt level a year after he started grappling and he's managed to cut through everyone's guard he's faced like a hot knife through butter. His grappling is outstanding and YOU don't know what the **** you're looking at if you think otherwise.atsch

And yes, Igor's kickboxing is trash and combined with his tiny stature for a HW he'd be mauled trying to trade strikes with guys like Overeem, Velasquez, or Dos Santos. The reason it looked so epic back in those days was because the level of competition was horrible. Russian bums galore, "Polar Bear" Varelans, Gary Goodridge, Shoji, Sakuraba, Inoue, and Takada.....those are guys any decent HW should beat and Vovchanchyn went to war with a lot of them. Velasquez would wreck any of those jokes with the same effort he expended in beating up Rothwell.

Coleman is far less well-rounded than Lesnar. He never learned how to pass guard, his GnP was **** without headbutts, and the only people he submitted were Julian Sanchez (utter trash), Severn, Satake (to a neck crank!), and Milco Voorn (BUM). That looks like the resume of a Mundials champ, for sure!:rofl Lesnar, on the other hand, hasn't really notched a legit submission but he can pass guard and he did completely break Mir's half guard defense down and beat him up with no danger to himself, something that Coleman who got submitted five times would have found trouble accomplishing.

As for Coleman being more well-rounded than Cain.....goddamn, I can't help you if you really believe that a guy whose only avenue to victory was headbutting from guard is better than a guy who can kickbox, wrestle, AND control the dominant positions once on the mat.