Ricardo Arona - a "great" fighter or not?

He's definitely a great, you can make a genuine claim that he won that fight against Fedor and he's an awesome grappler. He has good wrestling which makes using his BJJ a lot easier.

 

gomi is in the first tier and couture and arona are in the second tier. gomi was a very consistant fighter up till a few years ago, and was the #1 lightwieght in the world for a number of years.

Ricardo arona is a very good fighter, but doesnt deserve to be called great.

the win against sukuraba was mostly because of his size advantage, it was also a bad matchup stylistically for saku, arona deserves credit, but not too much.


check out this vid of the fight with overeem, he completely shut down alistair after the first minute.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR2x_8gQpfw[/ame]



arona would be a good addition to any orgs roster

 

All but one of his losses, Sokoudjou, were to arguably great fighters. I think he needed one or two of those losses to be wins in order to be great. Right now, I would just have to call him very good.

He is still just 32 years old, and coming to the UFC isn't he? Arona can go on to prove himself more.

 

Absolutely yes.

 

No, his style wouldnt be as effective now.

 

Why not? He is one of the best grapplers on the planet, even as a heavyweight.

Unlike most top notch BJJ/sport grapplers, he has very very good takedowns, and some nasty leg kicks that can seriously hurt. His punches are weak, that is definitely a weakness.

Jacare, Maia, and Werdum are not that dissimilar to him; hell I would go out on a limb and think he could give Werdum absolute fits.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CLKzRgp4Js[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgNAldmOum8"][/ame]

 

Yeah but put him against a guy like Machida, A. Silva, even Shogun and hes behind the 8 ball immediately. Hes not going to look good because itll take his best ****n day in competition to sub those guys in an mma fight and he will get picked apart standing up.

Even the chances of him catching a strong wrestler with a sub is starting to diminish just by the way wrestlers are training now.

Arona was great for his day, a very strong man who knows the technique and has some strong leg kicks, I give him that. Unfortunately for him, BJJ is the style where everyone has caught on. I would favor Rashad against him at this point.

And yeah in a bJJ match in a cage, I see him beating Werdum, but I really dont want to see that fight.

He will actually be in the same level as the guys you mentioned. Just above gatekeeper level.

 

He didn't win the fight VS Fedor.

If the fight was in the U.S., the yes, you would be right, he would have lost, since Lay'n'pray seems to always win the fight in the U.S.

But since the fight was in japan, the most active fighter won and that was Fedor !

 

No you can't! Maybe under the bull**** American rules and judging methods, but def not under the rest of the worlds judging. Takedowns are overrated unless you "Rampage Jackson" people all the time.

 

I knew saying that wouldn't go down well with the Fedor fan club I was only watching the fight from my perspective with the judging I see today, not really that aware of ring rules being honest.

 

the question becomes how do you define a great mma fighter?

popkins also described it as a "top tier" fighter.

you would say arona is a top tier fighter?

what makes him a great fighter?

 

In an org with no strikes to the head, what exactly was he supposed to do while mounted on Fedor?

Rings just had some ****ed up decisions.

 

Have you even seen the fight? It has nothing to do with "American" standards, it has to do with Fedor being outgrappled in an org that was supposed to reward grapplers.

It wasn't typical Japanese MMA, it was RINGS, which meant no GnP to the head.

It's meaningless now really, but don't act like that was some sort of clear win for Fedor.

 

Try to sub him ?

I understand your point, but Arona just layed on Fedor for pretty much the whole fight while Fedor was at least trying to pull some sub or at least was being active from the ground.

It was a clear win for Fedor, Arona won first round, Fedor won the secound, bonus round and Fedor won.
How can there be some misconception on who won or lost ?

Fedor all the way !!