It's a hard one A heavily damaged post-Cain JDS beat Miocic Cain's entire career has been sidelined by injury Santos was incredible before he ran into Cain I dont think Miocic is on either guys prime level I'd probably go with 1. JDS 2. Miocic 3. Cain Cain would probably be no.1 were it not for constant injuries
JDS was lucky to get the decision over Miocic when they fought the 1st time imo. Cain already overcame JDS dominantly twice after losing the 1st fight because he was underdone so JDS definately isn't number 1 or better then Cain. I hope Cain can comeback to near his best would be the best fight for the division against Stipe. I think Stipe the way he is going may go on to be the best UFC Heavyweight of all time
Stipe has demonstrated how well rounded he is by beating the best grapplers and strikers in his division. Would be interesting seeing him against a power wrestler but not sure there's anyone there at his level. I'd be interested in a fight with Minatov as well.
The JDS who fought Stipe was a shell of pre Cain JDS. The fact that he still managed to beat Miocic speaks volumes as to how great a fighter he was The version who fought Stipe for the second time was completely shot. No chin. None JDS and Stipe's resume's are way better then Cain's I agree with your last point. But then, Stipe never had anyone remotely as good as prime Cain to deal with. And it doesnt look like he ever will
Again, Stipe knocked out the shell of Dos Santos Cain took a full ten rounds of absolutely battering him to knock him out, and even then Santos knocked himself out by way of self DDT
When they fought in their prime the result could have easily gone to Miocic. Miocic only lost to Struve because he slipped as well, he'd have knocked him out without that mistake.
Peak Fedor>All of em lol Miocic has a great resume though.. Francis, Overeem, JDS, Werdum, Gonzaga, Hunt, Arlovski, Nelson etc.. I'd have loved to have seen him mix it with a peak Crocop & Fedor. Fedor was freakishly gifted, a fighter way ahead of his time. Pulled off incredible hl reel moments & manoeuvres that still look insane today! Roy Jones esque in some ways. I do wish he'd stop now though. One of my all time combat sport heroes. Couture though a small HW on his day could mix it with any of the men listed IMO too. Again a very special fighter, not Fedor level but still.. Always gets overlooked Couture in my experience. The Bhop of MMA.
I'm not sure if Miocic has done enough to be ranked above Cro Cop yet. Stipe is clearly an ATG though but I would like to see Werdum have another crack at gold.
We rating Cain's potential, or where he actually is right now, in the post no testing UFC era? There were guys who said watch Cain fall, once the USADA testing starts.
There no way of knowing how Cain is right now with his injury problems. I think a fight between him and Reem could headline a UFC fight night and would be a good gauge of where either man is.
Thing is with Couture if you don't understand his career its easy to underestimate him. He had a poor showing against Inoue, there's no denying that, but the Ilyukhin loss was bogus, Overeems brother won im a fight with crazy rules that puts him at a huge disadvantage, Barnett cheated. I think every time he lost legit I'm his prime he improved immeasurably. Losing to Inoue made him work on submission defence and losing to Rico made him improve his cardio Belfort caught him with a one in a million shot but he beat him twice so clearly demonstrated superiority. By Lesnar he was just old but for a long time he was a legitimate P4P force. Beating Chuck and Tito back to back is crazy great. Inoue, Ricco, Chuck. For a decade they're the only people who really beat him and he battered Chuck first time round and was dominating Ricco before gassing. It's a shame he never tangled with Fedor, Nog or Cro Cop but I bet in a series of 6 fights he gets at least one win.
The fact that Stipe has brought life to the heavyweight division by fighting any and everyone is something to be happy about. I would have to place him first followed by JDS ,Cain.
