He's not the GOAT. He has Mike Tyson syndrome. Pissed away the second half of his career in nothing fights, didn't work to stay on top of his game, became disinterested and lost motivation, his fighting technique and skillset devolved as his career went on. In the end he was nothing more than a crude brawler who was losing fights he should have won, getting stopped more or less because he didn't give a ****. He should have walked away three or four years ago. He has only used that time to smear a crap-coloured stain across his legacy. :hat
I wrote this just before the Werdum fight last year: Athleticism is a big part of what made Fedor so great. This is how Fedor overcame his technical shortcomings. Fedor's technical limitations have always been apparent. His striking was technically terrible, but he was fast and powerful enough not to be overwhelmed. Fedor's submission game was suspect, but he was powerful enough not to be exploited here. Fedor's strength was not enough to over power top notch wrestlers. His submission game combined with his explosiveness allowed him to be victorious. Fedor's wins over prime Nogueira and prim Cro Cop still trump almost anything anyone else can claim. In my view, the only thing that keeps him for still overwhelmingly being the best ever are the absence of Barnett and Couture from his resume. As it stands, I still have Fedor on top in an all time sense. He was in his 30's when he started losing, and just the slightest drop in athleticism could have been as much a factor as anything.
This is a good post and your points are entirely valid. A lot of the argument when looking at any potential GOAT is about how you look at it. What you find most important. How good did he look on his best night? How many wins does he have over fellow ATGs who were near prime? How many times and how impressively did he show he could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat? How dominant did he look against his lesser competition? What were the manner of his losses? And what type of loss is the worst? How many of his wins are disputed or too close to call? How many of his opponents can say that overall they got the better of him? How many strong contenders did he defend against? How versatile was he? Did he fight the same way every time, or could he adapt to exploit any given weakness of a particular opponent? How long was his prime? Was he a guy who showed up to all his fights well trained and in top physical condition, or was he prone to laziness and complacency? Did he prove that he could adapt and still beat top-level competition even after his natural athleticism began to decline? These are some of the questions to consider, and everybody places more or less importance on each one of them. :hat
Personally, I look at a potential GOAT's entire championship-level reign, rather than his best couple of individual moments. The Greatest of All Time is not a title to be given lightly, and for me it requires a special fighter to make a special effort. Not just for a couple of fights, or even a few, but for many fights. He must challenge himself again and again, and succeed. That's why, for me, Fedor's last three losses badly hurt his legacy. Because it wasn't a case of a guy hanging on too long and becoming shot. Fedor just didn't even seem to care. All around him the sport was growing in leaps and bounds, the techniques, the competition and the profile were advancing rapidly, but Fedor remained exactly the same. In fact that's giving him too much credit. He regressed as a fighter. He still had all the physical tools to impressively beat Werdum and Hendo at least, but he put on a terrible performance both times. For me, the GOAT needs to be better than that. :hat
I don't think he regressed as a fighter in terms of technique. I think his athleticism faded just a bit. Fedor has always seemed emotionless. Fedor looks like a robot put in win mode. Fedor fought hard against Silva, he just couldn't get the job done. After the Silva fight, he seemed to look to fix his short comings. I don't know how much he is willing to try to improve at this age, but I'll be an interested onlooker for however many times he tries.
How many fights of his have you seen exactly? Im in the camp that he wasnt shot myself, I define shot as being eroded physically to the point where you cant compete at the highest level I think he was too hasty and that led to mistakes in getting caught in Werdum's guard and getting reversed by Hendo. But didnt seem to care? Again, I dont thik you are too familiar with Fedor, he's not a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve and shows emotion, like for example Coleman on the ropes after the GP win. He's always been quite and reserved, win or lose.[/quote] This again is unfair and shows a lack of familiarity with the mans career. If you care to look you will see the progression from probably the most brutal g'n'p fighter, developing an excellent, explosive sub game, and then a striking ability which was dangerous and effective, if technically flawed. The game changed because of Fedor, maybe it evolved past him to some degree, but you cant use Werdum, Big Foot and Dan as examples of this as apart from Dan's right hand these fighters showed even less signs of this ''evolution'' than Fedor has. Name me a fighter capable of winning fights in these 3 main area's as well as Fedor at HW and you may have a point. Terrible performance? Those fights were damn fun too watch ffs and he could have won two of them but lost not due to a lack of skill or ''evolution, he simply fought at a fast pace and made a mistake, twice. Fedor is an old school finish or be finished type of guy. Lot's of PRIDE fighters have the same mentality, that's why they are loved by MMA fans. They put on exciting fights. Gray Maynard is currently riding a very long unbeaten streak, but who do you think they will be talking about in 10 years time? He could have won the fights with a safety 1st attitude, and he made mistakes on which he should be judged, but you need to understand how he fights over his entire career to realise this. And it's not like he was an Arturo Gatti type, he won with skill as well giving punters their money's worth. That too is the mark of a GOAT
Ah, bull****. Maybe his athleticism faded a tiny bit, maybe he wasn't quite the physical speciman he was before, but he didn't lose vs Werdum or Hendo because he wasn't a good enough athlete. That is sheer excuse-making. How do you figure he tried to improve against Henderson? I give Fedor a complete pass for Silva, but the Henderson performance was shameful IMO. :hat
Fedor would've done a lot better if he'd evolved as a fighter and not went into fights with a ****ing brainless strategy. Same as Wanderlei, same as Chuck. ****ers just wading in with no defense, eventually you're going to get caught in some way.
I have seen the Big Nog and Cro Cop fights, and the Choi fight, and Werdum and Bigfoot and Henderson, and a couple of others. Once each, generally speaking. So I wouldn't say I've watched his entire career obsessively, but I've seen old tapes of him in his prime. And the Henderson and Werdum fights count just as much as the Big Nog and Cro Cop ones. They are just as significant in Fedor's overall career. Yes. Basic, careless mistakes that the GOAT shouldn't be making. He didn't fight like a man with so much championship experience. He wasn't concerned with establishing a base or giving a **** about anything his opponent could possibly do to put him in danger. He was just brawling with both of them, no real skill or technique at all. Yes that's fine. He did not fight in a way that maximised his chances to win. Nothing to do with being quiet and reserved. He had no apparent gameplan and no discipline. Both those fights, he fought like a guy who just wanted to get it over with, win or lose. For me, the GOAT should NEVER fight like that. There's a difference between wanting to finish your opponent as early as possible, and just wanting a quick fight. None of this has anything to do with what happened in the cage. Fedor devolved because he made rookie mistakes in the opening moments of both fights. He gave Werdum and Henderson's abilities no respect at all, and both of them finished him early for it. Again, this is the Greatest Of All Time title we're talking about. The Number One Fighter. And the fightplan and execution that Fedor put up in those two fights would have gotten Chris Leben absolutely ridiculed on here. But we're not talking about Leben. We're talking about Fedor. No. This is just bull**** justifying. There's a difference between fighting safety first, and fighting with some form of self-defence in mind, so that you don't hurt somebody and then get immediately stopped because you rushed them like a drunk bar brawler. As for your Gray Maynard example, guess what? If Grey Maynard fights ten guys and wins a boring UD over each of them, and Chris Leben goes 5-5 in blood and guts epic wars against the same 10 guys, then Grey Maynard is the better pro fighter. :hat
Ive never said they didnt myself, I voted for option two in the poll and Im not giving him a pass on the losses at all. They do count into his legacy imo. I think GSP for example has greatly benefited from the losses to Hughes, in which he greatly improved his wrestling to probably the best in the division. And the Serra fight mean's he pretty damned hard to hit in the stand up these days two Maybe a loss in the middle of his career in similar fashion would have meant Fedor would not be making the same mistakes he has at the tail end of his career and he does seem to be suffering form an ''If it aint broke...'' mentality I think those mistake were due to the pace of the action, which I think is a relevant point. But he should have developed a base against Hendo, and not jumped back into Werdums guard. Again, see the above about GSP I think Ive giving my opinion on this in this post already. The Fedor of the Nog fights would have beaten Nog & Hendo if he adopted the same game plan, or simply not rushed in as the fight was turned around extremely quickly from an undoubtedly advantageous position for Fedor I wasnt talking about the events in the cage, I think Ive made myself clear on the losses. I think he had the skill set to win already, just the application was wrong. I wasnt excusing the losses I was trying to point out that Fedor's killer instinct for lack of a better term is now a weakness when it had previously been a strength and if he had adopted the attitude of Grey in being safety 1st he would have won, but it's not in his fighting character to fight that way. You can only take these types of risks for so long, but on the other hand it's what he's famous for. I think Rek made a similar point earlier It's not bull**** excuse making it the way I see it looking at it objectively. And it's Fedors legacy that's suffering because of it. Im a fan yes, but I have no emotional investment in this to try and justify another mans mistake in an attempt to dismiss them
:good 2 things. 1) If you watch Fedor vs Henderson and Fedor vs Werdum and forget that it's Fedor, just watch both of them like it's two guys fighting, how impressed are you with Fedor's technical skill, composure and gameplan? 2) If you say that Fedor at his peak makes him the GOAT basically because of the Big Nog and Cro Cop fights alone, then will the Cain-JDS winner be on a similar level? After all, if Cain smashes Junior and looks sensational doing it, then what is there to say he wouldn't have done the same to 2005 Fedor? :hat
You can't say that. Fedor did not demonstrate clearly deteriorated power or handspeed in either of those fights. Not at all. If he adopted the same game plan then he would have hurt both fighters early, leapt in for the finish with zero consideration for defence, and gotten stopped. It was the lack of concern for his opponent's skills that lost him both fights, not deterioration of his physicality. Well that has nothing to do with his athleticism. That's a rookie mistake that the 33 year old greatest mixed martial artist of all time should not be making. And he CERTAINLY shouldn't be making it twice in three fights. :hat
1) Im not impressed, as Ive said the guy in the Nog & Cro Cop fights would have done better than this version of Fedor. I think his athleticism has declined slightly, but it's more a question of composure and application of technical skill rather than lack there of 2) Well it's not judging him on them alone, he was the best of his era and that factors into the equation, these are just the benchmark wins of MMA in terms of HW's of the 1st era (roughly 01-10) of the sport after the NHB days. Fedor beat the 2nd best and 3rd best HW in the world, as well as everyone else. This is a good comparison, but Id say maybe Cro Cop fits the bill here as its a grappler v striker in terms of styles. Cain has faced a high level striker, and was troubled by Kongo a few times. Which ever way you look at it Mirko was a better striker than Cheick, and Fedor dealt with him much better But anyway I'll get back to the point. Id argue that JDS is a little more proven than Cain in terms of resume, in a similar way that Nog was to Fedor when they fought. Depends how Cain does after that really, there's isnt a consensus no 1 until they fight. And if JDS does similar to Nog in being the clear number too, then yes it would be on a similar level And no one can say that he couldnt smash Fedor, and personally Id need more than the handful of fights Cain has to judge two men's h2h potential. This is only Cains 10th
